Saturday, March 28, 2009

Link

I was inspired by Fabio Plocostomos and Chris Go's work on Ceres at high res and decided to go for it myself near opposition or good seeing. So that single 2 day break in rain and clouds a week ago yielded some good Venus and Saturn images and also this great view of Ceres.

I had a hard time finding some good ephemeris data for angular size so calculated it myself as follows:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Angular_diameter

δ

= d / D, where

δ

is the angular size, d is visual diameter and D is the distance to the object.

So using the WRONG units I get:

1.64AU distance to Ceres and 950km diameter of Ceres gives 0.798".

I hope to not have overexposed the object which would have caused bloat or bloom in the data. I stretched in post processing and resized to 200%

Enjoy!

Mike

posted by MikeP at 10:14 PM | 1 comments

Titan Transit Teaser 20090224

Tuesday, February 24, 2009

Observation logs

I think there's a name for titles like that, but at 25*F and early in the AM my brain's not so straight.

Bad seeing too.. looked like the whole continental US had bad jetstream. I hope someone west of here got better as it was fairly low on the horizon here.

I forgot about the time delay in stellarium but that was OK as I overslept a bit anyway. Most of the frames are washed out by the trees but you can make out the shadow in the final 3 or so frames. I also caught Dione in a few frames riding the upper left ring, long before it's transit. So no quad transit, but I was able to get something and that still counts! Lucky me, the sky was clear.

Animation from 1018 to 1114UT:

Object: Saturn and Titan

Planet

Origin:

ObservationManager - SolarSystem Catalog 1.0

Observer	Michael A. Phillips Mr.
Site	Home
Begin	2009-02-24 um 04:00:00-05:00
End	2009-02-24 um 04:10:00-05:00
Optics	C8i on CGE
Eyepiece	PowerMate (V=812.8)
Filter	Astronomik LRGB Color
Camera	DMK21AF04
Sitzung	2009-02-24 um 04:00:00-05:00

Visual impression

Titan transit!

References

Sessions: 2009-02-24 um 04:00:00-05:00

Begin:	2009-02-24 um 04:00:00-05:00
End:	2009-02-24 um 06:20:00-05:00

Weather:	Poor seeing Great transparency FREEZING 25*F
Equipment:	I used: Ubuntu 8.04 Linux and custom coriander CGE mounted 8" Celestron C8i SCT Lymax Cat Cooler DMK 21AF04 2.5x PowerMate Astronomik LRGB filters True Tek Color Filter Wheel with visu diag
Comments:	Didn't leave the scope out overnight and it may have impacted some but little of the conditions. I miss timed the Titan Transit becuase of the time delay / light propogation issues with Stellarium. I fixed that now1

>> Observations <<

Observer: Michael A. Phillips Mr.

>> Observations <<

Site: Home

Longitude:	35.682°
Latitude:	-78.743°
Timezone:	UT-300 min

>> Observations <<

Optics: C8i on CGE

Type:	SCT
Vendor:	Celestron
Aperture:	203.0 mm
Focal length:	2032.0 mm

>> Observations <<

Eyepiece: PowerMate

Vendor:	TeleVue
Focal length:	2.5 mm

>> Observations <<

Filter: Astronomik LRGB

Typ:

Color

>> Observations <<

CCD Camera: DMK21AF04

Vendor:	The Image Source
Pixel:	640x480

posted by MikeP at 11:54 PM | 0 comments

*My* 1st light with the new setup - M81/M82

Friday, February 06, 2009

Begin:	2009-02-04 um 20:08:01-05:00
End:	2009-02-04 um 23:59:00-05:00

Weather:	S:? T: 3?/5 Clear, cold and WINDY!
Equipment:	Optics: Meade LXD55 Mount: CGE mount on JMI Wheely Bars Focusing Aid: STI focuser Shutter control: Hap Griffin long exposure cable Software: MaximDL Operating System: WinXP Lenovo T43 driven via RDP from inside the house
Comments:	MY 1st light of the Meade LXD55 and CGE!!! What a pleasure to wheel the whole rig out of the garage into the driveway! Used my Celestron knowledge to get a rough align and was able to get fair results of 90sec+ exposures. At f/5 and ISO800 there is a LOT of LP Setup on M81 / M82 to get lots of subs, staying warm inside now as the outside temps dropped into the upper 20's Align was in the double digit of minutes error after a 2x iterative align. No PEC, no polar scope, no guiding, no drift align.

Details of the new setup here: http://maphilli14.multiply.com/photos/album/48/Astronomy_-_Equipment_-_DSO_Setup

posted by MikeP at 9:55 PM | 0 comments

"Near" the Apollo 11 Landing Site

Sunday, February 01, 2009

I think the forecast for the night was better than it actually was by a long shot. After checking the collimation I would have guessed it was 5-6/10, but looking at the focus/collimation test on Castor (great double BTW), it was a mere 4/10. I setup to grab Venus and the moon before a longish night on Saturn. One of my music buddies, John, suggested that the Apollo 11 landing site was in prime view and that I should try imaging it. I did and was happy to have a fresh target even though the seeing was poor, thanks John!

First a clean image:

Then one marked for reference:

I actually found the google moon maps useful, have a look and see if I got it or not!
http://www.google.com/moon/#lat=0.769019&lon=22.532958&zoom=7&apollo=

Mike

posted by MikeP at 9:51 PM | 0 comments

2008 Solary System Review

Saturday, January 24, 2009

I recall seeing a flurry of these 'composite' shots last year but not so many this year. I was keen on getting better Icy Giants and went after Uranus and Neptune with as much precision as I could. In all my hasty planning, I let Pluto slip away. It's still a planet in my book so I'll have to give it just desserts next year! I had some photos of the sun shining on the trees in my front yard and thought I'd add that to round it out, but you might find those on my homepage just as easily and I thought it would mess with the 'flow' of the sequence.

Hope you enjoy! Looking forward to 2009!

Mike

posted by MikeP at 12:53 AM | 1 comments

20091114 Sun

Thursday, January 15, 2009

AR1010 on 20091114:

http://osastrolog.blogspot.com/2009/01/20090114-sun.html

posted by Oldfield at 1:20 AM | 0 comments

M34

Wednesday, January 14, 2009

here's the last result.
Photo taken the 11 January.

I hope you like it!

posted by D. at 12:21 PM | 1 comments

perigee Moon

Sunday, January 11, 2009

Perigee Moon of 2009! Tonight will be the biggest moon of 2009! 14% wider and 30% brighter than a normal moon.

This is a image I got last year (12/12/08) of the perigee Moon. I took this with my Meade Etx-125.

Click on image to enlarge

You can find more info about a perigee Moon at Nasa.gov

posted by John at 2:44 AM | 0 comments

Happy new Year!!

Friday, January 02, 2009

BuOn 2009 A tUtTi!!!
Un AuGuRiO dI cUoRe Di BuOn AnNo!!

posted by D. at 11:55 AM | 0 comments

Buon Natale!! Merry Christmas...

Thursday, December 25, 2008

"Il vero messaggio del Natale è che noi tutti non siamo mai soli" - (Taylor Caldwell)

Tanti auguri di buon Natale a tutti voi!
Passate una buona giornata...

Dave Marzotto

“I am not alone at all, I thought. I was never alone at all. And that, of course, is the message of Christmas. We are never alone. Not when the night is darkest, the wind coldest, the world seemingly most indifferent." - (Taylor Caldwell)

Happy Christmas.. Have a nice day!

Dave Marzotto

posted by D. at 11:41 AM | 0 comments