Well this has been a long time coming… It’s been over 4 months since my last planetary image!

A combination of bad weather, bad seeing and very low motivation for astrophotography (mainly the latter) has meant I just didn’t have my telescope out for literally 4+ months.

I’m trying to force myself back into it, and with Mars almost at opposition (although still very small at 14 arcseconds and very low in the north) I figured now is as good a time as any to get the scope out and take some images again.

So here is a very ugly Mars from Friday night in typically below average seeing and with the planet under 30deg in altitude.

Mars - 22nd Jan 2010

I didn’t really forget anything, but it did feel a bit clunkier – everything took a little longer to get going and be up and running.

But anyway, it’s a start. It’s ugly, but it’s Mars all the same. And hopefully the motivation can climb a little higher and encourage me to get the scope out again the next time it’s clear (it’s been cloudy since then :)).

Thanks for looking.

I had some nice clear skies on the night of the 14th August, 2009 – when Jupiter was at opposition for the 2009 season. Being at opposition means the Sun, Earth and Moon form a straight line – and Jupiter is at its closest point to Earth in its orbit around the Sun, and it appears at its largest – subtending 48.9 arcseconds.

Unfortunately the seeing conditions were below average, but luckily they steadied for a few minutes just before midnight – long enough for me to capture just one run in slightly above average conditions, before the seeing turned bad again.

Jupiter at Opposition, with the GRS rising

Each channel was recorded for 48 seconds, and 600 frames from each were used to make the final RGB image.

Continuing to hope for clear and steady skies – it’s just not coming this year yet.

Thanks for looking.

On Saturday night 8th August, I was able to capture some images of Jupiter with Io and its shadow in transit. The seeing was just above average – good enough to capture albedo features on Io, including the dark polar regions in contrast against the cloud tops of Jupiter.

The best image from the session is below. Io and it’s shadow are seen on the left, the Wesley Impact Scar is at top left just setting, and Oval BA is on the top right just rising.

Jupiter, Io and Shadow Transit

Please continue reading to see a 6-frame animation of all of the images from the night.

Read the rest of this entry »

Hi all

On the night of the 3rd August, what started as typically below average seeing, finally improved as the seeing reached a respectable almost 7/10 and gave some of my best views of Jupiter this year.

I was able to catch the 6th magnitude star 45 Cap in the same field of view as Europa and Io, which was a nice surprise.

Below is my best image from the night – the second last capture of the night. The seeing was improving nicely, but high cloud and then thick cloud brought my night to an end.

Jupiter with Wesley Impact Scar

The Wesley Impact Scar can be seen on the upper left of the planet, just about to rotate off. There’s one more image from earlier in the session, when the impact scar was at mid transit. Continue reading for more.

Read the rest of this entry »

After breaking the news of Anthony Wesley’s discovery of an impact scar on Jupiter on Monday morning (while I was waiting to board a plane to Melbourne), Friday night was my first opportunity to capture an image of the now famous “Wesley Impact Scar”, or “Bird Strike” (Anthony’s forum name is “bird”).

Jupiter, GRS and Wesley Impact Scar (right on the limb, top right)

The image above shows the GRS just past the Central Meridian (CM), and the Impact Scar is just coming into view, on the top right of the image.

I’d been in Melbourne all week and was very frustrated to have not been able to capture an image of it until now. On Friday night, 24th July, the impact scar was transitting while Jupiter was almost right overhead, but unfortunately the seeing conditions were only average, and deteriorated even further as the Bird Strike came more into view.

Please continue reading to see another image from the session.

Read the rest of this entry »

It’s been a while between posts – I’m currently up on the Sunshine Coast for a work conference, and have finally had a few spare moments to finish off this image.

This image was captured on Monday morning, 6th July local time (5th July UT), in slightly above average seeing. It shows Oval BA still with a darker orange/red ring inside it, and the continuing upheaval of the NEB.

Jupiter and Oval BA

I’ve also got some images of the Ganymede + Callisto close approach that occurred on the same night, but I’m still going through that data and need to create an animation, so it could be a few more days yet before I’ll get a chance to post the final result.

Thanks for looking.

Captured on the 23rd June (local time), this animation represents 3 hours of rotation on Jupiter, as the Great Red Spot (quite a bit paler this year) transits across the face of the gas giant. Also visible, down lower on the NEB, is the new “NEB Upheaval” – a series of new spots and disturbances that are likely to change the look of the NEB for the remainder of the season.

Click the image to see the full 17-frame animation which covers 3 hours of rotation. It’s a 2.4mb gif file and will open in a new window.

Jupiter, GRS and NEB Upheaval Animation. Click to Play.

The Galilean Moon, Io, pops out from behind Jupiter in the last frame of the animation. The red colour is because it hadn’t yet made much of an appearance in the blue and green channels (which were captured before the red channel). Io really moves fast!

Below is one of the 17 frames of the animation as a still image, from near the middle of the session.

Jupiter, GRS and NEB Outbreak

Continue reading to see 2 other images and more information about the capture and processing.

Read the rest of this entry »

This image of Venus in Ultra Violet light was captured on the morning of the 23rd June – the same morning that I captured my first Mars of 2009 and Jupiter with the NEB Upheaval. It was a busy morning!

The colours reveal some albedo differences in the cloud tops on Venus, and come from a combination of using a Schuler UV filter for capturing the luminance (detail) data, and processing the image as a false-colour composite using colour data from the RGB channels as well as the UV channel.

The seeing was only average, and Venus was at a respectable 30° altitude – shining brilliantly at mag -4.18.

Continue reading for more information about the capture and processing.

I captured the image with my 12″ Newt on the EQ6, with the DMK21AU04 and 5x powermate at about 6:30am local time. The UV data was captured at 15fps for approx 2 minutes giving me about 2000 frames. RGB data was captured at 60fps with a shutter speed of about 1/1000s and gain at about 800 (approx 80%) for about 60 seconds in each channel, giving me 3000 frames in each channel.

The separate channels were processed independantly in Registax 5, and the LRGB composite was made in Photoshop, where the UV channel made up the luminance data (giving the contrast) with the colour coming from the combination of R, G+UV/2 and UV making up the RGB.

I’m still waiting for a morning of great seeing to capture an excellent image of the cloud tops on Venus – but with the Sun not rising until 7am (well after the time I’ve had to go to work), it limits my opportunities at this time of year. Venus is on its way back towards the Sun over the next 5 months, heading for inferior conjunction in December, so hopefully I’ll get a few more chances before Venus dips too low.

Thanks for looking.

On Tuesday morning, 23rd June 2009 I captured my first image of Mars for 2009. It’s still very early in the season, with Mars still 288 million kilometres away, subtending a tiny diameter of a 4.9″ on the sky.

Mars doesn’t reach opposition until late January, 2010 when it will be 14 arcseconds in diameter – a lot smaller than it was at its closest in 2003, when it grew to 25″ in diameter.

A Tiny Mars, 23rd June 2009

And no, Mars will not be as big as the full moon in August! It’s a hoax

Continue reading for more information about the capture and processing of the image.

Read the rest of this entry »

Hi all

Finally – the first clear night in weeks and my first imaging opportunity since May 25!

I’ve got loads of data to process, but I wanted to quickly process this one and get it out there because a) I won’t get much time to process many more images in the next day or two, and b) it’s an image showing the GRS and the new spots and NEB outbreak in high resolution, thanks (finally!) to some good seeing conditions.

Jupiter, GRS and NEB spots and outbreak

This is just the first of many from the session, so check back for more in the next few days.

Thanks for looking.