Archive for the 'Astrostuff' Category

Observing Report 30th-31st August 2010 Part 1 (Second Lunar mosaic)

Posted by on August 31st 2010 in Astrostuff, Observing Reports, Pics
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As long last - a dry clear night AND a working laptop! I had intended to take several images of Jupiter but the glare from the Moon was too bright. I did get some Jupiter data while trying to rediscover the camera settings that were lost in the Trojan Wars, but it's not much cop - I'll try to process it sometime soon. The Moon did make an inviting target though, so I grabbed some .avi data for another mosaic. This one's a stitch of 11 images from the DMK camera and C8N scope. Click it to see the BIG version:

The Moon (31/08/2010 @ 02:00).
11 stitched images, each 50/1000 stacked frames.
DMK mono CCD camera on the C8N.

Observing Report 11th August 2010 (Sunspots in Active Regions 1093, 1095, 1096, 1097 and 1098)

Posted by on August 12th 2010 in Astrostuff, Observing Reports, Pics
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Even more sunspots on display yesterday!

Mouseover the full-disc pic for the labelled version, click it for a bigger pic:

 

Sunspots in Active Regions 1093, 1095, 1096, 1097 and 1098 (11/08/2010).
D50 on the C80ED-R.

Just for comparison, here's the equivalent pic taken by the SOHO satellite:

Observing Report 8th August 2010 (Sunspots in Active Regions 1092, 1093 and 1095)

Posted by on August 9th 2010 in Astrostuff, Observing Reports, Pics
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Managed a few hours in the sunshine yesterday morning, there were plenty of sunspots on display.

Mouseover the full-disc pic for the labelled version, the (poor-quality) close-ups are a bit further down:

 

Sunspots in Active Regions 1092, 1093 and 1095 (08/08/2010).
D50 on the C80ED-R.

Sunspot in AR1092 (08/08/2010).
50/1000 stacked frames.
DMK mono CCD camera on the C80ED-R.

Sunspots in AR1093 (08/08/2010).
50/1000 stacked frames.
DMK mono CCD camera on the C80ED-R.

Sunspots in AR1095 (08/08/2010).
50/1000 stacked frames.
DMK mono CCD camera on the C80ED-R.

Observing Report 4th-5th August 2010 Part 1 (First Lunar mosaic)

Posted by on August 5th 2010 in Astrostuff, New tricks for an old dog, Observing Reports, Pics
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Unexpected clear sky last night was the cue for another look at the heavens. Jupiter was the main target, no shadow-transits this time but good views of the Great Red Spot. There'll be pics later when I've had time to clear the backlog of image data (yes, I'm still trying to find time to process the lunar data from the previous session).

Until then, you'll have to make do with my first ever lunar mosaic - 12 stitched images from the same camera/scope combo that I usually poke skywards. The image alignment is a bit off in places, I'll do it better next time. Click it to see the BIG version:

 The Moon (05/08/2010 @ 05:10).
12 stitched images, each 50/500 stacked frames.
DMK mono CCD camera on the C8N.

Observing Report 29th-30th July 2010 (Ganymede shadow transit)

Posted by on July 30th 2010 in Astrostuff, Observing Reports, Pics
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The was a short period of clearish sky here last night, it was the first reasonable observing opportunity for a long time so I took the chance and got set up in the obsy. The Moon was up which meant that doing any deep-sky observing was a no-no, so I had to be content with Jupiter and viewing some lunar craters.

I couldn't get any good high-resolution data for Jupiter, as the seeing was quite bad, so I went for a slightly wider field of view than usual and managed to catch a few moons and a transit as well. Here's the first edit, run yer mouse over it to see what's what:

 

 

 

The processing of the lunar data will take quite some time, so I'll put the results in a separate post.

Observing Report 24th July 2010 (Sunspots in Active Region 1089 – Session 2)

Posted by on July 24th 2010 in Astrostuff, Observing Reports, Pics
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Just to prove that my first sunspots pic wasn't a fluke, here's another from this morning:

Sunspots in AR1089 (24/07/2010).
50/1000 stacked frames.
DMK mono CCD camera on the C80ED-R.

 

As you can see, this active region has changed quite a bit since the previous pic, and will probably change even more over the next few days. Hopefully the weather will permit more observing sessions.
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