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

Posted by BG! on August 31st 2010 in Astrostuff, Observing Reports, Pics

Tags: Moon, mosaic

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.

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

Posted by BG! on August 5th 2010 in Astrostuff, New tricks for an old dog, Observing Reports, Pics

Tags: Moon, mosaic

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.

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Observing Report 17th June 2010 (Daylight Moon bits)

Posted by BG! on June 22nd 2010 in Astrostuff, Observing Reports, Pics

Tags: Atlas, Beaumont, Bernoulli, Berosus, Brenner A, Burckhardt, Catharina, Chacornac, Cleomedes, Cyrillus, Daniell, Endymion, Fabricius, Fraunhofer, Furnerius, G Bond, Geminus, Hercules, Hommel, Keldysh, Luther, Madler, Messala, Metius, Moon, Neander, Nearch, Piccolomini, Pitiscus, Posidonius, Rheita, Rheita E, Rima G Bond, Rosenberger, Rothman, Stiborius, Theophilus, Vallis Rheita, Vlacq, Young D

Observing the early phases of the Moon from my obsy is a bit of a lottery - due to the restricted western view the only way to get the scope pointing at the thin waxing crescent is when the Moon's high in the sky. At this time of the year, that means observing during the daylight a few hours before sunset, which in turn means that the seeing is always going to be a limiting factor.

Never let it be said that I'm one to shy away from a challenge - here are some images gleaned from webcam data grabbed at about 20:00...

(mouseover the pics for the annotated versions):

Neander (30 miles dia.), Rheita E (40 x 19 miles), Furnerius (76 miles dia.),
Rheita (42 miles dia.), Fraunhofer (35 miles dia.), Metius (53 miles dia.),
Brenner A (19 miles dia.), Young D (27 miles dia.), Fabricius (47 miles dia.),
Vallis Rheita (303 x 18 miles)

Pitiscus (50 miles dia.), Vlacq (54 miles dia.), Hommel (76 miles dia.),
Rosenberger (58 miles dia.), Nearch (46 miles dia.)

Daniell (18 x 14 miles), Rima G Bond (91 x 2 miles), G Bond (19 miles dia.),
Luther (6 miles dia.), Posidonius (58 miles dia.), Chacornac (31 miles dia.)

Endymion (76 miles dia.), Keldysh (20 miles dia.), Hercules (42 miles dia.),
Atlas (53 miles dia.)

Piccolomini (53 miles dia.), Neander (30 miles dia.), Rothman (25 miles dia.),
Rheita (42 miles dia.), Stiborius (27 miles dia.)

Messala (75 miles dia.), Berosus (45 miles dia.), Bernoulli (29 miles dia.),
Geminus (52 miles dia.), Burckhardt (35 miles dia.), Cleomedes (76 miles dia.)

Madler (17 miles dia.), Theophilus (61 miles dia.), Cyrillus (59 miles dia.),
Beaumont (32 miles dia.), Catharina (61 miles dia.)

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Observing Report 22nd May 2010 (More Moon bits)

Posted by BG! on May 27th 2010 in Astrostuff, Observing Reports, Pics

Tags: Anaxagoras, Apollo 14 landing site, Bullialdus, Clavius, Copernicus, Fra Mauro Highlands, Gambart, Moon, Plato, Reinhold, Scoresby, Tycho

The skies on Saturday evening were very clear but after the high temperatures of the day the seeing was only middling. I managed to get some dSLR pics of open cluster M29 and of globular cluster M56, these will need some careful processing for which I've yet to find the time. I did get plenty of good views and camera footage of some lunar features, and I've had time to do some preliminary processing of them, the resulting images are as follows (mouseover for the occasional annotated versions):

Gambart (15 miles dia.), the Fra Mauro Highlands and the Apollo 14 landing site

Plato (61 miles dia.)

Reinhold (29 miles dia.)

Copernicus (56 miles dia.)

Clavius (136 miles dia.)

Tycho (52 miles dia.)

Bullialdus (37 miles dia.)

Anaxagoras (31 miles dia.)

Scoresby (34 miles dia.)

Just in case you don't know your way around up there, here's some help:

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Observing Report 22nd April 2010 (More Moon bits)

Posted by BG! on April 25th 2010 in Astrostuff, Observing Reports, Pics

Tags: Apollo, Eratosthenes, Moon, Rima Hyginus, Rupes Recta, Timocharis

The skies on Thursday evening weren't the clearest I'd ever seen, there being a light haze obscuring the stars. The Moon, however, was reasonably clear, and with the seeing being fairly good I decided to do a bit of crater-spotting. In order to get a good look before the target went out of the field of view of the scope, I had to start before the sun went down, but that didn't seem to be an issue.

During the unusually short session I managed to see and image quite a few features, following is a small selection of what was on offer (mouseover for the occasional annotated versions).

Rupes Recta (Straight Wall) (67 miles long)
FOV approx 256 x 196 miles

Rima Hyginus (133 miles long)
FOV approx 275 x 185 miles

Timocharis (21 miles dia.)
FOV approx 113 x 82 miles

Eratosthenes (35 miles dia.)
FOV approx 90 x 76 miles

Hadley Rille and Apollo 15 landing site
FOV approx 181 x 156 miles

Apollo 16 landing site
FOV approx 146 x 133 miles

Just in case you don't know your way around up there, here's some help:

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Observing Report 6th-7th December 2009 (Moon bits)

Posted by BG! on December 14th 2009 in Astrostuff, Observing Reports, Pics

Tags: Moon

Sorry, this is a bit late...

Sunday evening was forecast to be cloudy. I wasn't planning to get out to the obsy but seeing as the sky was almost clear late on I took a chance and got set up to observe the Moon and possibly get some webcam footage.

The seeing wasn't brilliant but there was plenty of detail to be seen. After an hour or so of crater-hopping with the 3.5mm Hyperion eyepiece I changed the setup and got stuck in with the webcam, getting some reasonable data during the small hours. Registax-processed results as follows: