Posts Made By: Jason Higley

Here's a brief movie with real images from April 17-18 2009 showing Mercury moving against VERY rich star fields, dust and a really nice solar wind/particle puff. (2.3 megs in Windows Media player)

http://setisociety.org/Mecury-Rich-Star-Fields-Dust-Gas.wmv

Jason H.

Here's a brief movie with real images from April 17-18 2009 showing
Mercury moving against VERY rich star fields, dust and a really nice
solar wind/particle puff. (2.3 megs in Windows Media player)

http://setisociety.org/Mecury-Rich-Star-Fields-Dust-Gas.wmv

Jason H.

Jupiter's rising, but it's still somewhat low for a good shot here in Central FL (but I'll post one anyway :^) ;here's a tiny one (to hide the problems) from this morning's Io shadow transit.

Afocal via 10mm EP using the Criterion RV-8 scope, Canon Powershot A590 camera (no PC/laptop present to record) using 4x optical zoom, 2x Celestron Ultima barlow.

Regards, Jason H.

Saturn

http://setisociety.org/Saturn-28-April09-M-1290-r5-s1pt7-reddwn.jpg

Sorry for the upward orientation of the rings; I couldn't get my camera to orient the way I wanted it to (it kept flopping down because the Orion SteadyPix adapter acted like a counterweight, and on the brass Criterion EP rack there isn't a tightening knob to lock it in.) I didn't want to rotate it in the post-processing because a re-sample on my software degrades the quality of the image noticeably.

Criterion RV-8 scope, afocal Canon Powershot A590 at 4x optical zoom at a 10mm eyepiece, 2x Celestron Ultima Barlow. Video stack started with 1511 frames (but I tossed out a lot by hand, don't know what the end number of frames was because Registax 5 wasn't reporting it.) Roxio PhotoSuite 5 also for post-processing.

Regards, Jason H.

Only 288 frames, this time with a new Kodak M1033 10 megapixel point-and-shoot camera

http://setisociety.org/Saturn-10-may-09-100_0012-full-pt3est-brt.jpg

I'm still looking for a lossless rotation software if anybody knows of one.

Stats - shot afocally via Criterion RV-8 scope, only 3x optical zoom available on this camera, but video mode is HD (but I needed to crop it down and reduce the image to 75% of original), 10mm eyepiece and 2x Celestron Ultima barlow.

Regards, Jason H.

Saturn Apr. 28th with 2 AVI clips joined, totaling just over 2 gigs this time

http://setisociety.org/Saturn-2clips.jpg

Adding 2 AVI clips together in Apple Quicktime Pro is a new technique for me, which helped with the final result, but for some reason it doubled each frame so I had to hand remove all the doubles :^p which made it 3070 FRAMES HAND EDITED DOWN TO 648 frames! In retrospect I probably threw out too many, but it was good hand/finger exercise :^)

I had tried to add 3 AVI's together, but when I tried to load the resulting greater than 4 gig AVI file into Registax 5, it didn't work; I'm not sure if it was my machine that choked or Registax 5, but I'll blame my machine first.

Other stats, Canon A590 camera at 4x optical zoom, afocal at a 10mm EP on the Criterion RV-8, 2x Celestron Ultima Barlow, Registax 5, Roxio PhotoSuite 5.

Regards, Jason H.

Jupiter, GRS & Io, May 31, 2009

http://setisociety.org/jupitertwoMVI_0103threerox.jpg

1st draft peek, reduced to 70% of original (granularity issues), afocal Canon A590 in video mode using 4x optical zoom, 10mm EP, 2x Celestron Ultima Barlow, Criterion RV-8 mounted on an RV-6 mount (uhhh!), Registax 5, Roxio Photosuite 5.

Thanks for looking, Jason H.

Here's a Jupiter rotation movie with the Great Red Spot that I've just finished from my runs on May 31

http://setisociety.org/JUPITER-ROTATION-MAY-31-09-2nd.GIF

and here it is again twice as fast

http://setisociety.org/JUPITER-ROTATION-MAY-31-09.GIF

THAT'S OVER 13 GIGS OF AVI FILES SCRUNCHED DOWN TO A 80 K GIF FILE.

ZERO FRAMES WERE REJECTED DURING STACKING FROM OVER 13 GIGS OF AVI FILES!

I was determined not to have to reject frames by hand this time (especially after the finger marathons I've had lately with these 2 gig files, uhhh), so I thought to myself, what would these look like if I don't take any out at all, and set the program to not reject any either. With what I think might be a slightly better understanding of the principles behind how they are programming within the stacking software, I took the philosophy this time that no frame is a bad frame, especially if you start with over 2000 on each run.

The other stats, all final stacked frames were reduced to 70% the size of the originals. Used an Orion SteadyPix camera mount and as usual afocally mounted Canon Powershot A590 camera (no laptop/PC present to record), 4x optical zoom, 10mm eyepiece, 2x Celestron Ultima barlow, Criterion RV8 telescope (from at least the early 1970's), Registax 5, Roxio PhotoSuite 5, Adobe PhotoDeluxe (to align the frames for the animation by hand, GIF Construction Set Professional (sorry, I don't have a good astronomy animation program yet.)

Thanks for looking, Jason H.

Jupiter and Callisto June 20 a.m.

http://setisociety.org/MVI_1260trim90blcallistotry2.jpg

Afocal Canon SX100 using 10x optical zoom, 26mm Meade Super Plossl eyepiece, 2x Celestron Ultima Barlow, Criterion RV-8 scope, Registax 5, post-processed in Roxio PhotoSuite 5, 2578 frames kept out of 2705 at 30 f.p.s..

Regards, Jason H.

I've created the following animation of images centered on where a major nova burst occured in 1901 from DSS image plates (shot over a time span of decades) to create this 2 frame animation of the expanding shell of hot gas (moving >1200 km per hour)

http://setisociety.org/GK-PERSEI-OVER-DECADES.GIF

I learned of this variable from the AAVSO website, as nowadays Nova Persei 1901 is known to variable star observers as GK Persei, with very regular outburst or flare-ups in brightess approximately every 3 years, you can see a chart of this at

http://www.aavso.org/images/LTGKper.gif

and here's a Wikipedia article on it

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

Regards, Jason H.