Posts Made By: Paul Adams

Hi Guys, kind of OT - but I watched this contrail distort quite rapidly yesterday. I could not image last night, but I think the condition would have been turbulent anyway!

Paul

Just wanted to share the following with you: we are on vacation in Door County, Wisconsin for the week, right on the water. Lake Michigan one side and the Bay of Green Bay the other.

Last night was the most incredible sky I have ever seen. The Milky Way went from the southern horizon, directly overhead and up to the north, northeast. It was vivid and distinct. Jupiter reflected in the glass like water just in front of the house we are renting.

I sat in a chair just gazing at the sky for a couple of hours, no instruments, just my eyes and the sky.

An amazing experience. We have several more days here so I am hoping for more clear conditions.

Paul

Hi All,

For the last two nights, the Clear Sky Clock has indicated above average seeing conditions for my location here in Las Vegas.

However, Tuesday night the viewing conditions were just horrible with the stars rapidly going in and out of focus, and I could see the distortion 'on' the moon even through the finder scope.

Last night, Wednesday, was a little better but not much.

I took all of the steps including letting the scope cool down for over two hours.

Can anyone with more experience than I find anything in the Clear Sky Clock or jet stream pattern that might explain this and so I will know what to look for next time.

Thanks!

Paul

Hello Gang,

I have a "call to arms" and request for help from anyone in the group that would be willing to help.

In August, a friend of mine will be flying on the space shuttle Discovery to the ISS. To return a huge favor I have been trying to come up with a gift that would be unique, and seeing the excellent photos of the ISS posted over the last few days, I think some photos of the station during his mission, and while he is onboard, would be something special.

I have a 12" inch LX200 myself and will be trying to photograph the station myself, buy we only seem to get one or two chances per mission here in Las Vegas. Also, I would like to gather as many photos from as many locations as possible.

For the sake of confidentiality, I do not want to release any names just yet, but will do once the project is completed. Also, I will make sure that everyone who contributes is FULLY recognized.

If you would be willing to help, please let me know and we can correspond either on or off list.

Thanks for considering,

Paul Adams
Las Vegas
Nevada
USA

Hi Gang,

I have attached a frame grab of Saturn from last night, I have a few questions about it which I hope will help me improve my imaging results.

If you look at the image, there seems to be a'flare' on the top half of the planet that I could not seem to get rid of. My set-up was as follows;

LX200 with UHTC
LU075C (Raw Mode)
Seeing conditions good.

Questions; am I doing something 'wrong' to cause the 'flare' or does the scope need to be collimated more accurately, is it dust on the front plate. Or, is it atmospherics and something I should not be worried about it and just imporve results via practice?

Any input apprechiated, you won't hurt my feelings!

Thanks,

Paul

Hello Gang,

Attached is an image of Saturn from last night. For short periods, the seeing was extremely good.

Still a long way to go, but I’m beginning to get the ‘feel’ for imaging again. The problem with my job is that I travel for months at a time and lose the imaging ‘knack’ and forget the finer points; it is slowly coming back. Anyway, I was pleased with this effort since this is only my third night out since being home.

LX200 12”: 2.5 Barlow: Philips Webcam: Registax 5

Any suggestions for improvements would be welcome.

Based on a forecast for good seeing, I had hoped to have a two session nights at the telescope starting at with Saturn, a couple hours sleep and then some imaging of Jupiter. However, the seeing was not as good as forecast and deteriorated during the evening.

There was a fantastic alignments of moons close to Saturn at the beginning of the night, but my imaging skills are not yet up to capturing that. I did however manage to capture Titans shadow moving on to the planet's disk just before it disappeared behind some trees. Seeing was already deteriorating so I imaged at two scales. Attached is the smaller of the two images. I will include the second in a separate post.

By the time Jupiter had risen to a worthwhile position the seeing had not improved and I did not get any worthwhile results. It was interesting however to see how the imaging did improve as the planet rose higher into the sky. I had never experienced that before.

Here is the larger, fuzzier, of the two images!

Paul

Jupiter with Io and its shadow, taken just after 3am on May 24.

Paul

The stunning images o0f Jupiter posted here recently certainly give one something to aspire too, so here is my 'effort' from last night:

Ganymede, Io and Jupiter.

LX200 12" Philips Webcam and Registax 5 processing 600 of 900 frames. Seeing was good.

Paul, Sin City. NV