Kokatha man

Thanks again people :) - Peter, the camera certainly exhibits high sensitivity & low noise in the stacks, as per what the specs would suggest...in our testing that's what comes through strongly...but it does require some heavy saturation & vibrancy to bring out the colour effectively: some suggest this is all down to the Bayer matrix filters, but it is definitely requiring more of those applications than the ASI224MC: however, we noticed that the mono ASI290MM also required significant boosts to those applications also to achieve decent colouration, so if the Bayer filters are an aspect they cannot be the complete story imo...

Thanks folks - here's the entire 5 captures at 84% capture scale. (this unusual scale due to file-size limits on another AA forum btw )

Hi all - I haven't posted here for ages but I do look in regularly: Sam sent me the new ASI462MC (colour) camera a month or so ago (very sensitive, low noise & strong ir performance) & Pattie & I have been doing some trialling whenever the clouds aren't around. :lol: The latest from home has yielded the best results so far, albeit in cloud-covered skies where we found a small half-hour gap to capture some decent images. About an hour ago I cobbled together a quick animation from the 3 images displayed in the composite one here to add to the other 2... ;)

Nice work Simon...& sensitively processed!

Regardless of the size an excellent outcome!

You & yours also Reggie! :) May you also have a happy & healthy 2020!

...pretty clear that you have picked up the N. Polar brightening Avani, along with the darker NTe/Tr regions: the "blotchy" lighter spots further to the left side of your image could well be the lighter Eq. band which is becoming difficult to resolve as well as even see as Uranus tilts more...the Eq will be invisible by 2024 & by 2029 we'll be looking down almost right onto the N.Pole..! (perhaps not "we" because I don't want to look that far ahead with any certainty - I'm 70 in a few weeks time! ) But a good effort!

Quite incorrect Lucas - the well-publicised & enduring Equatorial storms on Neptune which were widely announced as being discovered by the Keck telescope team on Mauna Kea were actually discovered by Pat & myself over 2 weeks before the Keck team made their "discovery"..! :rofl: See https://britastro.org/node/10860 for confirmation of this - we were credited in the final Keck paper with "being the first to actually observe this storm" with the added comment that we were "unaware of its' importance" which I guess is always going to be part of the deal when professional reputations etc are there to be made or enhanced...but we did think it sufficiently important to alert the BAA for them to release that eBulletin (#977) at the time...& we did receive acknowledgements in subsequent publications as well as had our work acknowledged in earlier prestigious papers..."aaah!" the lot of us AA'ers..! Just go & tour our website & specifically this page to scroll through the many images & animations of Neptune over the last few years https://momilika.net/WebPages/Neptune2015_2017Pics.htm On the point I'm afraid I have to be quite clear that there is no suggestion of atmospheric details in your Uranus image - the one sure way for an amateur to confirm that they have indeed picked up such phenomena on one of the Ice Giants is to take multiple captures over a timespan & create an animated gif that displays repetitive & sequential motion of any atmospheric features - which must of course also be in accordance with the rotational direction wrt the planet image's orientation: unless you can do this the best one can say is there is a "possibility" something on the disk might be more than a mere artefact...but as I said unless you can do so it fails the acid-test. (especially as there appears to be no other images from anyone else suggesting they might be corroborated...) In 2015 we did in fact pick up a storm spot in Neptune's far southern region along with other storms...these other storms were all corroborated by other AA imagers' captures but as it turned out the HST was also imaging Neptune at around the same time as us - & they also picked up this southern feature..! This became part of a presentation at that year's Planetary Scientists' Convention in Washington DC... So you see that the quote I have included in this post you made is quite incorrect - as an imaging team who are just 2 people amongst quite a few who constantly image the Ice Giants I always like to make sure that other AA'ers are at least informed of the quite valuable work that AA'ers do on these 2 planets..!

Hi Lucas - you've certainly captured the NP region brightening & "perhaps" indications of the NP collar that appears in some images (including our own) over time, although disputed by others - but I'm afraid that there is no <"atmospheric activity on the planet. It seems to be changing every week. Many changes can still happen until the opposition."> Apart from one image from last year (an amateur using the 60" Mt. Wilson scope) & a very contentious "confirmatory" image afterwards by another AA'er, there has been no confirmed amateur images of any "atmospheric activity" (ie, bright storm spots) since 2014 - which we & a few other AA'ers were fortunate enough to capture at the time. All the rest (darker mottling) is noise - apart from the fact that that region (NTr/Tz etc zone) is darker than the NP region. But it is still a good capture outcome regardless!

Thanks folks! C14, M.

Thanks again folks! Chris, primarily for the seeing which we decide upon from the GFS forecasts beforehand, remembering that they are only forecasts & even if the conditions do suggest possible good seeing that it might well be not! If a place we haven't been to before is interesting we will do some touring around...for Natimuk we actually went back there a week later to do some sight-seeing because it was so interesting... We examine first for clouds ( a bane all year so far for a lot of the time) then principally for the 10 metre (surface) winds & the 300mb velocities - slow is better & if they are both travelling in a generally similar direction, better still...& if all those the GFS lists between them (950, 850, 700 & 500mb) also slowish & running in a similarly broad direction, even better yet.....but even with all this in your favour there's still no guarantees..!

...I'm reading your 2 images as signifying that the strong red-brown band running east from the N-E side of the GRS Hollow is the only notable band of colour, with the area immediately below & to the East (right) of the GRS clear (or bluish-white) as in your 1st image - as opposed to the light red/brown for all that region to the East (right) of the GRS in your 2nd image...or in our own images those regions that exhibit a brownish-red with southerly projections emanating from it in "curls" etc that we've termed "whiskers" at times....? If so, although we do not have images from mid-July, if you examine our earlier images from further down the page in the link I gave above you will find that there are several images where the region to the East (right) of the GRS was either devoid (or almost devoid) of colour at times giving an appearance of clean separation from the GRS...

...at the very least no-one can say you fellas aren't out there giving it a go!

...not quite sure whether you are referring to the so-called "blades" or "flakes" the appear to peel off the GRS itself - or one of the other phenomena Stu..? In any case the most recent Jovian images we have are from July 15th where the GRS is not on show. Perhaps the aspect you mention is on one of our earlier images - apart from these at the top of the page they nearly all feature the GRS in descending date order for 2019: https://momilika.net/WebPages/Jupiter2019Pics.htm

Thanks very much for the compliments people! Yes, James is correct, about halfway between Adelaide & Melbourne: we often image at a tiny place called Carrieton which is near the Flinders Ranges & almost the same distance from our place, so not really any difference there...a 7 hour drive roughly. Our prime imaging locations are at home when the weather permits, 200km away in the Murray Mallee usually at Sedan...or the 400km trip to Carrieton etc, with another couple of locations thrown in for variety at times! In fact we were up at Hawker last week, another 70km further on than Carrieton...the first time in ages where the GRS hasn't been on display for us..! Natimuk did really turn on the seeing while we were there, beautiful country also - & did quite a lot of driving & walking around the district too! This time of the year if it is cloudy & we're away, a nice roaring campfire is a good alternative.