astroavani

When I see Theophilus, Cyrillus and Catharina well positioned in relation to the terminator, I can't help but shoot a few frames. Theophilus is a spectacular formation with all the complexities inherent in a Tycho-class crater: terraced walls, flat floor and magnificent central mountain peaks. It is 96 km in diameter, and the drop of the highest mountains from the rim to the floor below is 4.3 km, imagine an observer on top of the mountain looking down on the floor below, it must be breathtaking! Observers have reported that the shape of the central mountain appears to change as the lunation progresses, it must be due to shadow play, even so, keep an eye out for Theophilus in upcoming lunations and see if you agree. Notice how Theophilus's floor is much smoother than Cirillus's and Catharina's. When the impact that produced Theophilus occurred, much of the excavated material shot upwards. When it came back (in the form of molten rocks and boulders the size of mountains), it oozed down the smooth floor in the form of lava. There is also impact melt around the outside of the crater (arrow 1) that can easily be seen with backyard telescopes. Take advantage of this, as there aren't many places on the Moon where you can see such a thing. Most of this impact melt occurs northeast of the crater and flows into Sinus Asperitatis. Lunar scientist Charles Wood points out that this is because the south rim is higher. Shortly after the impact, the terraces located to the southwest (arrow 3) collapsed into the lake of molten lava below, see the triangular block that slipped downwards similar to the one found in the Plato crater (arrow 2) . Do not forget that these terraces were more than 4 km high, imagine this colossal amount of rubble falling on the molten lava, this formed gigantic waves of hot lava rushing towards the opposite side. As the north rim is lower, these waves crashed against the wall, rose its edges, overflowed to the outside of the crater and accumulated to the northeast as can very well be seen and indicated by arrows 1. Why does this area attract so much interest from observers? Perhaps because it includes the second best visible crater on the Moon (after Copernicus). This means that the entire interior of Teophilus crater is clearly visible, with its wide flat floor and huge central mountains. The second reason that makes this area one of the favorite targets is that there are three craters there, Teophilus, Cyrilus and Catarina. These three craters are approximately 100 kilometers in diameter and illustrate different stages of degradation. Cyrilus crater is older than Theophilus crater as it is noted that its rim was modified by the impact that formed Theophilus. Catharina crater is certainly the oldest of the 3, both because it is more worn out and because it has been modified by several later impact craters, and a large crater can even be seen on its northern edge, in addition to being much shallower than the others. which means it was probably filled with ejecta from the Imbrium Basin. Perhaps there are additional reasons to make this a privileged spot for observation, a sea, a flooded basin cut by mountain ranges and 3 magnificent craters. When you observe a lunar region and are aware of all these factors, you will certainly see the Moon with different eyes! Text and adaptation: Avani Soares

Crescent my friend Steve

With an image of such magnitude it is difficult for me not to comment on the two targets that stand out the most; Plato and Vallis Alpes. Plato is one of the main targets of lunar astrophotography. A good photo of Plato should show at least 3 or 4 smaller craters present on its floor, always in a darker hue than the surrounding terrain. But every good self-respecting atrophotographer knows that it's not easy to make these small craters appear on your floor and, for that to happen, certain conditions must be met. Firstly, an opening of no less than 250mm is ideal, not that it is impossible to register them with 200mm or even 180mm, but with 250mm it is much easier. Secondly, the angle of incidence of sunlight must also be observed, if the terminator is too low and close, the contrast is too great making it difficult to record, if on the other hand the sun is too high, the smaller craters do not form shadows which it also makes it impossible to register them. I believe that the ideal is the Sun at an altitude of 30° to 45° so the contrast is not so great and shadows are still formed, facilitating their perception. Thirdly, we must pay attention to seeing, with a bad seeing any recording is almost impossible, as these small craters disappear when the turbulence is strong. I won't talk about focus because any mistake destroys a good result! As a general rule, in order to get an impressive photo of at least some of these small craters, they would have to be visible briefly during the real-time screen capture on the lap top. If so, we learned that after the best stacked frames, these small craters will show up perfectly as seen in the attached photo. Vallis Alpes, in the south of Mare Frigoris, not far from the Cassini crater and Plato's Great Eastern Plain, is one of the most spectacular valleys on the moon. Seen in this image, Vallis Alpes (Alpine Valley) is a feature that extends 166 km from Mare Imbrium, running northeast to the edge of Mare Frigoris. This valley was discovered in 1727 by Francesco Bianchini. The valley is narrow at both ends and widens in the center to be about 10 kilometers in diameter. The bottom of the valley has a flat, lava-flooded surface with a narrow 'channel' winding through the middle. This channel is generally thought of as a "graben", an area between two parallel faults that have fallen below the surrounding area. The narrow inner channel is believed to have been formed after the formation of the Imbrium basin, after the lava flows into the sea. It probably corresponds to a 'lava tube' that collapsed in a later geological episode due to the high velocity and low viscosity of the magma. Very interesting to know that channels are common on the moon, considered one of the most fascinating volcanic features due to their wide range of scales (from 100 meters to over 100 km in length) and morphologies they present (linear, curved or sinuous). 🇧🇷 Channels typically form when lava flows erode the existing surface, melting the substrate, removing mechanical material, or a combination of thermal and mechanical processes. However, some may have been lava tubes, rilles, that suffered roof collapse after their formation. Trying to detect this relatively narrow and winding channel that runs along the bottom of Vallis Alpes is one of the favorite challenges of lunar observers, its exact dimensions are not exactly determined, but its vision is a very satisfactory test, as are the small craters on the floor. Plateau. I hope these tips are of some use to anyone like me who likes to venture into Lunar photography!

Captured on December 5, 2022 between 22:51 and 23:51 UT 45 frames of 60 sec with 20 sec break C14 Edge + ASI 290MC + PM 2X + L Filter Parsec Observatory, Canoas, Brazil by Avani Soares http://pvol2.ehu.eus/pvol2/images/view?id=94498

Thanks for all the comments guys! I also thought that the 3D sensation was very pronounced, just like my friend Geof commented, it gives the impression that Io is floating on the clouds of Jupiter. I believe that the use of the 685 IR pass filter helps a lot in the homogeneity of all the captures, it is also important after adjusting the exposure, gain and gamma parameters not to mess with it anymore, as well as stacking and processing all the films in an absolutely equal way. The small variations it has from one frame to another are inherent to the seeing variation. I was very satisfied with this job.

http://pvol2.ehu.eus/pvolimages/jupiter/j2022-11-24_23-51-00__.gif Transit of Io, 60 frames of 60 sec, 2022-11-24; 23:51 UT to 2022-11-25; 01:22 UT C14 Edge + ASI 290MM + PM 2X + IR 685 Parsec Observatory, Canoas, Brazil by Avani Soares

Thanks friend Geof, but it's not easy at this altitude, and the north is the worst of my 4 sides, there are some companies to that side that release a lot of heat in the atmosphere, increasing the turbulence even more.

Unfortunately this year Mars will not rise more than 35º in my location, so to be able to get a little detail only when the seeing helps like tonight. Valles Marineris is clearly visible in the photo as well as Acidalia Planitia and Chryse Planitia. Nilokeras Fossa stood out easily but the 3 volcanoes of Tharsis that should be easily visible in better conditions are not noticeable which denotes the difficulty in getting good photos at such low altitude. http://pvol2.ehu.eus/pvolimages/mars/mars2022-11-18_05-12-40__asoares.png

I am honored to have my photo among the chosen ones, there have been many excellent works and everyone is to be congratulated. My friend Geof's animation is as good as the best I've ever seen, the sync was excellent as well as there was no difference in light and tone from one frame to another, it certainly deserved to have taken the top prize because you fight in very difficult conditions. This year I'm realizing what it's like to image a planet at such a low altitude in the sky since Mars here is only at 36º. Congrats to the other winners (Neil and Kon) both images are deserving of first place as well.

Good seeing conditions allow you to see numerous details. This year I've noticed that Jupiter has a more faded color than in previous years. http://pvol2.ehu.eus/pvolimages/jupiter/j2022-10-30_00-55-30__asoares.png

I didn't think my simple comment would yield such an interesting discussion. First of all I want to thank Vlaiv, Geof and others who participated in this post as this is of great interest to me. I always try to juggle physics with practice and try to understand what can go wrong when it doesn't. As some have said, I just think that processing oversampled images and getting a good result is easier than correctly sampled images. I can't explain why, it could be a deficiency of mine that I don't know how to process at f/11 or f/14 correctly. The impression I've always had is that images at f/22 are smoother, so they're much easier to work with. I'm a bit of a purist astrophotographer, I don't make defeats, I don't cut moons to process the piece and I never go over 90 seconds of image to avoid drag, so I actually use a very simple but effective processing line that gives me good results and despite All theory says that if I take pictures at f/14 with the C14 I should get good results, practice has not yet been able to show me that.

A beautiful result, geoflewis friend! Interesting that I only get good results using the C14 at f/22 with the PM 2X. I've tried many times in bad seeing night to use native d/f but the results were not good. I think it must be related to sampling and ASI 290 which is very close to the 462 you use. As it has a very small pixel, it seems that a larger image makes the final result more pleasant.

The question that remains in this photo is to what extent the albedo stains are artifacts or not. Some things like the big dark spot in the transverse direction seem real to me, but we always try to see what may not even exist.

Saturn and some satellites

Jupiter on October 25th with its Moon Callisto. Plenty of visible detail and perhaps likely albedo patches on the satellite which could also be processing artifacts.

Infelizmente este ano perdi a maior parte da temporada de Saturno devido a uma falha na montagem, neste momento já faleceu da oposição, mesmo assim posso considerar-me feliz por ainda ter a oportunidade de registar esta foto. Observatório Parsec, Canoas, Brasil. Latitude: -30 graus sul

Another panel on October 23, now with two more unpublished photos where I try to highlight mainly the Ganymedes Moon with a posterior projection of the Virtual Planet Atlas so that colleagues can compare whether the albedo spots captured are real or artifacts. Parsec Observatory, Canoas, Brazil, Latitude: -30º south

After 3 months without being able to take a photo if you want due to the CGE PRO crash, it was finally fixed and allowed me to make this first capture of Jupiter this season. With plenty of visible detail in all zones and lanes, the photo on the IR Pass clearly shows the GRS for what it is, a giant hurricane in which you can see the winds in the form of a whirlpool. The photo on methane is just to complement this beautiful capture. http://pvol2.ehu.eus/pvolimages/jupiter/j2022-10-23_02-20-00__asoares.png Location: Parsec Observatory, Canoas, Brazil, -30º South

After 3 months without being able to take a photo of the panel at the CGE PRO, it was finally fixed and managed to get me to do this first capture of Jupiter this season. Plenty of detail visible in all zones and strips, the photo in the IR Pass clearly shows what it is, the giant winds in which you can see the whirlpool shape. The photo in methane is just to complement this beautiful capture. http://pvol2.ehu.eus/pvolimages/jupiter/j2022-10-23_02-20-00__asoares.png http://pvol2.ehu.eus/pvolimages/jupiter/j2022-10-23_02-20-00__asoares.png

Thank you for the comment! Several problems have occurred in recent times, one of them was that I had to have surgery and I couldn't abuse it for a while, I also had to do maintenance on the assembly and to finish this year in the south of Brazil the bad weather hasn't let up, since 2015 I didn't see such a bad winter.

Thank you for the comment! Several problems have occurred in recent times, one of them was that I had to have surgery and I couldn't abuse it for a while, I also had to do maintenance on the assembly and to finish this year in the south of Brazil the bad weather hasn't let up, since 2015 I didn't see such a bad winter.

I already missed Saturn. In this terrible winter in southern Brazil one of the first open nights in several weeks with acceptable seeing.

Congratulations Rob, a great image, well deserved award, the image of colleague Minhlead is also very good. I am honored to have an image selected in a category that is not my strong point, I send a hug to everyone who participated.

Very well placed friend Crayg T82. I was just answering this in another group.