lukebl

Here's a capture of the Jupiter and Uranus conjunction from my garden in Norfolk this evening. Very low in the WNW in twilight, about 10 degrees above the horizon and half a degree apart.

Canon 700d, ISO800, 4 seconds, Canon 150-500mm zoom, f/8, AZ SynScan mount.

So the general consensus seems to be that CMOS sensors are more sensitive than CCDs and involve less faffing about. And, at my age, I could certainly do with less faffing about. The faffing has been what’s put me off imaging recently.

So, I think it’s time to move on to CMOS! But which one? Hopefully I can get a couple of quid for my current CCD cameras.

I’ve been out of DSO imaging for a couple of years, and have noticed that most folk nowadays seem to be imaging with OSC CMOS cameras. I assume that’s because CMOS sensors (even OSC ones) are now as good as the old mono CCDs.

Does this mean that mono CCD is now obsolete and that my current vintage mono cameras (Atik 383L+ and Atik428ex) should be consigned to a museum?

Here's my attempt at an HDR image to capture the solar corona, comprised of 13 images at different exposures from 4 seconds to 1/1000 sec. Magog, Canada, 8th April 2024.

Canon 700d, Sigma 150-500mm zoom @ 400mm, f/11. ISO 200 Processed in Photoshop (Howto guide here)

Here's a video of last week's total solar eclipse from Magog, Canada, speeded up 8 times. Captured on my iPhone. The speeded up human voices sound like a flock of chickens!

...or if you're more patient, here it is at normal speed. Listen for the hollerin' at commencement and end of totality (at about 1:42 and 5:23 minutes) and see how the edge of the receding shadow appears on the horizon from around 3:55.

A further refinement of the animation.

I've only just got back from my trip to Magog, Canada, to observe the eclipse and have started to process my images.

It was an amazing event with perfect weather. We were located on the shore of Lake Memphremagog. Shortly before totality some strange waves started washing over the shore. In the eery twilight it was very spooky.

These captures were with a Canon 700d and Sigma 150-500mm zoom (a lens which really impresses me) set at 400mm, f/11, ISO 200 and various exposures.

My third total eclipse and definitely the most memorable.

One of the most noticeable features was a really bright prominence which began to appear as totality progressed. It was almost like a red searchlight shining on the lower left edge of the disk, very visible to the naked eye and something on which many casual observers commented. This is an animation showing it emerging.

The Baily's Beads at commencement and end of totality were beautiful.

Commencement:

End of totality:

Totality:

Diamond Ring:

And finally a sequence from beginning to end. Images captured every 5 minutes.

I’ll be going to Spain myself.
I think totality near the horizon could be visually much more impressive within the landscape rather than isolated high in the sky.

5 minutes ago, Louis D said:

For the 2017 eclipse, it was just the wife and I in Nebraska with a bunch of strangers…

That was the same for me in 2017. I was in an empty field in Wyoming with just my two sons and a few rattlesnakes! It was eerily quiet, unlike yesterday in Magog.

Many thanks for the nice comments.

I’ve made this animation of the diamond ring at the end of totality.

Here's a quick capture of Pons-Brooks last night from here in Norfolk. Alpha Arietis to its left.

Canon 700d, ISO1600, Sigma 150-500mm zoom @ 229mm, f/5.6. 12 frames @ 20 seconds. Stacked in DSS.

Guided on an old AZ Synscan, which guides remarkably well for an AZ mount.

26 minutes ago, johnturley said:

The best chance of clear skies (but not guaranteed) along the track of totality, is from the Torreon area in Northern Mexico, ,which is one of the observation sites that Astro Trails (UK Tour Operator) are organising, and with whom we are travelling.

John 

Thanks for rubbing it in. I'll be 4000km away under the clouds.

At least I saw the 2017 eclipse in Wyoming under clear skies. And the 1999 one from near Dieppe.

I'm off to (hopefully) see the total eclipse from the town of Magog, in Quebec Province, Canada in a couple of weeks. Statistically the cloudiest part of the whole eclipse path!

I know long-term weather forecasts are wildly inaccurate, but just for fun I thought I'd look at the alternative forceasts available. Here a selection of some of them. It makes you wonder why they bother attempting long-range forecasts.

They range from 3 degrees C and snow, through to 12 degrees and rain, mist, sleet and even SUN! The BBC predicts Sleet showers with sunny intevals.

The best one is the Weather Network which predicts sun and 10 degrees. I'll have that one please!

Thanks folks. I’m sure the sensor is dusty, so I’ve ordered a cleaning kit.

This is a single frame from my Canon 700d, captured with a 75-300mm zoom set at 75mm. 15 seconds, f/5.6, ISO1600.

There's a dark fuzzy blob in all of the images which I assume is some sort of dust mote, although it's quite large and diffuse. Any suggestions as to where it is in the image train and how to get rid of it?

I’m planning to go to Canada in April to view and capture the total eclipse. Normally I like to travel light, with just a cabin bag to avoid the hassle of hold luggage. However, this time I’ll be taking my AZ GOTO mount as well as a normal hefty camera tripod, so I’m going to have to take it as checked-in hold luggage. 

I’d like to simply just use the 12v power cable connected to the hired car cigarette lighter, but on a recent trip where I hired a brand new car (a VW, I think) it didn’t even have a lighter socket.

My question is, can I take my 12v 7Ah Skywatcher power tank on the plane or is it forbidden? Alternatively I could take a little power pack comprising 8 x AA batteries. Any idea how long that would power the mount?

Despite it blowing a hoolie, I had a go at capturing the shadow transit of Ganymede this evening.

Almost impossible to focus with the scope bouncing around in the wind, but at least I managed a short capture although not the sharpest view. It was very nice visually. The shadow was nice and crisp in the eyepiece.

Wide view, 250mm f/4.8 Newtonian, ZWO ASI120mc cam. c 5000 frames @ 2ms,  c.110 fps, Left to right: Callisto, Io, Ganymede, Europa.

Closer view. 250mm f/4.8 Newtonian, 5x Televue Powermate, ZWO ASI120mc cam. c 5000 frames 7ms @ c.45 fps,

3 hours ago, Kon said:

Did you try with the older as!3?  It seems to be something with the box size at the neb, you have a square artefact. You also seem to have a lot of noise from wavelets too.

Thanks for the input.

I had a go at capturing Jupiter last night using Sharpcap instead of Firecapture. Conditions were pretty poor with bad seeing and the results weren’t good. However, I seemed to be able to get shorter exposures and a higher frame rate with Sharpcap, and the initial results don’t seem to show those artefacts. 

So it might just be the capture software that’s a problem. I’ll try again when conditions are good.

Here's a quick capture from this evening showing Jupiter's moon Io and its shadow, along with the Great Red Spot (nowadays it's more like the shrinking beige spot!) appearing lower left.

250mm f/4.8 Newtonian, 5x Televue Powermate, ZWO ASI120mc cam. c 5000 frames @ c.50 fps, 17ms exposures.

I'm not happy at all with the image.

For some reason, when processed in Autostakkert the image shows some horrible artifacts making it look like it's made with oil brush strokes.  I've managed to reduce it in Photoshop but at the cost of loss of definition. I used the same setup with previous apparitions of Jupiter and Mars and got excellent results, so I've no idea what's gone wrong. Any suggestions as to what's gone wrong would be welcome. I'm using the latest version of Autostakkert and capture with Firecapture..

This is an image before softening in Photoshop:

Here's a detail showing the artifacts:

On 26/01/2024 at 19:29, symmetal said:

By default Spiral search is assigned to Button 1. Has your joystick config file got corrupted? 'Load Defaults' may help.

Alan

Hi Alan. Thanks for the advice, but I’ve looked at the settings and loaded the defaults but still have the problem. I’m thinking that it might be an idea to completely uninstall and reinstall EQMOD, but haven’t tried it yet as it took ages to configure it in the first place!

My NEQ6 mount is controlled via EQMOD on my laptop.

It's recently developed an odd fault when the wired gamepad controller (used to manually go L, R Up or Down) is plugged in. After slewing to a chosen object, it immediately starts doing a spiral search and won't stop. It only does this when the controller is plugged in. I've tried a different controller, but get the same issues.

What on earth's going on?

Here's a singularly unimpressive video!

Actually, I like it. It's a capture I did last night of the occultation (lasting 4.1 seconds) of an 11.7 magnitude star (TYC 1183-00432-1) by the 123km-wide asteroid (602) Marianna. Marianna is 13.6 magnitude and you can just make it out during the occultation. The asteroids fascinate me, and I find the sight of a distant small object passing in front a vastly more distant star in real time literally awesome!  The star is the one just below the centre.

This was captured with a WATEC-910 video cam on my 250mm f/4.8, with a shutter speed of 0.08 seconds.

Hi.

I just wondered if there was any free sofware out there to annotate movie files (e.g. avis)?

I particularly wanted it to place an arrow on a footage of a field of stars to indicate the position of a star being occulted by an asteroid.

Musk's vanity project passed over here this evening.

I showed it to my son who was most impressed, but I can't help feeling there's something sinister about it all, bombarding the planet with the internet and filling the sky with more junk. In the olden days it was megalomaniac dictators who controlled the masses of nations. Now it's the fabulously wealthy who control all of us. If that isn't straying beyond the forum's guidelines.

Anyway, I capured these images of it with a Canon 700d and Samyang 8mm lens at f/3.5. I set it to take 6 second exposures every 3 seconds at ISO 1600, but the gaps between exposures is obviously longer. I guess that's because of the time taken to write to the disk.

This is a stacked set of 48 images, stacked in Startrails Version 2.3. See how the trails disappear into the earth's shadow when they approach Perseus. The bright thing is the moon!

Single frame:

Here's a video. One frame every half second. The neighbour's car illuminates the trees and house half way through!