Space Cowboy

Must be several years since I last captured the iconic GRS. Conditions were blustery with persistent thin cloud and at best average seeing but it was a pleasure to watch as the face of this great planet came into view.

Taken with Auto Dob 250 & ASI 224MC with 3x tv & ext.

One image taken with and one without the ADC (not saying which).

21.46 UT & 22.49 UT

Another quality image Kon!

Terrific detail on those Mars shots Geof! Love the animation!

Great image considering last night was hardly barbados though there is a Suffolk in Mississippi......just sayin

Super collection of images Neil! Love the surface textures.

Super capture and nicely processed!

2 hours ago, neil phillips said:

Being so small this year. it's not as obvious when the seeing is good. But it's easy to tell after a while. Everything just starts to look sharper. And you start getting shadings appearing in the Martian sand. Quite happy for a change on a capture. Don't blink I actually said it. 

Cheers Stuart. Btw its good to have you around here again. Like the old days. But different 

Remarkable detail showing and I'm only viewing it on my phone. Interesting to see you're using an ADC even at this altitude. Need to get mine out of the drawer. You clearly have the optics of that trusty newt tuned to within a gnats whisker!

It's good to be back seeing the master at work 😉

Very nice!

Well captured Pete! Those are always special images.

That's a beauty! 

You need one of these Neil. Mr Burns has a sale on 😉

Those are sweet! Lots of detail coming through. You truly are the manual magician!

Nicely done Harvey!

Never get tired of seeing transit shadows! Lovely collection Neil.

Thanks Pete yes the next time I remembered 😉

Great detail on those! 

Gorgeous animation Neil. 👍

16 minutes ago, Kon said:

Yes I use the drift method and when it reaches the other side I move it to the other side and repeat. I use a RACI as it's easier on my back plus keeping an eye on the laptop.

I can easily shoot a 3min video for Jupiter and 5 or so for Saturn. I am shooting at 200fps so I easily have 50000 frames with 45000 having it. I think my ISS captures have helped with Jupiter that moves at a snail pace.

I never shoot more than 3 minutes and from what I have read the distortion of pixels is insignificant in that small time frame. Saying that I have tried it with the image after registax but I didn't like the result; I want to try derotate the video and then stack etc.

I didnt realize it was possible to capture videos of that length with manual tracking, quite remarkable what you are doing!

Brilliant work with the manual Dob! You must have the touch of a brain surgeon to keep Jupiter in view! I assume you are simply nudging the OTA by hand? Have you tried winjupos? Would certainly help with the noise level if you havent tried it. How many frames are you managing to capture in each run?

Another image with a slightly different combination of stacks in winjupos.

11 hours ago, CraigT82 said:

Nice shot, lots of detail and definitely got potential. Seems like focus might have been off a tad?  Maybe just seeing. 

Thanks Craig I was constantly tweaking focus and all the Avis look very similar. Using the hair dryer wasn't ideal and with hindsight I should have put the scope out an hour later as it was swamped with dew before I could start imaging. Could be a combination of seeing and thermal activity.

Thanks Harvey!

Super images again Neil.

Thanks Neil. I upped the colour vibrance at the last minute after looking at my old images.  Still feel the wavelets were a bit strong but the seeing wasn't good enough for a more subtle process. Considering I had to give the primary the Alex Ferguson treatment after it dewed over and nearly packed up when cloud rolled in for an hour I can't complain too much about the result. 😉

Despite cloud, heavy dew and AWOL tracking i managed to get some better data. Seeing was consistent for about 45 mins though not as good as it can be (from what I remember) trans wasnt great so AVIs were quite noisy.

Still working on the processing not 100% happy.

21.42ut

Auto Dob 250 + 3x TV +Extension tube & ASI 224 = F19