geoflewis

Nicely done Andy, the main features are well seen. It looks like you had better seeing for the set that comprise the 2nd annimation after the GRS has transited Jupiter's meridian.

5 minutes ago, pete_n_pugs said:

Thanks Geof. I'll see if I can work out how to change the ROI - gives me something to do with all the clouds around!

I don't use SharpCap, for planetary imaging, but you'll find it under camera controls/capture area...

Good luck.

That's a nice 1st (2nd) attempt. As you already indicated, I'd definitely add a barlow in future. You capture spped of ~31ms seems a bit slow, so perhaps try something more like 10ms. Can you set an ROI less than your existing 3008x3008 as that would help with faster frame rate. I can't advice on dew control for your scope, but probably a shroud might help, if not some form of heater.

An excellent image Avani. As other UK residents have said, we feel your pain as the weather in the UK has been pretty rubbish too, though to be fair my location on the east of the UK seems to have fared a bit better than other UK regions recently.

13 minutes ago, Kon said:

I think you may well have it! The moons have excellent signal and sharp and you don't seem to have to have to stretch too hard.

Thanks Kostas, it's definitely a tough one to call, so it's good to have your feedback.

1 hour ago, Kon said:

You probably have a hint of Miranda. These rings are maybe light diffraction. Best thing is to put the info of the capture on the link I posted above and superimpose it on your image and see where the rings align.

I did an overlay and then used the Game recorder to record me changing opacity to show how well what might be Uranus's rings align with the graphic. It looks pretty close to me. Also looks like there's a pixel of noise which just might be Miranda....

1 hour ago, Kon said:

The more data you can add the better. You can check against this https://pds-rings.seti.org/tools/viewer3_ura.shtml

and align your image to see if you have got them. But Miranda needs and should be visible in your C14.

So I stacked 20k frames from the 30k available, so 66% and applied a huge curves stretch in Affinity Photo - what do you think....?

I don't see anything when I apply curves to the raw 20k stack, so I'm wondering whether the ring is just an artefact from the wavelets applied in Registax, especially given the dark ring between Uranus and the potential rings.... 🤔🤷‍♂️

1 minute ago, Space Cowboy said:

Fantastic detail Geof! That colour shot with the moons is an absolute beauty!

Thanks Stuart, I don't usually do Jupiter's moons wide FOV, but decided that I should give them a try. That's not far off as wide FOV as I can get with the C14.

Just now, Space Cowboy said:

Remarkable achievement capturing that detail in last nights poor seeing with an 8" scope without tracking! Bravo Kotas!

That's the understatement of the century Stuart. I have no clue how Kostas does it....🤷‍♂️

3 minutes ago, Space Cowboy said:

Terrific capture Geof! You are certainly producing the goods at the moment! 👍

Thanks Stuart, the skies and atmosphere have certainly been kind to me recently.

14 minutes ago, Kon said:

You can check against this https://pds-rings.seti.org/tools/viewer3_ura.shtml

Thanks Kostas, what a great tool, thanks for sharing it.

Kostas,

That's brilliant knowing the dreadful conditions that you had for this. It really is fun seeing Uranus's moons nearly 150m km away, especially when you realise that the largest of them, Titania, only has a diameter of ~1,576 km. Miranda, which is the smallest of the 5 main moons and which I have yet to capture, is not much more that a piece of space rock at a mere ~472 km, about 3/4rs the north to south dimension of England.

22 minutes ago, Kon said:

I will message you regarding the rings. But more data are necessary. Unless you can see Miranda, the rings will be even harder.

So what if I just stack a higher % from that 15m SER?

14 minutes ago, neiil phillips said:

Excellent Geoff similar to what i got years ago. With a 12" Newtonian. Some banding Showing quite clearly

Thanks Neil,

As Kostas commented, it was very clearly seen in the IR image, so here is a crop to show it.

1 hour ago, Kon said:

Excellent image. Your Uranus IR alone that you have shown me is one of the best out there with the polar hood really distinct.

Your next aim under good seeing are the rings. 😉

Thanks Kostas,

I only got this far because of you excellent guidance, thank you. I did keep stretching the IR image to see if any hint of the rings was there, but nothing. I really have no clue what I'd need to do to capture them, is it longer duration SER, faster or slower capture speed, different gain, etc., etc.

3 hours ago, Pete Presland said:

Superb capture Geof, great to see the Polar hood and moons. Was this at the Native FL ?

Thanks Pete, effectively yes, almost native FL, but I do still have the ADC in train (mainly because I've got everythinf dialled in as is), so the rig is operating at between F12-F13 rather than the C14's native F11 (which with a moving mirror for focus is never really F11 anyway).

7 hours ago, orion25 said:

Great work, Geof! I'm happy just to see the little blue-green disc in my scope. I've actually taken some cool shots of Uranus with my DSLR when it was in conjunction with other planets, but, of course, no detail could be seen. I could get a hint of its color though.

Thanks Reggie,

The only previous time I've captured Uranus's moons was with a DSLR camera back in 2014. https://www.astrobin.com/136156/

As the capture notes show that was using DSO capture techniques of nearly 3/4 hour in 3m exposures. Of course Uranus itself was completely overexposed and saturated white.

2 hours ago, Pete Presland said:

Terrific set of images

Thanks Pete.

6 minutes ago, Paul M said:

Last night and tonight turned out to be spectacularly clear, though last night wasn't forecast to last. So I've been watching Uranus and it's moons on SkySafari for a few days.... drooling. And in the back of my mind is a vague idea of making a short animation showing, hopefully, some orbital motion over, maybe 6 hours or so. Right now is the window of maximum accessibility from my back yard.

I don't have the gear or skill to make any realistic attempt on the disc, but I do have some experience of stacking on over exposed planets to reveal their satellites

Sadly, this evening the flesh was weak and the clock was way ahead of me.

I hope that you do it, would be great to see it 👌

Thanks Paul, this was in the early hours of this morning, actually the capture stradelled midnight, with a central timestamp of 00:05am. As you probably saw on Sky Safari, Ariel is now on the other side of Uranus between Oberon and Umbriel. I was going to head out again, but it was cloudy, so I'm enjoying a glass of red wine instead 🍷

After a lot of encouragement by Kostas @Kon,  I'm pleased to share with you my first image of Uranus showing both it's polar hood and surrounded by 4 of it's moons.

This is an IR-RGB image, with the best 5000 frames from a 15m SER captured at 30ms provising all the detail. It's applied as a luminance layer to the best 2000 frames froma a 5m colour SER also captured at 30ms.

As usual for my recent planetary images, this was captured with the ASI462MC camera through my C14 XLT.

1 hour ago, yelsac said:

Geof love the detail especially on the ir, methane looks interesting to,really nice 👍

Thanks. Yes, the IR was so sharp that I had to dial back my normal processing a couple of times. As you say, the methane band is interesting, but I'm still learning that filter.

3 minutes ago, Ibbo! said:

Very nice.

Thanks Steve

43 minutes ago, Kon said:

These look fantastic. Ganymede looks excellent. A lot of details all around and excellent processing.

The current CH4 settings seem to be working and you start pulling nice details rather than just banding. Which filter are you using?

Thanks Kostas, I am using the ZWO CH4 filter that came with the camera - not sure what bandwidth that is. EDIT: it looks like it has a bandwidth of 20nm centred on 890nm.

Another night here of good seeing allowed me to capture 3 different channel (RGB, IR & CH4) views of Jupiter with GRS, plus for a change a wider FOV colour image showing Jupiter with 2 of it's moons, which are Europa to the left and Ganymede, showing some surface features, to the right..

Usual equipment - C14, ASI462MC and ADC.

I'm still learning how to capture and process CH4 data, this one being a derotated stack of TIFFS for best 60% from each of 7x2m SERs at 100ms (10fps).

Thanks for looking.