smerral

Cak done with the Altair Astro 60 EDF stopped down to 40mm and the  Lunt CaK B600.  DMK31 camera.
Ha is a 7 pane mosaic done with the double stacked Coronada PST and Altair GPcamV2 mono.
Seeing was not great, especially for the CaK.

Cak taken with the Altair Astro 60 EDF and Lunt CaK B600.
Ha taken with the double stacked PST.
Camera was the Altair GPcamV

Well I managed to capture Jupiter and Saturn either side of the conjunction but was clouded out on the day itself.

This from the 22nd with the C8 and Canon 1000D at prime focus.

Canon 1000D and Altair Astro 60 EDF + one image with the Canon 350D and 300mm zoom lens.

Jupiter and Saturn approach conjunction.

Mars imaged tonight at f.20 with RGB filters and enlarged 150%.  Scope was the Celestron 8 XLT and camera the Altair GPcam V2.

Imaged with the Altair Astro 60 EDF (+ Lunt CaK B600 diagonal for the calcium).  The Ha was done with the PST and is a mosaic of 7 panes.  Camera was the DMK 31.

Just a few of the sun from this morning.  Scope was the Altair Astro 102 ED-R and camera the DMK 31. Lunt CaK diagonal B600 was used for the CaK and Daystar Quark Chromosphere for the Ha.  Of course the sun is very low now, especially in the far north and the seeing is variable.  Nice to see some solar activity though!

Thanks for the comments!  :)  Yes maybe it is a bit fuzzy at that scale, but I find it easier to see the detail when it's resized.

Mars imaged last night with the C8 and Altair GPcam V2 mono and RGB filters and ADC. Imaged at 4000mm and enlarged 150%. After an unpromising start seeing became better than last time. 2000/8000 frames stacked and processed as RRGB.  Time was 22.30 UT.

Excellent image!

Mars, imaged last night with the C8 and Altair GPcam V2 using RGB filters. Shot at 4000mm and enlarged 200%. 2000/10000 frames stacked.

Good images! Yes I agree about the polar cap, much less visible on my image from last night too.

Thanks ED.

Mars last night with the C8 and Alair GPcam V2 mono and RGB filters. This best result comes from using the long pass red filter as luminance for RRGB. Imaged at f.20 and enlarged 200%. 2,500/10,000 frames stacked for each of RGB. ADC used.  Mare Cimmerarium dominates the disc right now.  Imaged 00:45 UT.

Thank you very much! I must say I'm surprised how well it turned out.  This OSC image came out much better than the RGB.  I've a suspicion there may have been  some condensation on the fiiters, as despite the good seeing there was a heck of a lot of moisture as the humidity settled out.

Well I had a session with Mars this morning. Set the alarm for 2 AM. It was worth it though, I did some RGB but here is a quick process of the image I took with the Altair GPcam colour. Scope was the C8 at f.20 and I used an ADC. 2500/10000 frames stacked. Enlarged 200%.

I was looking for the comet but it was too low behind some clouds, but some great NLCs.

22 hours ago, uhb1966 said:

@smerralDid you use filters? Best, U 

No filters for this one.

On 15/06/2020 at 15:45, The Admiral said:

Lovely rendition, and has been said before the core is nicely tamed.

These multi-bandpass filters seem to be gaining traction, how well do you rate the Altair? Can I ask what you are using to process please?

Ian

Thanks Ian.  Though I don't have a tremendous experience with refractors I would rate the Altair as excellent value for money, a really first class scope for wide field.  I have even less experience with quadband filters as I've never used any other but the Altair seems to do the job.  Although I don't suppose they will ever produce the fine contrast of true RGB imaging they do save time!  I'm very happy with the results I've got from mine.    As to processing,  I use Astro Pixel Processor and Photoshop.  It takes a bit of experimentation to bring out the colours of the different bands.

Thank you uhb 1966.

Thanks everyone.  I think my personal favourite is the Ptolemaeus image in the second set.  You can actually pick out every individual crater in  the crater chain to the left (catena davy), something that you can't really do in the similar image from the first set.

Thanks everyone!

Quote

Hi Smerral

You may have thought the seeing was not all that good, but...  those images are FANTASTIC!!!  For 8 inches of aperture I have seen nothing better, and I have seen a lot,  I don't know where you live, but I get conditions like this about every 5-10 years.

Can't find your earlier better results, would be interested if you can post a link,  Great work!

Cheers

Nick

Nick,  the seeing was indeed excellent, it's just that last time it was even better, probably the best I've ever experienced.  It did occur to me that this may be partly due to the lockdown and the reduced pollution from aircraft, though I have no proof of that of course.  I live in Caithness in the far north of Scotland and whilst we don't get as many clear nights as some parts when it's  clear it IS clear, Bortle 2-3 at least.  Funnily enough I can't find my previous post either, so here are the ones I did on 2nd May.

 

Here are some images from 31 May when the moon was first quarter, taken with the C8  and Altair GPcamV2 mono.  The seeing wasn't quite as excellent as my last session but still pretty good.  There is some loss of contrast too as the sky was still quite light (it never does get completely dark at my location at this time of year.)  

Clavius.

Tycho and Maginus

Copernicus

Erastothenes

Aristoteles and Eudoxus

Plato and the Alpine valley

Goldschmidt and W Bond

Walter and Stofler

Moretus

Thanks for the comments.