6-planet night - 24th-25th July 2012

[King]

Thought I'd make use of the unusually clear, calm weather.

The outer planets required a lot of post processing for my fairly humble set up/location situation.

[fredster]

Excellent work. 4 really nice images.

Roll on August for a nice morning line up with Mercury added to the mix.

[eyepod]

Nice collection there King and from London skies, not an easy job ! I must have a go at Uranus and Neptune myself. I've just got hold of a telrad finder so hopefully there be a bit easier to find

Jason

[Andy6SE]

Shouldn't this be "7 planet night"? Can kind of see a third planet in your 3rd photo (earth ). Wouldn't wanna strip you of an extra planet!!

[AztecastroMcJ]

Nice collection

[King]

Thanks! I did consider taking telescopic shots of Mars and Saturn. I even had Saturn lined up but I could see they weren't going to be promising shots being rather low.

Shouldn't this be "7 planet night"? Can kind of see a third planet in your 3rd photo (earth ). Wouldn't wanna strip you of an extra planet!!

I did think of that but it could have been interpreted as trolling to get people in here to see Mercury. :/

I've just got hold of a telrad finder so hopefully there be a bit easier to find

I'm rather curious how that turns out. So far I've been using Stellarium to find them.

[Space Cowboy]

Great stuff! I especially like Venus.

[neil phillips]

Love the venus shot. very nice capture.

[suberman]

I love the shots of Neptune and Uranus! I wish more people were imaging these and seeing what we can get out of them.

[jflowers]

I love the shots of Neptune and Uranus! I wish more people were imaging these and seeing what we can get out of them.

+1 great shots of those 2

[Grotemobile]

What sort of mag, do you need to see

Uranus & Neptune.These pics are great.

Steve.

[KE400]

A really nice set of images, must have taken you all night, thanks for posting.

[htj]

The Venus is great. The gradient at the terminator vs. the sharp rim is just cool. Nice to see some of the lesser photographed planets as well.

[King]

Thanks for the encouraging comments!

Here're some from 27th July. I have a 3rd imaging source camera now (DMK 21 [618]) and this is its planetary debut. The mono images are taken with that and the colour ones with the DBK 21 [04] for comparison.

Neptune and Uranus are looking rather different tonight but they were considerably easier to see with the DMK 21 than with the DBK 21 so that must be good.

Now as to required magnification for outer planets I have a great resource for that: http://www.12dstring.me.uk/fov.htm

Simply input your telescope and camera and it will show you how they will appear with various barlow specifications (or lack of). The outer planets are really small [Neptune being about 1/4 arcsecond at the moment] so good magnification and aperture really come into play for those, as do dark clear skies. Regional climate plays a big part in whether binoculars suffice to view them, for example. The ones I put up here are blown up 200% and had been taken with a x2 barlow equipped. (For the record Venus is at actual size but I used a x3 barlow for that, and a x2 for Jupiter.)

Still very early for Jupiter, I shouldn't really be bothering yet.

As Neptune is approaching opposition I took some sneak peeks of the event with various programs:

In view of major moons: http://img17.imagesh...itioncelest.jpg

Stellarium ocular / Winjupos / 12dstring views: http://img688.images...eopposition.jpg

In view of minor moons and ring: http://img21.imagesh...sitionclose.jpg

Triton says "hi" (this one is not as viewed from Earth): http://img641.images...nopposition.jpg

The "really cool" shots were taken in Celestia. Fantastic free program, and yes you can disable tags by object-type.

[Clayton]

Nice work King

I really like Venus, Jupiter, and Neptune!

[King]

Had another go last night (29th) and other than Neptune refusing to show up on screen for some reason, it was a fair session. Particularly pleased with how the wide-field shot came out with two of Jupiter's moons showing and some interesting colours!

Jupiter came out a bit better this morning. Venus was okay though I don't think I surpassed the previous image.

Link to full size Canon shot (1500px): http://img507.images...ter29072012.jpg It was a nice surprise seeing all those stars show up because being dawn I couldn't see them.