A Good Night for Uranus and Neptune!

[orion25]

A clear night sky and lots of free time were a recipe for a satisfying night of observing and imaging with my Mak. My imaging targets were the freshly opposed Uranus and its more distant cousin Neptune. A trick I use to find Uranus is to star hop from Hamal to Sheratan in Aries to Eta Piscium and Omicron Piscium in Pisces. Uranus is just above Omicron. This is a single 2 second exposure at ISO1600: 

Neptune was a little trickier to image as I only had the viewfinder on the scope to guide me and Neptune was undetectable through the camera. I had to point the scope in the general area that I knew Neptune was in, using Lambda Aquarii as a guidepost, and I took several test shots to look for familiar star patterns. But, I got it, using a 10 second exposure time at ISO1600:

 

Had a great night imaging and star chasing, and even saw an Orionid before all was said and done!

Clear skies to all,
Reggie

[tooth_dr]

Very nice Reggie. This is the closest I’m getting to seeing anything due to the weather so thanks for sharing 

[RT65CB-SWL]

33 minutes ago, tooth_dr said:

Very nice Reggie. This is the closest I’m getting to seeing anything due to the weather so thanks for sharing 

Same here! I have 'wall to wall' cloud here in the Thames Valley!  

[tooth_dr]

‘Storm’ Brian is battering us here at present.

[Paul73]

Great colours Reggie.

[orion25]

7 hours ago, tooth_dr said:

Very nice Reggie. This is the closest I’m getting to seeing anything due to the weather so thanks for sharing 

Thanks. I hope your sky clears, soon, tooth_dr. And when it does, take full advantage of it! 

[PeterCPC]

Nice. I have been wanting to get my C9.25 on Neptune but it's just permanent cloud cover here.

Peter

[orion25]

21 hours ago, Paul73 said:

Great colours Reggie.

Thanks, Paul. I bet you can get some cracking views with that dob!

[orion25]

13 hours ago, PeterCPC said:

Nice. I have been wanting to get my C9.25 on Neptune but it's just permanent cloud cover here.

Peter

Thanks, Peter. I would love to see how Neptune would look in a C9.25!

[orion25]

22 hours ago, tooth_dr said:

‘Storm’ Brian is battering us here at present.

Oh no! Sending you positive vibes to send ol' Brian on his way so you can back out under the stars 

[tooth_dr]

Thanks Reggie 

[Grotemobile]

Very good Reggie. . What sort of Mag was that taken @ , to get the pictures. Just wondering if

I could get that , with a webcam.

[Hayduke27]

Great images!

[astroavani]

A nice job on an object difficult to fit into a  not dedicated camera!

[orion25]

On 10/23/2017 at 09:13, Grotemobile said:

Very good Reggie. . What sort of Mag was that taken @ , to get the pictures. Just wondering if

I could get that , with a webcam.

Thanks. I took the pictures at prime focus, and my Nikon camera zoomed out is 18mm. The focal length of my scope is 1540mm, so that would make this about 86 magnification. You should be able to easily get pictures with your webcam.

[orion25]

2 hours ago, astroavani said:

A nice job on an object difficult to fit into a  not dedicated camera!

Thanks, Avani. Star hopping made a difficult task so much easier! Especially on Neptune. No computer, no guiders, just my viewfinder and star charts.

[orion25]

3 hours ago, Hayduke27 said:

Great images!

Thanks, Alex. Neptune was a real challenge though. Star hopping helped a lot with both planets since I wasn't using a go-to or GPS to pinpoint their locations.

[Stu]

Very nice images Reggie, focus looks sharp.

Star hopping is great fun. I tend to use a mix of techniques, anything from goto through 'I know where it is so just point the scope there!' to star hopping.  

I do remember having to do a fairly epic 'hop' to find Uranus once, there were no visible stars anywhere near, so SkySafari came to my rescue and we hopped all the way there  

Anyway, great stuff and thanks for your post.

[Ouroboros]

Star hopping to find objects is good fun and all part of the challenge. Unles I'm using my GOTO mount I usually try and find a difficult object like Neptune with binoculars first. Stars very often look different visually than on a star chart or stelarium or whatever. So I familiarise myself with the arrangement of stars around the object before trying to find it though the telescope. 

[orion25]

15 hours ago, Stu said:

Very nice images Reggie, focus looks sharp.

Star hopping is great fun. I tend to use a mix of techniques, anything from goto through 'I know where it is so just point the scope there!' to star hopping.  

I do remember having to do a fairly epic 'hop' to find Uranus once, there were no visible stars anywhere near, so SkySafari came to my rescue and we hopped all the way there  

Anyway, great stuff and thanks for your post.

Thanks, Stu. Focusing was another challenge. Without an autofocuser, I had to rely on my eye to get a pinpoint (or disc). So, I took several test shots to make sure everything was in focus and that my EQ drive was calibrated properly. Omicron Piscium and Lambda Aquarii are my friends 

[orion25]

14 hours ago, Ouroboros said:

Star hopping to find objects is good fun and all part of the challenge. Unles I'm using my GOTO mount I usually try and find a difficult object like Neptune with binoculars first. Stars very often look different visually than on a star chart or stelarium or whatever. So I familiarise myself with the arrangement of stars around the object before trying to find it though the telescope. 

I also like to familiarize myself with the sky, especially before trying to image. And you are right, stars (and other celestial objects) can look and be positioned different from star charts and such. Omicron Piscium made finding Uranus a breeze, and Lambda Aquarii greatly simplified finding Neptune.

[Dave In Vermont]

Geeze - how'd I miss this up 'til now?

Great stuff, Reggie! I'll be adding these to my Munsell-files I'm compiling. More on this later and over the pond. You've got the blue down in both of these this time - to my eyes.

Pouring up here in Podunk, hope you're faring better!

Dave

[orion25]

1 hour ago, Dave In Vermont said:

Geeze - how'd I miss this up 'til now?

Great stuff, Reggie! I'll be adding these to my Munsell-files I'm compiling. More on this later and over the pond. You've got the blue down in both of these this time - to my eyes.

Pouring up here in Podunk, hope you're faring better!

Dave

You didn't miss much, Dave. They're the same images as over at AC. Thanks for chiming in. Clear, cool skies down here right now. I've been getting in some serious planetarium time in, too. It's got to clear up your way some time soon, I hope! BTW, I love the Munsell chart!

Reggie

[PeterCPC]

We finally had a clear night here last night (although the Moon was at 68%) so I had a go at Uranus and Neptune with the C9.25 and ASI224. The results look the same. I only managed to get the ASI to run at about 1fps in Sharpcap even with a USB3 connection. The washed out sky did not help much. The atmosphere was a bit turbulent as well. The first is Neptune (believe it or not).

Peter

[orion25]

2 hours ago, PeterCPC said:

We finally had a clear night here last night (although the Moon was at 68%) so I had a go at Uranus and Neptune with the C9.25 and ASI224. The results look the same. I only managed to get the ASI to run at about 1fps in Sharpcap even with a USB3 connection. The washed out sky did not help much. The atmosphere was a bit turbulent as well. The first is Neptune (believe it or not).

Peter

Even with a washed out sky these are some great colorful images. They look almost the same, Neptune a bit bluer. Thanks for posting these, Peter!