Uranus activity - IRRGB

[Lucas_M]

Hi all,

This is my third Uranus capture this season. I am much happier with this result.

The seeing helped a lot and the sky quality was favorable.

This image is the result of 5 de-rotated videos on Winjupos, all captured with IR742 filter. The result was used as luminance in the composition. RGB came from a normal color capture.

Following the images of other friends, we can notice the atmospheric activity on the planet. It seems to be changing every week. Many changes can still happen until the opposition.

 

Lucas Magalhaes

[Kokatha man]

Hi Lucas - you've certainly captured the NP region brightening & "perhaps" indications of the NP collar that appears in some images (including our own) over time, although disputed by others - but I'm afraid that there is no <"atmospheric activity on the planet. It seems to be changing every week. Many changes can still happen until the opposition.">

Apart from one image from last year (an amateur using the 60" Mt. Wilson scope) & a very contentious "confirmatory" image afterwards by another AA'er, there has been no confirmed amateur images of any "atmospheric activity" (ie, bright storm spots) since 2014 - which we & a few other AA'ers were fortunate enough to capture at the time.

All the rest (darker mottling) is noise - apart from the fact that that region (NTr/Tz etc zone) is darker than the NP region.

But it is still a good capture outcome regardless!

[Pete Presland]

Interesting discs, you do seem to have captured the Polar region as @Kokatha man has said. i think it is worth trying to see if you can stretch the images to see if you can see any moons. You will be able to judge what you have captured easier, particularly the Polar region position. 

[Lucas_M]

Hi @Kokatha man!

Thank you for sharing your point of view! It sure is valuable to me. I really agree with you that it's no simple task to detect any detail on the farther gaseous planets. I didnt think that was likely to happen. But just because it's hardware doesn't mean it's impossible, doesn't It? 😀

What most intrigued me was the comparison i made with images from other aps and the details are still similar. Would different scopes, cameras and sampling result a noise in images producing similar details? I'm thinking about this 🤔

Of course the layers were well stretched post processing to highlight the stains. They reached brighter, but it is a signal that belongs to the original image.

Uranus and Neptune are not so famous targets  between amateurs (as Jupiter and Saturn) and there is certainly much to be discovered yet. What is the real capacity of our setup today? 

Until recently we did not believe it would be possible to capture the Uranus ring, but now we know it's possible.

I will try to make some GIF to certificate the rotation of the details along with the planet (just like Niall has already made). It will not be an easy task, but we can try. If the they keep freeze or unatural movement, it's only noise.

Let's wait for some Hubble image during the opposition. This can solve some of our questions.

Anyway, i liked your points. Thank you!

Best regards!

Lucas

[Lucas_M]

Thank you @Pete Presland! 😀

The strech was done and It was usefull to me helping the Winjupos measurement using the moons. This final image is North up, both IR and IR-RGB.

😉

Lucas M.

[Kokatha man]

8 hours ago, Lucas_M said:

Hi @Kokatha man!

 

Uranus and Neptune are not so famous targets  between amateurs (as Jupiter and Saturn) and there is certainly much to be discovered yet. What is the real capacity of our setup today? 

Best regards!

Lucas

Quite incorrect Lucas - the well-publicised & enduring Equatorial storms on Neptune which were widely announced as being discovered by the Keck telescope team on Mauna Kea were actually discovered by Pat & myself over 2 weeks before the Keck team made their "discovery"..! :rofl:

See https://britastro.org/node/10860 for confirmation of this - we were credited in the final Keck paper with "being the first to actually observe this storm" with the added comment that we were "unaware of its' importance" which I guess is always going to be part of the deal when professional reputations etc are there to be made or enhanced...but we did think it sufficiently important to alert the BAA for them to release that eBulletin (#977) at the time...& we did receive acknowledgements in subsequent publications as well as had our work acknowledged in earlier prestigious papers..."aaah!" the lot of us AA'ers..!

Just go & tour our website & specifically this page to scroll through the many images & animations of Neptune over the last few years https://momilika.net/WebPages/Neptune2015_2017Pics.htm 

On the point I'm afraid I have to be quite clear that there is no suggestion of atmospheric details in your Uranus image - the one sure way for an amateur to confirm that they have indeed picked up such phenomena on one of the Ice Giants is to take multiple captures over a timespan & create an animated gif that displays repetitive & sequential motion of any atmospheric features - which must of course also be in accordance with the rotational direction wrt the planet image's orientation: unless you can do this the best one can say is there is a "possibility" something on the disk might be more than a mere artefact...but as I said unless you can do so it fails the acid-test. (especially as there appears to be no other images from anyone else suggesting they might be corroborated...)

In 2015 we did in fact pick up a storm spot in Neptune's far southern region along with other storms...these other storms were all corroborated by other AA imagers' captures but as it turned out the HST was also imaging Neptune at around the same time as us - & they also picked up this southern feature..!

This became part of a presentation at that year's Planetary Scientists' Convention in Washington DC...

So you see that the quote I have included in this post you made is quite incorrect - as an imaging team who are just 2 people amongst quite a few who constantly image the Ice Giants I always like to make sure that other AA'ers are at least informed of the quite valuable work that AA'ers do on these 2 planets..!