Uranus moons

[Cosmic Geoff]

On 22 Oct I had a go at EEVA with the moons of Uranus, using my CPC800 and the ASI224MC (and flip mirror)

The image with about 5 sec exposure looked exciting, with several little dots in a line around Uranus's overexposed blob.  But when I analysed it later I found that I had imaged several 13th mag. background stars, and noted Oberon as a definite ID and Ariel as possible.  The seeing was bad.

The moons are clearly within the range of this setup, so I will try again sometime and see if I can secure a set of stackable images.  The Sharpcap live stacking wouldn't work on this occasion.

I needed Calsky to identify and eliminate the background stars, but it unhelpfully notes the moons as 'beyond the range of amateur telescopes.'  The Sky & Telescope tool identified the moons.

[Mike JW]

Hi Geoff, Your set up should easily get the moons. Personally I favour doing short 1 to 2 second exposures and stacking.

The free software WinJUPOS will show you where the moons are for planets.

Good luck,

Mike 

17 hours ago, Cosmic Geoff said:

 

I needed Calsky to identify and eliminate the background stars, but it unhelpfully notes the moons as 'beyond the range of amateur telescopes.'  The Sky & Telescope tool identified the moons.

Sky & Telescope needs to define what it means by amateur telescope - I have seen 3 of them in a 20" Dob.

[stevewanstall]

I took this image on the same night (not EEVA though, 9.25 SCT with modded Canon 500D, 10 s exp , I think). The Sky and Telescope tool showed where the main moons should be. Apparently Umbriel and Ariel are often lost in the glare of the planet.

 

[Cosmic Geoff]

Here's my not very good image, with the identifiable blobs marked.  This image is the 'right' way up, non-reversed.  Note that with a SCT if the camera is not looking through a diagonal the image will not be mirror-reversed.  Some of the objects in Stevewanstall's image are stars, others are moons.

 

Edited October 24, 2019 by Cosmic Geoff

[Mike JW]

Well done. You are inspiring me to give this a go with my set up. 

Mike

[Cosmic Geoff]

Another effort, on 24 Oct.  This time I made a stack of 100 images, which gives a slightly sharper result and (on the imaging laptop) I could see four moons and no interfering stars. Moons identified with the Sky & Telescope tool. Image non-inverted.

Taken with CPC800, ASI224MC (and flip mirror).

Edited October 26, 2019 by Cosmic Geoff