A crazy blast with the planets through out the week.

[WilliamAstro]

3rd August 2022

I went out at 10pm, aligned my telescope and finderscope to a star so it can be easy to align to an object. I used Auto Two Star alignment method with the Nexstar SLT+ remote and aligned to my first target, Saturn! Upon capturing data I took multiple runs of it and since I was very ambitious for it I also made it to imaging it's moons. The seeing was very good and I can easily take a grasp at the cassini division and banding around the planet.
Next I aligned my telescope to Jupiter and was able to see the cloud belts and it's beautiful storms and jetstreams racing along the planet's surface. I also managed to get a capture of Callisto in the FOV of my imaging which is a good photobomb. Seeing was very good as I can measly see the minor storms across the planet.
Next target was Mars as I aligned my telescope to that and was welcome with a red gibbous shaped disk and I could also see the maria of the planets surface. Seeing was very good although it had alot of turbulent intervals but the results came out beautifully.
Out of ambiguity I chose to align my scope next to Neptune and Uranus. Thanks to the help of my 6x30 finderscope I managed to get them on my camera sensor. I took 5 minute 100-500ms exposure at a gain of 100. Seeing was very good considering their apparent size in the sky
I stayed up til sunrise as the clouds began to roll in which made a beautiful scenery for me whilst I was finishing up from that night. It was fantastic and what made it better was the ice giants since they're hard to find due to their apparent size and magnitude in the sky.

Images:

First image is Callisto shown with Jupiter.

400x400 Resize

Saturn with it's moons (left to right), Dione, Tethys, Rhea & Titan. (You can even see the colour of Titan!)

2X Resize

2X Resize

2X Resize

Image of Mars and Uranus seen in the night sky taken with my Canon 600D and Canon EF 75-300mm f4-5.6 III. (Mars is the bright red disk that can be seen in the center and Uranus can be seen up north of Mars)

7th August 2022

For this night I chose to go out and experiment with my 3X Barlow, as the planets have improved in seeing I gave it a shot with that barlow lens. Three planets captured were Mars, Jupiter and Saturn. Unfortunately the seeing came out poor which moral to that is use the right barlow for better images. The more magnification from the barlow, Not only the more larger the image will be but the more blurry the image will get and atmospheric turbulence will be more apparent as well. So I chose to stick with 2X for serious planetary imaging but I am happy to use the 3X Barlow for experimental purposes. Also managed to get captures of Mars with the 2X Barlow

Images:

2X Resize

(2X Barlow)

2X Resize (2X Barlow)

8th August 2022

This night I decided to go barlowless to take a widefield animation sequence of Jupiter's rotations and it's moons orbit around the planets. Seeing was good considering that there was no additional magnification for the purpose of this sequence.

Moons from left to right: Ganymede, Europa, and IO.

10th August 2022

The last night for the week I spent the entire night til sunrise capturing Jupiter's rotation and IO appearing out of Jupiter. Mistakenly out of experiment I used the ADC and 2x Barlow through the threads which made the seeing decline but it is so much better when it is animated. I took Saturn and Mars too and the seeing for Jupiter is good but from the start the turbulence was apparent but improved overtime, Saturn is average since I didn't get much data out of it and the turbulence was worsening over time but amazingly I found Tethys from the short exposure data of it. Mars's seeing was average to good as your can see the mares and it's shape although the turbulence was tedious. My telescope dewed over the night but I used a dew heater to tackle it for the session which I forgot to bring with me at the startup. The moisture in the air was so rife my telescope before and after using the dew heater dewed over swiftly and my equipment looked like it had it been slightly rained on. Thankfully nothing was damaged.

Images:

Detection of Tethys (Small white blotch on the right of Saturn)

2X Resize

It has been a blast taking these and it can be very exhausting and takes alot of effort. I had to go through the moderately cold temperature whilst my equipment dewed over so I needed to use a dew heater for my telescope each night. It has been an amazing experience and having the patience and wait for the Earth to move where I can see them at an appropriate place and time. I will be looking forward to Saturn's opposition for this month which takes place at 27th August.
Feel free to ask questions, thank you all for feedback and also feel free to give advice to help me improve more along the way.

Telescope: Celestron Nexstar 127 SLT
Cameras: ZWO ASI120MC-S, Canon 600D
Lenses/Accessories: Svbony 2X Multi-Coated Barlow Lens, ZWO Atmospheric Dispersion Corrector, GSO 3X ED Barlow Lens, Svbony SV182 6x30 Finderscope, Canon EF 75-300mm f4-5.6 III, Canon EF-S 18-55mm
Software/Programs: FireCapture, SharpCap, Autostakkert!3, Registax V6, WINJUPOS, Sequator, Adobe Photoshop 2022

Cheers and clear skies!

William

Edited August 11, 2022 by WilliamAstro

[ONIKKINEN]

Magnificent set of images, especially the Jupiter animation from the 10th. This is a lot of work, must have been a terabyte of recordings!

[WilliamAstro]

3 minutes ago, ONIKKINEN said:

Magnificent set of images, especially the Jupiter animation from the 10th. This is a lot of work, must have been a terabyte of recordings!

I could have been half of a terabyte. I got 300 GB left of 1 TB after transferring it all to my hard drive.

[Kon]

Great set of images and write up. The animation is really great!

[morimarty]

A lovely montage of images William and a nice animation to go with them. Also well presented too.