Saturn, Jupiter & the Moon 07/07/23

[PeterStudz]

Taken me a while to post  and I wasn’t sure if I should do it all in one post, as an observation report… but here goes.

I noticed that the forecast was for a clear night and that the jetstream was well out of the way, so I decided to wake up early (2:30am) on the Friday morning even though it was a school night.

Saturn was above the moon which did create a some glare. Still, the seeing was very good and I could make out the Cassini Division towards the tips even at x375. Maybe pushing it a little but it’s the first time I’ve viewed Saturn at that power and it hasn’t been a wobble fest.  I could also see a thin but strong ring shadow, plus banding on the disc. And things improved as it got higher, although the increasing light didn’t help with contrast. I went back and forth between the moon, which looked lovely, and Saturn until Jupiter appeared between two trees.

By this time the sky was noticeably lighter. On Jupiter the four moons were strung out in a line. And banding easily visible. Between 4-4:30am I took some pictures and video with my phone. By this time it was obviously getting light, so not ideal and colour contrast wasn’t great. However, I could see that Jupiter is going to potentially be great this year. A really fun morning, although it took days for me to fully recover from the lack of sleep!

Skywatcher 200p Dob on DIY EQ platform. iPhone 14 Pro fixed to eyepiece with a no-brand smartphone adapter. Saturn using a 3.2mm BST StarGuider. Video (Saturn & Jupiter) 4K at 60fps. All editing on the phone, Planets stacked using the VideoStack app on the phone. Moon a single shoot in RAW.

Saturn. The rings are much tighter this year. Hard to visually make out the Cassini Division. I’m sure details and colours will be better when Saturn is aroun d in an actual dark sky. Interesting comparing to an iPhone 12 capture from 2021.

 

 

Jupiter with Io. Hard to capture details/colours as it was so getting light. I attempted a double exposure in order to get a capture of all four moons. Amazes me how far from the planet they can be!

 

Moon, single shot in RAW format.

 

Edited July 20, 2023 by PeterStudz

[PeterStudz]

On the train today I did another Jupiter. This one is a bit more ‘subtle’. I think I went a tad too far with the first attempt!

 

[AstroNebulee]

Absolutely wonderful images and report. Even though I've a 90mm mak I'm looking forward to viewing and imaging Saturn and Jupiter. 

Lee 

[PeterStudz]

17 hours ago, AstroNebulee said:

Absolutely wonderful images and report. Even though I've a 90mm mak I'm looking forward to viewing and imaging Saturn and Jupiter. 

Lee 

Thanks Lee, I look forward to seeing your images. Although I know it was especially interesting seeing the arc that Jupiter was taking - it’s going to be significantly higher in the sky this year and potentially very good! Exciting stuff, let’s hope that the weather improves.

I’m not a morning person but it was nice packing up to the dawn chorus. For me astronomy is about the whole event, more than just looking through the eyepiece/taking pictures. 

[AstroNebulee]

1 hour ago, PeterStudz said:

Thanks Lee, I look forward to seeing your images. Although I know it was especially interesting seeing the arc that Jupiter was taking - it’s going to be significantly higher in the sky this year and potentially very good! Exciting stuff, let’s hope that the weather improves.

I’m not a morning person but it was nice packing up to the dawn chorus. For me astronomy is about the whole event, more than just looking through the eyepiece/taking pictures. 

Yes Jupiter will be much higher this year and going to be pretty amazing to observe and image. I can't wait for it. I totally agree with you about the whole aspect of astronomy, it's just about being outside connecting with something much greater than mind can comprehend and connecting with nature to which I find pretty amazing whilst sat there listening to the birds roosting, owls, badgers, foxes, hedgehogs and bat's. Just something so peaceful and mindful, the best thing about astronomy indeed. 

Good luck for your future endeavors. 

Lee 

[IB20]

Saturn is such an incredible hard target! Tried tonight at low altitude with the 76mm, hand held video and with the planet stack app. Not quite as good as the 8” dob…

[Stu]

Excellent report and images @PeterStudz, and enjoyable read 😀👍. You certainly seem to have cracked stacking on your phone; how long are the clips that you stack? Thanks

[PeterStudz]

15 hours ago, IB20 said:

Saturn is such an incredible hard target! Tried tonight at low altitude with the 76mm, hand held video and with the planet stack app. Not quite as good as the 8” dob…

Handheld? - I don’t think I’d be able to do that! A single shot yes but not a video.

Edited July 26, 2023 by PeterStudz

[PeterStudz]

9 hours ago, Stu said:

Excellent report and images @PeterStudz, and enjoyable read 😀👍. You certainly seem to have cracked stacking on your phone; how long are the clips that you stack? Thanks

Thanks! I do enjoy seeing what the phones can do.

For the Saturn above it was 12 seconds. The latest VideoStack app is much more stable and I’m able to get it to take/us longer videos. Although I often find that anything more than 10 seconds doesn’t give much of an advantage. That might be something to do with the video quality from these small devices. Doing some basic editing of the video before trying to stack often seems to help. An EQ platform obviously allows longer videos and time to play with settings before pressing the shutter. 

The conditions (good seeing) and the quality of the video you take makes the most amount of difference. Eg using Saturn as an example - if you can make out the Cassini Division in your initial video (it’s not easy now due to the angle of the rings) then you know you’ve got something decent. 

With the processing it’s easy to go too far and over sharpen your subject. And a small phone screen doesn’t help. So looking on a larger screen, like a tablet, can bring up and show things that haven’t quite worked. 

[PeterStudz]

PS - I’ve also found that using a magnifying a bit above what looking by eye through an eyepiece suggests can give better results. Maybe the stacking is helping here. 

[wesdon1]

On 21/07/2023 at 19:35, PeterStudz said:

On the train today I did another Jupiter. This one is a bit more ‘subtle’. I think I went a tad too far with the first attempt!

 

@PeterStudz Amazing images here Peter. And you only used an iphone on a dob!? Imagine what you will achieve with a modest planetary camera! Awesome! 

 

On 20/07/2023 at 10:46, PeterStudz said:

Taken me a while to post  and I wasn’t sure if I should do it all in one post, as an observation report… but here goes.

I noticed that the forecast was for a clear night and that the jetstream was well out of the way, so I decided to wake up early (2:30am) on the Friday morning even though it was a school night.

Saturn was above the moon which did create a some glare. Still, the seeing was very good and I could make out the Cassini Division towards the tips even at x375. Maybe pushing it a little but it’s the first time I’ve viewed Saturn at that power and it hasn’t been a wobble fest.  I could also see a thin but strong ring shadow, plus banding on the disc. And things improved as it got higher, although the increasing light didn’t help with contrast. I went back and forth between the moon, which looked lovely, and Saturn until Jupiter appeared between two trees.

By this time the sky was noticeably lighter. On Jupiter the four moons were strung out in a line. And banding easily visible. Between 4-4:30am I took some pictures and video with my phone. By this time it was obviously getting light, so not ideal and colour contrast wasn’t great. However, I could see that Jupiter is going to potentially be great this year. A really fun morning, although it took days for me to fully recover from the lack of sleep!

Skywatcher 200p Dob on DIY EQ platform. iPhone 14 Pro fixed to eyepiece with a no-brand smartphone adapter. Saturn using a 3.2mm BST StarGuider. Video (Saturn & Jupiter) 4K at 60fps. All editing on the phone, Planets stacked using the VideoStack app on the phone. Moon a single shoot in RAW.

Saturn. The rings are much tighter this year. Hard to visually make out the Cassini Division. I’m sure details and colours will be better when Saturn is aroun d in an actual dark sky. Interesting comparing to an iPhone 12 capture from 2021.

 

 

Jupiter with Io. Hard to capture details/colours as it was so getting light. I attempted a double exposure in order to get a capture of all four moons. Amazes me how far from the planet they can be!

 

Moon, single shot in RAW format.

 

@PeterStudz Amazing images here Peter, and all done with just a smartphone! Imagine how good your works will be with a modest planetary camera!? I am really looking forward to imaging Jupiter and Saturn this year, especially Jupiter because it's the highest in night sky it's been for years. Also I bought a ZWO ASI 224MC planetary camera a few weeks back, so I'll use that for planetary imaging. I just wish this dreadful weather would go away pete! LOL

Wes

[IB20]

1 hour ago, PeterStudz said:

Handheld? - I don’t think I’d be able to do that! A single shot yes but not a video.

Yeah, think I’m going to try the Move Shoot Move phone holder at some point. The seeing wasn’t great last night so I’ll give it a few more tries and ramp the mag up. I find the Videostacker struggles over 5-6 seconds capture, but will persevere. Could even try my 8” dob at some point when it’s better placed.

[IB20]

Saturn tonight with a stacked 13 second video using the MSM holder through the 4” Starwave EDR. Magnification was 178x, probably need higher and going to have to try it on the 8” dob. Image for the video is rock solid though with the holder.

What video apps do you recommend @PeterStudz, resolution seems a bit low with Nightcap.

 

Edited October 21, 2023 by IB20

[PeterStudz]

Hi @IB20, I’ve been very busy recently so haven’t posted on here for a while. But I have been messing around with telescope and smartphone so maybe time to post some results.

The updated version of VideoStack is much more stable and I’ve been able to stack 120 second videos, although that’s probably going a bit far due to rotation and around 50-60 seconds seems to be fine. Now the app hardly ever crashes. Still, I haven’t got any/much better images of Saturn than the above. Probably due to seeing and I stopped for the time being, concentrating more on Jupiter which is obviously higher in the sky and is giving more interesting results. 

For video capture I just use the stock iPhone camera app. With video set to 4K at 60 fps. Adjusting exposure and brightness in the app and usually using the iPhone x2 zoom. One other thing I’ve found is when doing a capture is to use a magnification higher than seeing seems to suggest. Visually the planet will look “fuzzy” but the resulting video when stacked is often better. Why, I don’t know. Eg on Jupiter (sometimes Saturn too) I’ve used  a BST StarGuider 3.2mm with my 200p giving a silly magnification of x375. It shouldn’t work but it often does. Colours are often better too. I’ll post some images I’ve taken of Jupiter soon.