Uranus and Neptune with iPhone 26/07/23

[PeterStudz]

An early morning of blue dots and other things! I was keen to try something as the forecast looked promising, but with it tuning poor again in the near future.

I took these during and towards the end of an early morning session in my garden in Southampton. At the time I had no intention of looking at these two planets. The intention was to view Saturn, Jupiter and a few other targets before sunrise. However, to begin with seeing was a bit iffy. So after some time on Saturn I took a look at M13 (surprisingly good given that it wasn’t completely dark), M2 (a bit underwhelming) and the owl cluster - NGC 457 - which really does look like an owl. Also takes light pollution well. 

Before Jupiter cleared my neighbours trees I decided to have a search for Neptune. Found it eventually which is a first for me. Crumbs, it’s small and faint! Even at high powers. Although I’m sure that it would be better if it had been darker and higher. I could only just make out that it wasn’t a star! And it had a blue, maybe slightly purplish colour. Tried to take a video with my iPhone. More of an exercise than anything else.

After that I thought of Uranus. A look at Jupiter showed that seeing had improved, although it was now near sunrise.  Uranus was far easier to find and although small not nearly as small and faint as Neptune. A nice and obvious disc with a pleasant almost luminous blue-green colour. A quick video, which was far easier than Neptune, and back to observing. Really enjoyed viewing Uranus as the sun came up. I was surprised how long after sunrise that Uranus was still visible. And nice/unusual against a lighter early morning sky.

For a blue dot I’m pleased with the Uranus capture. Although I’ll look for it visually I’m not sure I’d bother imaging Neptune again. 

Skywatcher 200p Dob on DIY EQ platform. Southampton, Bortle 7. BST StarGuider 3.2mm, iPhone 14 Pro Plus on no-brand smartphone adapter. Image from a video using the stock camera app - 4K at 60fps. All processing/editing on the phone:- stacked on the phone using the VideoStack app, cropped & edited using the stock camera app, WaveletCam and Lightroom.

 

[Mandy D]

@PeterStudz That's pretty amazing. I've photographed Uranus several times with my 200P and captured Neptune just once, but nothing like the quality of images you got. I find them both to be difficult targets. Well done! Now I know what the 200P can do, I must try again.

[IB20]

Stunning colouration, superb yet again.