SGL 2023 Challenge 10 - Planets and Special Events

[MartinB]

Jupiter has just gone past opposition but continues to be in a great position for imaging. Saturn is fading but there is a lot going on in the night sky at the moment including a forthcoming meteor shower,  the appearence of a comet and a lunar/Venus conjunction.  Far distant Uranus and Neptune are well placed.  Doubtless December and January will bring further opportunities.  Animations are welcome.  So keep your eyes peeled for information about what is going on in the  night sky and good luck!

Start date 1st November 2023

End date 31st January 2023

No entries will be accepted after this date.

 

As previously the winner and runners up will receive an SGL challenge mug showing their image along with a virtual medal-of-honour for their SGL signature.

Please post entries directly into this thread

To keep the thread manageable for the judges please do not post comments about entries, emoji reactions are welcome of course.

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RULES

All data must be captured and processed by you (no collaborative entries). 
Data must be captured during the challenge start & end dates. 
Multiple entries are allowed but please make a fresh post within the thread.
Multiple submissions of the same image, processed differently, will not be accepted.

[Kon]

Let's get the ball rolling here.

Uranus with northern polar hood.  15 min capture. Moons added as a second layer. Wavelets in Astrosurface. Captured at 2304 UTC (06/11/23). 8" Dob, manual tracking, asi462mm, IR pass filter (650) and 2.5xTV powermate. False colour added in Gimp. 

[astroavani]

On the few open nights, the vision has made any capture very difficult, so much so that I simply ignored and discarded the captures I take with the ASI 662MC in favor of the captures I took in Infrared with the ASI 290MM where at least I can obtain good details.
In this particular photo, I believe I managed to capture the brightest albedo point on Ganymede that corresponds to the crater Tros.

[sHighlander]

Taken mid September 2023
Skywatcher Skymax 150
Processed in AutoStakkert !

[Kon]

Io, Europa and Callisto alignment from 14th Nov (note: awful seeing and full on Jetstream). 8" Dob, manual, asi462mc, UV/IR cut, 2.5xTV powermate. 60 sec video to capture the perfect alignment. PIPI, as!3 and Astrosurface.

Edited November 16, 2023 by Kon

[maxchess]

Jupiter taken with an Ancient C14 on November 6th. ES 2x Focal extender, ASI553. Captured in Sharpcap. Processed in Autostakert, Astrosurface & Winjupos

[geoflewis]

Here's my Jupiter entry from 6 November 2023, just a couple of days past opposition. It shows Io now leading it's shadow across the planet's disc, whilst the GRS is starting to rotate out of view.

The data was captured with the ASI462MC through a C14, using an ADC.

[geoflewis]

Here is a late season Saturn captured on 1 Dec 2023 with the ASI462MC camera through the C14, with the ADC also in the image train. With Saturn more than 3 months past it's opposition on 27 August 2023, the shadow of Saturn's globe extends a fair way along the rings.

[geoflewis]

Also captured on 1 Dec 2023 with the ASI462MC, C14 and Astronomic IR742 Pro Planet filter, here is Uranus, showing it's 5 main moons and the northern polar hood. Colour data was captured with the same camera through an Astronomic L filter, instead of the IR filter. The moons were enhanced by masked stretching of the IR data to bring them out of the background, whilst not blowing out Uranus.

 

 

[scitmon]

Jupiter & Ganymede on 24th November, my first ever attempt at planetary lucky imaging.

[Nigella Bryant]

Jupiter 27th November 2023. C11, ZwoAsi 462mc, 2.5x powermate. Software used SharpCap4, Autostakker3, Photoshop CS2. 

[Kon]

Jupiter from the 25th and 30th November. 8" Dob, manual, asi462mc, 2.5x TV powermate, UV/IR cut filter.

   

[Kon]

Uranus with 5 main moons and polar hood (25th November). 8" Dob, asi462mm, IR pass (685nm), 2.5x TV powermate.  20min capture. From top and clockwise:  Oberon, Titania, Ariel, Umbriel and Miranda.

Edited December 27, 2023 by Kon

[Kon]

I am not sure if this qualifies under special events,  @MartinB can decide. ISS captured 2 days after its 25th launch anniversary (24th November).  Several modules are clearly visible, including Dragon (Space X), Progress and Soyuz. 8" Dob, manual, asi462mc, 2.5x TV powermate, UV/IR cut filter.

[Kon]

Venus clouds from the 17th November at daytime (1030UTC). False colour with UV and IR pass filters. 8" Dob, manual, asi462mm, IR and UV pass filters, 2.5x TV powermate. IR set to red, UV blue and synthetic green from a 50/50 UV/IR. 

[andrew63]

An image of a bright Geminid meteor I captured on the 15th December 23. Taken with an iPhone 12 on tripod with NightCap. 

 

[Nigella Bryant]

Uranus imaged on 15th November 2023, C11 plus Zwo Asi 462mc, 2,5x powermate, Software used Autostakker3, Registax6 for wavelets, colour tweaked in PS2

[Nigella Bryant]

Jupiter 14th November 2023, C11 plus Zwo Asi 462mc, 2.5x powermate. Software used Autostakker3, Registax6, WinJupos for de-rotation and colour tweaked in PS2.

 

 

Edited January 2 by Nigella Bryant

[Nigella Bryant]

Northern hemisphere produced from WinJupos from image taken on 27th November 2023. C11, Zwo Asi 462mc and 2.5x powermate. 

[IDM]

Weather has made planetary imaging all but impossible. This image was taken in a 30 minute window between clouds on the 4th of January 2024 and consists of 10  x 1 minute videos processed through, PIPP, Autostakkert, Registax and Winjupos befiore final processing in Astrosurface and GIMP. 

[John_D]

An animation of Jupiter and its moons. It's 30 frames, each produced from a 2 minute video and taken at 5 minute intervals. Ganymede then Europa pass in front of the planet followed by Io behind. Each frame is displayed for 200ms giving 5 fps for 6 seconds.

Video was captured using my TAL 2M 6" reflector, a 2x Barlow, an ASI120MC-S camera and ASIStudio running on a Linux laptop. Processing used PIPP, Autostackert3, Registax6 and GIMP.

[powerlord]

So, is this allowed ? I noticed on 18th Jan that Jupiter and the Moon could be framed in the same shot at 430mm with my 90ED and 0.8x reducer/flattener and asi2600.

Now obviously actually imaging both in the same shot is not exactly straight forward. I took some 10ms shots which unstretched show jupiter and the moon well, but none of Jupiter's moons and no stars - though the stretched imaged did have all the moons in it.

I also then used the asiair to shoot video of the moon and jupiter so I could lucky image process them later and composite them back into the image with a bit more detail.

Finally I had to get some stars - so the next night I went to the same place in the sky - no moon now, and jupiter in a difference place but I imaged 60 second subs for 30 mins to gather enough data for stars and any galaxies lurking around.

I then took out that jupiter from the stack, and popped the original frame back in with jupiter and the moon as it was on 18th. Finally I extracted the moons from the original night from the stretched image and popped them back around the original jupiter.

Finally I used the lucky imaged moon and jupiter to add a bit more detail into the original 10ms sub.

Last but not least, Jupiter being pretty hard to spot in the composition, I added a bit of the flaring from the original 10ms shot when stretched too to balance the frame and make it easier to spot Jupiter in there.

The clicky dance to full resolution one definitely required here. I like the fact it really shows the difference in apparent size in one composition. Last night I did the same with Uranus! A bit less impressive, but might post that too if this one is allowed.

stu

 

Edited January 21 by powerlord
slight edit to levels of moons, and replacing with PNG as jpeg was screwing up glare around jupiter

[AstroNebulee]

North Cornwall 5-12-23, I took a series of captures of Jupiter and a couple of moons to create an animation though missed a section. 

Taken with skywatcher SM90 on AzGti az mode with x2 Barlow. Zwo asi120mc-s. Still images processed with As4, registax and photoshop. Then added to make the animation created in Windows timelapse creator. 

Mainly 5000 frames on Jupiter . A few 10000 frames chucked in on Jupiter. Best 30% used in stacking. 

Quite amazed at the little Skywatcher Skymax 90mm power. 

Lee

Edited January 20 by AstroNebulee

[Aramcheck]

Not sure if this will be eligible - please ignore if it's not!

From the 14th Jan 2024, minor/dwarf planet (4) Vesta appeared about 1/2 deg away from M1-Crab nebula, so I got 120 x 60s subs, inbetween other on-going projects. During processing I discovered that there was also another much smaller asteroid (4299 WIYN) in the data, which was a neat coincidence.

Captured with SW 200p-ds, ZWO ASI 2600 MC-PRO & AZEQ6-GT-Pro with OAG + ZWO120mm guide, using APT+PHD2. Processed in Pixinsight. Bortle 7/8 skies from light polluted Leeds.

Because Vesta was very bright & had prominent difraction spikes, I used the linear data to superimpose Vesta onto the main image... 4299 WIYN however was very faint, so I did a separate 'comet-aligned' stack to get an image of the asteroid; and then used Pixel math to create a set of asteroid-only subs using the PSF centroids for rough alignment... However because PixelMath only works at a pixel level (doh!) I then had to do a dynamic alignment back to the original sub-frames to correct the asteroid position.

The main reason for picking this target was that my wife has a bit of meterorite which is a said to have come from Vesta... I didn't think it would take so long to process though!

Cheers
Ivor

 

[MartinB]

This challenge has now closed.  The results will be announce in about 2 weeks time