Well, the clouds around here mostly cleared away after midnight so set up the gear to get some videos of Mars if the seeing was good enough.
Didn't have to wait long for the newt to cool as the inside and outside temps were only a few degrees difference. Once balanced and polar aligned and tracking on Mars, upped the magnification to 250X and had the best visual ever of the planet. Actually seeing fine detail in the Hellas Basin and surrounds, not a rock solid view but enough steady glimpses to delight the eyes, even taking into account my aging vision.
Managed to gather videos' over an hour or so but the seeing seem to go off, partly because Mars was disappearing over the neighbours roof by then. Am processing the videos' at the moment and if anything worthwhile ensues, will post for critique or whatever.
Certainly glad I stayed up instead of giving up hope of getting some telescope time on Mars.
Not perfect here but if does look good with decent seeing for the first half of the night. Overcast right now but will try to set up later on if we don't get late showers.
Very good up here tonight. Mars is the best i have seen it this year. No wobbles, stars are solid no spikes approaching focus.or out. Even looking at Orion, still fairly low at midnight, it exhibited good pin point stars. No wind, no cloud. Guess that is the end of it, given the rain on the way.
Just packed up now. Seeing got pretty good after 1:00am. Clouds rolled in around 19:00 then cleared completely by 22:00. Then it was clear till the end. A little dewy but not cold and a very good night. I shot Mars in color and IR until 2:00am. Plenty to process.
Thanks for the alert . Finally have Ecos running on an Ubuntu SBC with VNC so I hope I can dither all night from the deck chair. Can only short out right?
Quote:
Originally Posted by multiweb
Tuesday night looks clear like a solid night so far in the forecast. Seeing not ideal but not too shabby either.
Still looking good for tonight. Fingers crossed. Last night was clear(ish) but surface wind was still a little high. I didn't bother. Seeing tonight is not crash hot but hey, after all this rain the mozzies need some fresh blood.
Go out and feed them. A bit cool for mozzies here but very clear and still.
I have the Rock 64 running and taking images in Ecos !
Amazed that it works. Guiding is good.
Well it's been excellent so far. Mozzies are behaving. It got too cold for them. Seeing really improved after 23:00. It was actually better than expected looking at the forecast. The sky was clear until 0:30 when high level haze picked up in places from the SW but not enough to be a real bother. Got heaps on Jupiter, Saturn, Mars both RGB and IR. Just transferring all the Mars stuff to my PC now then onto the moon.
You had a good night.
I had to pack up at 11 but I had a couple of hours added to the sculptor galaxy.
The moon did look good.
Quote:
Originally Posted by multiweb
Well it's been excellent so far. Mozzies are behaving. It got too cold for them. Seeing really improved after 23:00. It was actually better than expected looking at the forecast. The sky was clear until 0:30 when high level haze picked up in places from the SW but not enough to be a real bother. Got heaps on Jupiter, Saturn, Mars both RGB and IR. Just transferring all the Mars stuff to my PC now then onto the moon.
According to CFN ( GFS model ) tonight, Monday night and Tuesday night looks really good in Sydney
I’m set up with my 6”f6 newt for imaging the Helix over 2 or 3 nights before it gets to low in December
Enjoy a small window of clear , moonless nights after a month or so of ordinary weather for astronomy in Sydney
