Am looking forward to tomorrows occultation, the weather forecast for here is pretty good, winds abating, calming jetstream and supposedly clear skies for the evening.
As you can see if your in Eastern states non DSav now , ADD 10HRS to UTC... the Saturn Occultation will be not long after sunset here in Sydney..
And dont forget the Persieds meteor shower maxing on 14th August.
Bigjoe
Last edited by bigjoe; 11-08-2019 at 06:31 PM.
Reason: Adding word
Setting up tonight if it's clear in Sydney west. Trying to a long FL shot of it with the CN-212 and a ZWO-120MM. I did a widefield of the last one in 2014 but want to get up close this time.
Anyone had advice using sharpcap on this? I'm thinking saving SER 16bit files then make master frames from them then using the resulting frames in a small animation / timelapse.
Or am I better off just shooting a continuous video?
Also when using SER I noticed a 8bit or 16bit option. Defaults to 8bit. Worth going to 16bit? There is a significant difference in luminosity between the moon limb and Saturn so the more dynamic range the better?
Will be shooting a continuous video of the disappearance and reappearance , should be about 1 minute each using an ZWO290mc. Then later extract individual frames to maybe make a gif as well as some single frames.
Correct me if my calcs are way off but from 1st contact to disappearance should take about 45 seconds and similar for 3rd contact to full reappearance.
Will be shooting a continuous video of the disappearance and reappearance , should be about 1 minute each using an ZWO290mc. Then later extract individual frames to maybe make a gif as well as some single frames.
Correct me if my calcs are way off but from 1st contact to disappearance should take about 45 seconds and similar for 3rd contact to full reappearance.
Oh wow! You're right. Just checked again. Not much time for single frames.
Just did a simulation with Stellarium and the times seem to be twice as long from 1st contact to disappearance and similar for reappearance, about 1'30". Could add up to a few more frames than I first thought but it's not an every day event. Weather is looking favourable with a calm jetstream too.
I'll miss the first part. My Eastern horizon is hidden by the house. But I'll have plenty of time to see the reappearance. Is it better to use an IR filter?
Setting up tonight if it's clear in Sydney west. Trying to a long FL shot of it with the CN-212 and a ZWO-120MM. I did a widefield of the last one in 2014 but want to get up close this time.
Wow Marc – the link to the Vimeo animation blew my mind. That is the BEST Moon/Saturn animation I have ever seen, by far. The detail and clarity of the Moon along with a correctly exposed Saturn was superb. The detailed inset frames for the ingress and egress really put the icing on the cake.
I’m not sure than anything can top that, so I may just kick back, relax and observe it with my eyes, if I can find an eyepiece that is.
I set up the Mewlon 210 with ASI224MC and the Moon/Saturn just cleared the trees and I managed to grab a few AVI's.
Seeing the rings "disappear" as they passed behind the lunar limb, with the very bright illuminated portion of the Moon slowly creeping across the frame, was quite lovely.
I set up the Mewlon 210 with ASI224MC and the Moon/Saturn just cleared the trees and I managed to grab a few AVI's.
Seeing the rings "disappear" as they passed behind the lunar limb, with the very bright illuminated portion of the Moon slowly creeping across the frame, was quite lovely.