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Old 06-12-2015, 07:53 PM
Dennis
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Uranus and satellites: Ariel, Miranda, Umbriel, Titania & Oberon

I thought I’d give the ASI174MM and Televue x2 Powermate a work out to see if I could record the elusive Uranian satellite Miranda, at mag 16.5, never further that 9 arc secs from Uranus.

Working at an efl of 4320mm (Tak Mewlon 180 F12) I succeeded, mainly due to the above average seeing conditions. The disc of Uranus is grossly overexposed in the raw stacked image from Autostakkert2! and was replaced with an RGB image recorded earlier. The enhanced and annotated images were then completed in CS6.

The image data was obtained from Sky Safari Pro 4 running on my iPad.

Uranus (mag 5.75) was discovered by William Herschel on March 13, 1781 and has a diameter of 51,118.0km and an apparent size of 3.6".

A search on the internet indicates that the name is derived from a figure from Greek mythology, from the Latinized version of the Greek god of the sky, Ouranos.

Located some 19.4 AU from my back garden, Uranus has 27 known natural satellites. The names of these satellites are chosen from characters in the works of Shakespeare and Alexander Pope. The five main satellites are Miranda, Ariel, Umbriel, Titania, and Oberon.

Name Mag PA° Sep"
Ariel 14.4 265 6.5
Miranda 16.54 357 8.3
Umbriel 15.0 334 17.7
Titania 14.0 119 18.6
Oberon 14.2 54 21.1

Only one spacecraft in the history of spaceflight has ever made a close approach to Uranus. NASA’s Voyager 2 zipped past Uranus in January, 1986, coming within 81,000 km of the surface of Uranus.

Uranus's rotation axis is nearly horizontal, as though the planet has been knocked on its side. With an axis tilt of about 97.7 degrees, Uranus rolls on its side as it orbits around the Sun.

Miranda was discovered in 1948 by astronomer Gerard Kuiper. Miranda is the smallest of the rounded satellites of Uranus. It also orbits the closest of the five larger moons. It is named after one of the characters in Shakespeare’s play, “The Tempest”.

Cheers

Dennis
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  #2  
Old 06-12-2015, 09:27 PM
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John K
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That's a great rendition Dennis!

Thought about adding a higher Barlow and trying to get some features on Uranus?

Clear skies,

John K.
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Old 06-12-2015, 10:20 PM
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awesome Dennis - just awesome
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  #4  
Old 07-12-2015, 05:34 AM
Dennis
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Originally Posted by John K View Post
That's a great rendition Dennis!
Thought about adding a higher Barlow and trying to get some features on Uranus?
Clear skies,
John K.
Thanks John, I appreciate your comments.

The Mewlon has an aperture of 180mm (7 inches) and I think that I’d probably require an instrument in the 10 to 12 inch class to pull any detail on Uranus. The M180 seems quite happy at F24 with the x2 Powermate, but when I tried an x4 Powermate (F40) the image was way too dim.

Cheers

Dennis


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Originally Posted by h0ughy View Post
awesome Dennis - just awesome
Thanks Dave, I appreciate your comments.

Cheers

Dennis
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Old 07-12-2015, 07:15 AM
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Dennis,
Excellent catch, well presented!
Well done.
What was the exposure you used for each frame??
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  #6  
Old 07-12-2015, 04:27 PM
Dennis
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Dennis,
Excellent catch, well presented!
Well done.
What was the exposure you used for each frame??
Hi Ken

Thanks, I appreciate your comments.

Here is some data from the Firecapture logfile:

FireCapture v2.4 Settings
------------------------------------
Camera=ZWO ASI174MM
Date=051215
Start=210426.168
End=211123.400
Duration=417.232s
Frames captured=41
ROI=1024x768
Shutter=10.0s
Gain=300
USBTraffic=80
Gamma=50
HighSpeed=on
Limit=100 Frames
Sensor temperature=28.5 °C

The exposure was 10 seconds.

Cheers

Dennis
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Old 07-12-2015, 05:00 PM
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Picking up a 16 mag image in a 10sec sub is pretty good!
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  #8  
Old 07-12-2015, 05:42 PM
Dennis
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Originally Posted by Merlin66 View Post
Picking up a 16 mag image in a 10sec sub is pretty good!
Hi Ken

I understand that the ASI174MM chip (Sony IMX174 monochrome CMOS sensor) has a published Quantum Efficiency of 78% at its peak with a very low read noise of only 6e-.

My previous attempts had been with my SBIG ST2000XM which although cooled, has the Kodak KAI-2020M sensor with a QE of approx. 55% and typical Read Noise (rms) average of 7.6 e-.

This time, I also used a newly purchased Televue x2 Powermate (2” model from Bintel) and coupled with the good seeing, I managed to collect a few grains of light that heralded the position of Miranda.

It’s a pity that the position of the dim satellite was located in one of the spider diffraction spikes…

Cheers

Dennis

UPDATE:
I’ve just had a look at the aligned/stacked raw frame from Autostakert!2 and after applying Curves in CS6, I located two barely distinct clumps of light that match the positions of the following stars:
  • a Magnitude 17.32 star at RA (Topocentric) 01h 02m 39.73s: Dec (Topocentric) +06° 00' 33.20"
  • a Magnitude 17.04 star at RA (Topocentric) 01h 02m 40.29s: Dec (Topocentric) +06° 00' 10.95"
As displayed in The Sky X Pro with Catalog Identifier: NOMAD and Source Catalog: Nomad source:USNOB.

Impressive results for a 7" scope and webcam eh!

Cheers

Dennis

Last edited by Dennis; 07-12-2015 at 09:08 PM.
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  #9  
Old 08-12-2015, 08:30 PM
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A nice bit of science Dennis.
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Old 09-12-2015, 10:13 AM
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Nice one Dennis great demonstration of what the newer cmos chips can do in expert hands.
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  #11  
Old 09-12-2015, 06:51 PM
Dennis
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A nice bit of science Dennis.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Camelopardalis View Post
Nice one Dennis great demonstration of what the newer cmos chips can do in expert hands.
Thanks Derek and Dunk, I appreciate your comments.

Cheers

Dennis
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  #12  
Old 09-12-2015, 07:31 PM
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Nicely done, Dennis! I always think of Astronomy Domine when I hear Uranian moons mentioned
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  #13  
Old 10-12-2015, 09:14 AM
Dennis
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Nicely done, Dennis! I always think of Astronomy Domine when I hear Uranian moons mentioned
Thanks Rick, I appreciate your comments.

Just in case our readers haven’t hear of Pink Floyd:

The Piper at the Gates of Dawn (1967)
Pink Floyd
Pink Floyd’s first LP and the only LP that was made under the leadership of Syd Barrett. Almost all of the songs were written by Barrett. The title of the album comes from one of Barrett’s favourite books entitled: The Wind in the Willows by Kenneth Grahame.
Astronomy Domine
(Barrett) 4:12

Lime and limpid green, a second scene
A fight between the blue you once knew.
Floating down, the sound resounds
Around the icy waters underground.
Jupiter and Saturn, Oberon, Miranda
And Titania, Neptune, Titan.
Stars can frighten.


Blinding signs flap,
Flicker, flicker, flicker blam. Pow, pow.
Stairway scare Dan Dare who's there?
Lime and limpid green
The sounds surrounds the icy waters underground
Lime and limpid green
The sounds surrounds the icy waters underground.
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Old 15-11-2017, 05:38 PM
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Oh yes. very nicely done Dennis.
Trev
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  #15  
Old 16-11-2017, 08:57 AM
Dennis
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Oh yes. very nicely done Dennis.
Trev
Thanks Trevor, I appreciate your comments.

Cheers

Dennis
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Old 16-11-2017, 11:01 AM
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good images and overlays
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  #17  
Old 18-11-2017, 06:59 PM
Dennis
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good images and overlays
Thanks Troy, I appreciate your comments.

I just processed my data from Oct 24th and found Miranda somewhat easier with the Mewlon 210, the extra 1" of aperture and longer fl seem to help.

The 3rd attachment includes an overlay from SkyTools Pro V3 showing the plotted positions of the 4 brighter satellites.

Cheers

Dennis
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