Jupiter 08-05-2018 from Melbourne

[Stefan Buda]

I had big plans for this planetary season and in the end I just gave up.
Wanted to upgrade to an ASI290 and recoat the mirrors in my 16". But why bother? This place is just hopeless for planetary imaging. We had a few nights recently with ideal predictions, no jet stream and high pressure system on top of us, with clear sky and zero wind...only to get madly jittery and wobbly planets on the screen.
Last night for a short time the seeing settled enough to produce a half decent image, with great difficulty.

[John K]

Nice going Stefan! Good to see you having a go. What time where you imaging?

This looks like before midnight as the GRS came around after midnight.

J.

[Nikolas]

I gave up around 11.30ish wish I stayed up longer

[Stefan Buda]

Thanks John,

It was just before 11pm.

[Wavytone]

Stefan we’re still waiting for summer to be killed off. Till then the seeing will be crap, basically.

[Stefan Buda]

Hope you are right and the seeing will improve soon.
I replaced the image as the first one was a bit too green.

[Camelopardalis]

Nice detail and pleasing colour Stefan :thumbsup:

Hopefully the seeing will settle soon...

[Bushy69]

Hi Stefan,

Better than half decent IMO... very nice.

Bad seeing conditions can be disheartening.... we are covered in smoke for the next week here in Perth, at least I can get some sleep. :)

Cheers,

Justin

[Rkonrad]

Very nice thaks for sharing

[blinky]

Stefan, I have a very similar looking pic from Geelong at exactly the same time you were imaging. At the time i was thinking the conditions were above average for this area. I took the time to look at a star for a pickering scale comparison, and it looked somewhere around a 4-5.. It may not have been as nice as you hoped but still, you produced an image useful for science!

[Mickoid]

Stefan, a good effort, you still managed some nice detail despite the conditions. I tried the following night and the seeing was not good either. I'm wondering if the smoke from recent controlled burn offs in the nearby hills was still lingering. This southerly blast we've just had should clean things up.

[Stefan Buda]

Thanks Dunk, Justin and Richard, I will keep trying.



Yes, the seeing was definitely better than average. The frustration is that it was nowhere near as good as the best I have, very rarely, experienced from this location, over the years.



Don't think it was the smoke. Almost always there is a disturbance layer above my location. Sometimes it is so well defined that I can focus the telescope on it. My focuser has a Vernier scale on it that allows me to calculate the distance to this layer. I've been getting altitudes between one and three kilometres for it. Not high enough to have anything to do with the jet stream. Don't know what it is, but it is very frustrating.

[Sebbie]

Great effort despite condition Stefan.

Last two months have been very hit and miss from up here also. I don't remember good seeing lasting for more than 6 minutes at a time, very variable. Usually stabilises as fog is about to roll in but then transparency kills off the session.

Rgds,
Seb