Desperate times for amateur astronomers in Melbourne

[Averton]

The weather here continues to disappoint and the clouds have been interminable. Last night there was a small break that normally we would consider impractical to set up for but having not seen the planets for a week, we made a mad dash and managed to get 24 minutes of video on Jupiter before the clouds rolled back in. Fortunately we got to view Ganymede and the GRS racing each other to the limb in the last 20 minutes of Ganymede's transit. We were pretty happy to have even got this much :)
Unfortunately the animation is very small due to forum file size limits.

[Anth10]

Nice one P&C!
Looks as though you got the shot you wanted here- seeing looks to have been favourable as well-
Excellent.

I’ve lost interest lately- I’ve forgotten which month we’re in given this unseasonable weather. Good on you for taking your chances though.
World Cup Soccer is keeping me up all hours lately….zzzz

[John W]

Nice shots Peter and Clare - some good details - Ganymede was a bonus. Cheers John W.

[Tinderboxsky]

Yes, good shots, despite the tight conditions. It seems conditions have been even less favourable down here. As Anth10 has noted, it is hard to keep up the enthusiasm. I notice the BOM is forecasting a wetter than usual Christmas and Summer all down the East coast!!:mad2:

The animation has worked and shows the transient events quite nicely. Out of interest, how long were the individual video segments used to create the stills for the animation?

[Dave882]

That’s a great catch and the animation shows the transit really nicely. It’s been clear up here but so incredibly windy it’s been a write-off for any long fl imaging so I’ve been focussing on some widefield stuff. I’m really missing the planets and looking forward to getting some more views in the coming month
Thanks for sharing!

[Averton]

Thanks Anthony. The seeing was not fantastic but the outcome was better than we expected. The jet stream was quite high. As you say, the weather has been far from conducive which is unfortunate as this is one of the last planet seasons before they start to move toward the northern hemisphere.

[Averton]

Thanks John. Absolutely right regarding Ganymede. As the session was totally unexpected we hadn't done any planning it just happened. Sometimes you can be lucky :)

[Averton]

Thanks Steve. We find the BOM long term outlook quite depressing so have stopped looking! The last time they had revised the end of La Nina out to February '23 :(
We take 120 second videos of Jupiter which is definitely stretching it a bit but with a smaller aperture it is acceptable. The reason is that the 178MC is not a particularly fast camera and we want to capture as many frames as possible with each video. We used to do 90 seconds with the 224MC and we can't see any detrimental effects from the 120 seconds.

[Averton]

Thanks David. It's really been quite a year for the East coast of Australia. Hopefully not to be repeated for some time to come. Hope you are getting some good wide field stuff in the meantime!

[Tinderboxsky]

Thanks for your information.

[Averton]

:thumbsup:

[Simon-W]

Had to look twice - that's really sharp for a 6"! As for the weather, I commiserate. We're averaging one night per week with any opportunities here in NL.

[Averton]

Thanks Simon.
We just checked and we have had only four nights this month and it looks unlikely there will be anything before the end of the month so we are averaging pretty much the same as yourself - maybe once a week. It has been a frustrating planet season here this year.

[Tinderboxsky]

Well, I am envious. At best, two opportunities a month has been the go down here for as long as I can remember! Even opportunities to grab time between cloud breaks have been limited.

“Patience is a virtue”, I keep telling myself.

[Tropo-Bob]

Clare and Peter: its great to see that such great work was done despite the limited opportunities.

[Averton]

Well, I am envious. At best, two opportunities a month has been the go down here for as long as I can remember! Even opportunities to grab time between cloud breaks have been limited.

“Patience is a virtue”, I keep telling myself.





We may have made that sound better than it really has been Steve. There are four imaging sessions but only one of those was a "night" so to speak, the rest were grabs between the clouds.

Patience might be a virtue, but it's not much fun!

[Averton]

Thanks Bob :)