Jupiter, Feb 25, good seeing

[bird]

The seeing was very good this morning, and stayed good all the way to sunrise for a change.

Here's one of the first processed images, taken at around 6am local time. There are a few later images which may be better but I need some sleep first :-)

cheers, Bird

[Screwdriverone]

Wow, nice image Bird,

Makes my 130mm Newt look like a Toilet paper roll with a piece of Aluminium foil on the end,....:lol:

Chris

[iceman]

Fantastic image, Anthony! I can't wait to see the rest. Incredible detail for so early in the season and at that low altitude.

And i'm disappointed there was no SMS at 4am to tell me to go outside! :)

[bird]

I considered sending one... but wasn't sure if (a) you'd hear it, and (b) if the seeing was any good at your place...

Next time I'll send you an sms and we'll see :-)

cheers, Bird

[bird]

Image #2, a.k.a. Who Needs Sleep ...

Only about 15 minutes later than the previous image, but the seeing was greatly improved. Taken at 6.14am local time. The GRS is just coming into view top right. South is at the top, ie Jupiter is rotating right to left.

cheers, Bird

[iceman]

Wow, it is better! Detail right to the limb!

See the problem you've got now, is that you have to go back to the "normal" average seeing and you'll remember this morning and cry ;)

[bird]

What do you mean? This *is* normal seeing for around here ... lol

sob :confused::confused:

Bird

[Garyh]

Thats a beautiful Jup! boy I bet you enjoyed yourself!
cheers Gary

[bird]

Yup

[RB]

Wow fantastic images Anthony, especially the second one.

:eyepop:

[Matty P]

Very nice images Bird, the second is amazing. :)

[bird]

Last one from the session, taken 10 mins before sunrise...

cheers, Bird

[iceman]

Did you have to set the bar so high so early in the season? :)

Beautiful work, something to aspire to.

[bird]

I just points and clicks...

Bird

[davidpretorius]

ok, you can have your old scope and camera back now...........i am packing up and going home!!

these are fantastic.................i thought i heard a faint voice crying out to the heavans this morning.....just like mars and a certain snake valley trip a few years back :D

very happy for you.

how did the pier go, or was this on the g11?

[bird]

DP this was on the pier, looks like the issue is sorted, likely a dodgy gearbox on the RA was the problem. I've swapped the RA and DEC gearboxes over and the problem went away.

cheers, Bird

[iceman]

Have you slept yet? Where's the rest of the images? :)

[Dennis]

Hello, Anthony

Well, this is what we’ve been waiting for, Jupiter captured by Bird’s eye on the sky! A superb series of images; so early in the season, so close to the horizon yet with so much detail – wow! It bodes well for what is to come.

Cheers

Dennis

[davidpretorius]

hopefully the gearbox was under warranty :D

how did you find the tracking process compared to the g11. The whole cooling / tracking / guiding / focussing / filtering / capturing / coffee making / sleep depriving system must now reaaly be smooth. :eyepop:

I am researching the guide scope for my old toucam......just need to stabilize my wonky guide scope.

There is a ccd female socket on my hand controler for the dob driver and i reckon i can use desire / toucam / laptop to guide the scope. :thumbsup:

[Alchemy]

geez the bar has been lifted somewhat, hmmm thats 1 to bird.

[bird]

I haven't called Peter yet, but yes I hope it's covered.

The whole system is becoming more integrated now that it's got a permanent home, and I've added a few tweaks to the software over the off season, so it's all slowly evolving into a nice system.

I'm going to have to bit the bullet sometime soon and port my version of coriander to a newer version, the one I've been working on is version 1.0.0, from 2004, and I'm about to lose kernel support for it. I've been putting that off as it's going to be a pita to do.

[davidpretorius]

do you know a good linux programmer????:lol:

[Lester]

Very nice images there Bird.

Hard to emagine getting any better than that.

[Geoff45]

Nice images. What scope and camera were you using?
Geoff

[bird]

Hi Geoff, the scope details are:

http://www.acquerra.com.au/astro/lexx.html

Using a Dragonfly2 firewire camera from Point Grey Research

cheers, Bird