Uranus and Neptune

[iceman]

Was going to get outside and image these tonight.. my wife has gone on a "craft night" with a friend and the kids are asleep so was planning to get outside and do some imaging..

But I had to wait until after 9pm when they were high enough, and so I got into some online games and then by the time I got outside at around 9:45pm, there was some high cloud about..

I also didn't feel like starhopping my way there, so I looked up my chart for some alignment stars for my DSC and there were a couple visible, but by now it was almost 10pm and my wife will be home at around 10:30pm.

30 minutes just isn't enough time to drag the platform, the scope, the laptop, the cases, align the DSC, find Uranus, start imaging etc etc etc.

Oh well, maybe next time :)

btw I did observe Uranus and Neptune visually for the first time about a month ago. They were quite like I expected, small, green/blue and featureless. But they were a disc!

Imaging them won't make them look much better than a blue/green disc but I still feel the need to record them digitally, to add them to my captured list of planets this year :)

[h0ughy]

I have seen both in the LX200 very clearly (although that was a long while ago. Why dont we make it a go to image these cold planets? surely someone can do that, (Scott are you listening)

lets have a where's wally post to find these planets mike

[iceman]

I've seen some quite good images of Uranus, taken by a C11 with a Lumenera cam (by Saburo76 in the CN forums).

Mine won't have the image scale, but it's still something I feel I need to do. :)

[iceman]

My wife still isn't home yet.. turns out I would've had enough time to do some imaging :doh:

Oh well, there's always next time :)

Oh and just saw Mars rising! Not long until I can stay up late to image Mars, instead of get up early.. but then, there's always Saturn to get up early for :)

[RapidEye]

I saw both of them last summer in my 4.5" - just tiny little blue/green disks, but clearly disks. About a month or so, I turned my 10" loose on them. Guess what they looked like??? Yup: still little blue/green disks, just a little bit brighter :zzz:

I tried to snap a few images of Uranus a few weeks back using the Rebel+Barlow, but it just isn't bright enough. Sure, I could rip off a couple hundred, and try and stack them, but at 6MP - its not quite as easy as that :scared2:

<shrug> I'm hoping to have better luck with Mars, but so far, clouds, seeing, or both have prevented me from trying more than a couple of test shots. :(

I have seen some pretty decent amateur shots of both Uranus and Neptune, but I'm pretty sure they were taken with longer FL scopes than my 10" F/5. I'd bet a 12" or 14" F/10 or F/12 SCT would do well on them!:ashamed:

[xrekcor]

Both are actually fairly easy to find, Uranus is a naked eye object from my place. And Neptune is close to 23-Theta Capricorni at present, if I throw in the GSO 30mm SV it lays in the same FOV. Both are currently moving in retrogard or moving towards the west.

regards,CS

[asimov]

Hi rapid. I got both planets on a 6" achro using a kodak easyshare camera, 3.1 mp I think.

[mickoking]

:zzz: I was too lazy to find Uranus so I just photographed the field using a canon SLR with a 50mm lens and compared it to a star atlas, It just looked like a star (Suprise suprise):D . However, I got a big bonus. The negative with the image of Uranus on it also included a Gamma or Cosmic ray burst.

[ving]

what is a er... "gamma or cosmic ray burst" when its at home?

[mickoking]

Ving mate

I went to see an Astronomer at Perth observatory with my Cosmic/Gamma ray
Photo and he said it was probably a Cosmic ray. But apparently cosmic and gamma rays look similar on photographic emulsion.

By the was does anyone know what causes cosmic rays?:shrug: