Jupiter June 20th 2010

[Quark]

Hi All

I feel that I am not pulling my weight regarding my Jupiter data for this apparition, out here in the Australian outback we have had very unusual weather patterns over the last couple of months with the sky predominantly being clouded over.

Last evening had the cloud cover that is becoming the norm around here.
Got up at 4am CST and there was not a cloud in the sky, the stars looked very stable and bright.

When I established the feed from the Flea3 the image was very stable with quite reasonable detail, could clearly see the small white ovals along the edge of the STrZ in the live feed of all channels. I took some time setting up the capture parameters for R, G, B & IR in FireCapture, then as I was capturing my first R channel I noticed the signal drop off and then suddenly spike back up, looked out through the slot and could not believe it, bloody cloud, coming in from the East. Before the main body of cloud arrived I did get one data set, although for each channel there were some swings in signal strength.

That first data set was at 19:47 UTC and then it was 20:48 before my next and final data set, this was through a sucker hole in the cloud and the seeing was pretty ordinary.

I have attached my only reasonable image from this morning, it has a ring artifact on the limb which seems to be associated with crook seeing. In this instance I suspect it related to the swings in signal strength during the capture of all 3 channels as varying degrees of cloud passed over. It really was a shame about the cloud as during the clearer periods the image from the live feed in all channels showed some quite nice detail.

Regards
Trevor

[TrevorW]

Nicely captured and coloured Trev considering the seeing etc

[michaellxv]

Still a very nice image despite the conditions.

[JD2439975]

That's still a mighty fine image Trev, the Flea3 looks to be a great investment.

You're not the only one to notice all this "extra" cloud we seem to be getting this year...hope it's not a sign of things to come. :(

[Scorpius51]

Nice one Trevor, inspite of the artifact :thumbsup:. I only wish I could get close to your not-so-good ones :(!

Cheers
John

[bird]

Trev, your image beats my no-image by ... umm... infinity :-) There has been a lot of moisture in the jetstream the last couple of months, it's been quite dismal all round.

Nice image :-)

cheers, Bird

[Quark]

Thanks Trevor, the difference in sensitivity with the 3 channels between the Flea3 and DMK is substantial and requires a bit of a rethink regarding gain and exposure. This image has had no post capture colour balance adjustment. I think that the control setting that I am using, for my particular setup, is providing about the right colour.



Thank Michaell, don't get me wrong, I am pleased with how this turned out, its just that it could have been so much better.



Thanks for your comment and your right about not being the only one having to deal with this crap run of weather. Its just so out of character for this part of the world. Our average rain fall is only about 200mm and up until this year we haven't really reached that for about 10 years.



Thanks John, I reckon one of the major considerations with all of this is the quality of the seeing and alt of the target, we have no control over the weather but we can be fastidious with the things we can control, the collimation, focus and temperature of the primary mirror.

[Clayton]

Nice one Trevor.:thumbsup: I hope you can sort out the ringing.:question: It has been plaguing me with Jupiter this apparition:shrug:

[Lester]

Hi Trevor, that is a very nice detailed image. Thanks for the view.