Jupiter in good seeing, Aug 18

[bird]

All,

Last night I had an extended session in excellent seeing, I recorded data almost continually from 11pm to 4am. This period covered a GRS transit which was followed by an Io + shadow transit. Despite the dire jetstream predictions it seems that this site (Exmouth in Western Australia) can sometimes turn on steady skies.

Here's one image from near the end of the session - recorded just after 4am local time. Io is visible at lower right.

Once again this is processed using my laptop and very dodgy display, so the contrast and brightness may not be quite right.

regards, Bird

[John Hothersall]

Outstanding as usual with great moon detail, you put a lot of time into these and it shows - excellent.

John.

[Jim]

Lovely picture.

[Doodles23]

Terrific shot. We were both blessed on the 18th. Neither side of Jupiter will get a moments rest from us, as long as photograph 12,000 miles apart from each other.

Last night we took a break though. We watched Dick Smith's Population Documentary here in Miami, Florida. I kid you not.

This Friday Io will be doing it's transit with us. Wish us luck.

[Lester]

Top image Anthony. I am glad you are getting the rewards for such a long trek across the country. All the best.

[Paul Haese]

This is a real cracker image. Seeing has been very short this year, but at least there is some where on this continent that there has been some seeing. Now just to see how often this site picks up with the seeing. Love Io just hanging above the cloud tops.

[bird]

Thanks all, I'll post more images from the 18th as I get to them... in the meantime I hope we get some more good nights!

cheers, Bird

[asimov]

Great image Bird. Glad it's working out for you over there.

[h0ughy]

very enjoyable viewing!

[renormalised]

Another great image.....well done:)

[mswhin63]

Fantastic image, something to be said about the North WA.

[bird]

Another image... this one from early in the session, around 12.40... showing the GRS and Oval BA mid transit. Lots of vortices around the edge of the GRS make it look a bit hairy. The area of influence of the GRS is clearly seen here extending all around it. Oval BA seems to be only a few days away from conjunction with the GRS, there's a clear gap between them although it seems that a tendril of dark material is coming off BA to the upper left as we see it here.

I'm testing a new image enhancement package for the Gimp called FX-Foundry. This image was done using the "separate light and shadow" enhancement, it looks good on this laptop screen anyway :-)

cheers, Bird

[desler]

Really very nice images Anthony! I'm guessing there not a lot wrong with your lap top screen as the images come up beautifully on my Mac.

Keep having fun.



Darren

[Screwdriverone]

Wow, these are spectacular Anthony.

Looks like the GRS has gobbled up all the SEB as its looking quite red rimmed now?

They all look great, nothing wrong that I can see.

Keep em coming

Cheers

Chris

[cybereye]

One word and one word only.... Wow!!!

[bird]

... and another one...

cheers,Bird

[saturnino]

They are great images, I will follow you from Italy, with admiration and constancy.
I admire you so much equipment, and seeing to the arrangements which I envy.
Really great throughout.
Who knows' in the future I transfer you.

I wanted to ask one thing:

In many processing steps run?

Having a Seeing 8-9/10, if not 10/10, draws much levels?

Which program takes?

Many thanks for your response, a European admirer.

http://astodelciel.altervista.org My site.

Sincerely.

[bird]

... and I thought it might be kinda fun to have another go at Ganymede while the seeing was good...

cheers, Bird

[Clayton]

Fantastic stuff Bird.

[DavidU]

HA! That's just not right !
detail on Ganymede.............wow. Super

[Quark]

Simply Stunning Bird, Reckon this has to be close to the best you have produced.

Keep them coming.
Regards
Trevor

[saturnino]

Great pictures.
My heartfelt congratulations.
Quantidettagli, and well drawn pictures.

We'd see if you can AVI?:eyepop:

Thank you.:hi::hi::hi::hi:

[michaellxv]

Fabulous set of images. Must be a great site you have there.

[bird]

Thanks Saturnino

cheers, Bird

[peter_4059]

WOW!

The Ganymede image is amazing.

Great work.

[Doodles23]

Anthony,
Just when you think you've gotten the hang of planetary photo's. You pull off the impossible (or one would think). That pix of Ganymede is magnificent. Makes me feel like we're back to the 1980's sitting at Burns Lake with our 8" Celestron, with the Nikon F2 and gas hypered film!!! Which had to be kept cold. Not easy in the Glades. Then running home hoping not to run over a gator to start developing the film.
Thank goodness for all the help we've gotten from you and other members on the forum. It's made it easier to align the RGB's. Your tip the other day really helped--Thanks so much. Gail and Dave Bleser

[HCR32]

Bird your too hard on your self. You produce better pics then I could with the hubble at my finger tips. lol

[Ric]

Hi Bird

I was enjoying the clarity and detail of your Jupiter images.

Then I came to your Ganymede image :eyepop:

Blimey I wouldn't have thought that level of detail was possible.

Wonderful images. :thumbsup:

[bird]

Thanks again for the comments. The Ganymede data was recorded at 70fps for 4 minutes, this gave about 16000+ raw frames, and I stacked the best 3000.

Mind you the seeing was good enough that I could see a lot of this detail in the raw video while I was capturing, that sure helps!

cheers, Bird

[Jim]

I have to say a big thanks to bird (and Mrs bird) for letting me gatecrash their supper last night.
I signed up a few weeks ago, but only logged on and started looking around a few days ago, needless to say I was rather astonished to find this thread at the top of the "new posts" list.
I didn't expect a tasco 6" refractor up here in my town of 2000, let alone this level of achievement.
As I stated to bird last night, I feel the word "amateur" doesn't describe what some of you do, you guys are definitely unpaid professionals.
Cheers for the tour of your equipment and processes too, it was thoroughly interesting and has piqued my interest further.
Jim

[bird]

No problem Jim, you're more than welcome to come out again. Be warned, it's addictive and expensive :-)

cheers, Bird

[multiweb]

Amazing clarity. Speechless :thumbsup:

[Jim]

Oh I have no doubt, and I apologise for the appalling weather today!

[Paul Haese]

I like the last image Anthony, certainly one of your best images but I think you have some even better ones in your gallery from the last two years.

I'm finally going to give it another go tonight after months of cloud. I should have come with you as seeing has been in very short supply of late. Hoping for tonight.

[gregbradley]

Simply amazing. Have you found your U-beauty Aussie good seeing location here??

Greg.

[bird]

Greg, in any other year this would probably be an excellent location with routine good seeing, but it's not immune to the "anomalously large" jetstream (as BOM puts it) that's plaguing all continental Australia this year. I'm right on the north edge of it here, and I'm hoping that it will move away a few more nights while I'm here (until Sept 25).

Paul, there's more to do with the data I captured the other night, I cut a few corners to get four images done on my laptop in a day, but some of the images in my gallery took about a days worth of processing each on my faster home pc.

I'm working on another image now, with more alignment points etc, I'll see if that helps.

cheers, Bird
cheers, Bird

[bird]

Was good actually, we went snorkling (or drowning, in my case) on the reef and it was nice to have some cloud.

The scope is all wrapped up now, the rain is coming...

cheers, Bird

[Paul Haese]

Ah that sounds good, looking forward to seeing the results. Even if this is not the awesome place and only and good place to go and image, it is still better than most places by 50% from what I have seen so far. Time of course will tell and you final report is of great interest to me. I ring in next week and see how things are panning out.

[bird]

Here's another image, with more alignment points and maybe a bit better colour balance.

cheers, Bird

[Dietmar]

that is awesome, anthony!

[Paul Haese]

Very nice Anthony. Nice colouring too. Perhaps more likely what it really looks like from orbit.

[Lester]

Wow, that last image is outstanding. All the best.

[mswhin63]

Curious with all these beautiful images your intention would be to live there :)