hmm a lull in planets coming up

[iceman (Mike)]

Saturn is already out of orbit for me, and has been for months. Anything in the west I just can't see because of trees in my backyard.

So with Jupiter rising so early and crossing into the west so soon after dark, it's going to be gone (for me) before too long as well.

Uranus and Neptune are conveniently placed for some imaging between 11pm and 1am, so I might have to concentrate on those.

I think it'll be time to start focussing more attention on the moon .. with no gas giants and Venus moving to an evening object (in the West!) it'll be something to spend some more time on.

Saturn starts rising again in the early morning towards the end of October, but it'll still be very low for us down South.

Jupiter starts rising again in the early morning at the end of January 2007.

Mars starts rising again in the early morning towards the end of February 2007, but takes a long time to trek north and won't rise very high again for us down South.

So not a whole lot of planet imaging to look forward to once Jupiter disappears.. could be several months of imaging the moon before Saturn gets high enough for us.

[Robert_T]

AAAAGGGGGGGHHHHHHH!

I'm in exactly the same boat with western horizon issues Mike, but have been burying my head in the sand. Might have to the the Moon for me as Neptune and Uranus don't give me what I need to stay up late....

Hmmm... just thought... what about that big glowing yellow thing that shows up every day

[iceman (Mike)]

I have issues with the Sun as well.. mainly that it's in the west by the time I get home from work!

[gbeal]

Yep, a bare patch for a while, but with the weather we have had, it will make little difference. Having an unobstructed horizon is one thing, but wall to wall cloud is another. Lunar is how you can while the time away. Saturn will be the next one though, I thought it was all but rising in the east already (I must check).

[asimov (John)]

A planet lull !?...NOOOOOOOOO !

Theres been a lull in everything astronomical here for ages (apart from reprocessing) I'm tempted to try the 'hang the poster of joop in a tree 500M away & take some AVI of it' trick!

[Starkler (Geoff)]

Time to become re-acquainted with eyepieces and dso's perhaps?

[Robert_T]

Originally Posted by Starkler

Time to become re-acquainted with eyepieces and dso's perhaps?

"eyepiece"??? ah yes, I remember, a bit of glass you use to centre a planet onto a CCD chip with, right

[Lester]

Time to cut my teeth on some DSO imaging, that is my next challenge.

[ving (David)]

DSOs are ALWAYS there!

[matt]

Yep. The disappearing planets situation is one I've been sadly coming to terms with over the last few weeks.

My attention has been turning toward DSOs.

I've been working on my polar alignment by coming to grips with drift aligning and also looking at other mount-related issues like PEC.

All this, of course, with a view to taking my very tentative first steps into longer exposure astrophotography

Talk about learning curve!

[RB (Andrew)]

Originally Posted by asimov

.... I'm tempted to try the 'hang the poster of joop in a tree 500M away & take some AVI of it' trick!

Asi that's a good one.

[matt]

Full o' tricks, is our ol' mate Asi

[ballaratdragons (Ken)]

Originally Posted by Starkler

Time to become re-acquainted with eyepieces and dso's perhaps?

Geoff,

After reading Mikes first post I was trying to think of a polite way of saying exactly what you just said!

Well said!!!

Gee, they could even image DSO's ooo aahh! Blasphemy!

[iceman (Mike)]

I re-acquaint myself with DSO's every month

Imaging DSO's isn't possible with my setup Ken.

[RB (Andrew)]

Whenever we meet up with Mike each new moon, he always calls me over to his scope so I can have a look at a galaxy or a glob or some other DSO.
Mike's also done some fantastic widefields with his setup.
He uses the equipment he has to it's full potential.
As amateurs though each of us has their own favourite aspect of the hobby and Mike's happens to be planetary imaging.