Jupiter on 14/1/2005

[bird (Anthony Wesley)]

Hi people,, this morning I tried to get some more Jupiter data, but I had camera problems and only managed to get about half the number of frames that I was after :-(

Anyway, here's the result - it's not too bad, but I'm hoping for better next time!

This is 500 frames in each of R,G,B with Astronomik filters and a monochrome firewire camera @ 30fps.

Processed in Registax and Astra Image.

10" f/6 newt @ f/24 with 4x powermate.

regards, Bird

[silvinator]

Wow! That's a great shot! You can really see that GRS, although it is getting less red in colour so I've heard, and it shows in your pic too. Great detail! Well done

[beren]

Geez idont think ive seen better {and the others} thats just awesome , your sure you havent got a sat orbiting relaying these images Bird , super.

[bird (Anthony Wesley)]

Originally posted by Aragorn
Geez idont think ive seen better {and the others} thats just awesome , your sure you havent got a sat orbiting relaying these images Bird , super.

Nope, just a humble 10" newt in my backyard. I think 90% of the trick is to know when you are likely to get good seeing - for me it's usually about an hour before sunrise.

Bird

[beren]

On tues night i was out to midnight trying my hardest to get some decent saturn images using the LPI but wind and the seeing was to bad to milk anything . Just as i was packing up the images were getting better the wind was weakening and Voyager was about to start and i ahd to get to work at 5.00am AHHH

[ballaratdragons (Ken)]

Huygens has just landed on Titan!!!!

Crack out the champagne.

[rumples riot]

Great image Bird, how on earth do you get shots that clear and how do you focus on a screen that can give false readings of sharp. You are amazing. Can you please help me with some focusing tips. I am now using a parfocal EP with the LPI which is helping and checking this with a hartman mask. Anything else you can help with?

[iceman (Mike)]

Anthony that's the best amateur jupiter image i've seen..

You should send it into S&S for publishing..

[bird (Anthony Wesley)]

Originally posted by rumples riot
Great image Bird, how on earth do you get shots that clear and how do you focus on a screen that can give false readings of sharp. You are amazing. Can you please help me with some focusing tips. I am now using a parfocal EP with the LPI which is helping and checking this with a hartman mask. Anything else you can help with?

Well, like many things, having the right tool for the job makes some things very easy...

During the Mars opposition of 2003 I started getting back into astronomy after a break of about 15 years, and I had a manual focusser (JMI low profile) which was a real beast to work with. I started wishing for a motorized focusser.

I saved my pennies and eventually (about a year later) bought the JMI DX1M motorized focusser. It can set its position to a precision of 0.02mm, and is controlled by either a hand unit or serial cable to a PC.

JMI at first didn't want to give me the serial port control codes, but they relented after I asked nicely enough :-) So now I have written a Perl module that can control the focusser, so I can stay at my laptop and use arrow keys etc to shift focus position. Trust me, that makes a big difference.

Experience with this has shown me a couple of things:

* At f/6 you have to focus to within 0.05mm to get a sharp image. IF you have a faster scope then it is harder still.

* The focus position changes as Jupiter rises and/or the equipment cools down and everything shrinks a little bit. I have to shift the focus by 0.02mm or so every 15 minutes to stay in the zone.

* The 3 colours come to focus at different positions - about 0.1mm apart - so the only way to get a really sharp focus is to capture each colour seperately with a monochrome camera. I think this is due to atmospheric refraction effects. and the barlow.

I've integrated it with my filter wheel, so that I can "set" a focus position for each colour, and the laptop resets the focus position whenever I turn the wheel to shift filters (wheel also controlled by serial port).

BUT the most important thing is to have steady seeing, or else Jupiter is just a blurry blob and you have no way to know where the right position should be. So number 1 is to find good seeing location and conditions.

You can also try focussing on a nearby star before going across to Jupiter. There's a nice bright star nearby at the moment.

regards, Bird

[Comet Hunter]

Phoar! Thats an awesome image bird!

[[1ponders] (Paul)]

A cut above Bird, really is a cut above the rest.

[rumples riot]

Thanks Bird for the tips. Luckily I have a meade microfocusor, so that helps with getting very sharp focus, but I see your point about focus for each colour coming into sharp at differing micro lengths. That is obvious now that I look at the Histograms and see that the green histogram is always peaking higher. Well thanks anyway. Keep those shots coming.

[Robby]

Great stuff Bird.
You must have good seeing where you are..
I have tried the last few nights and the seeing over here in NZ is crap...!