An evening's fun

Well last night after we left the Westminster public viewing night, Rumples Riot and Gadget came back to my place for some viewing entertainment. As the seeing was quite good we stoked up the Tak and Paul proceded to weave his magic with some imaging with the Toucam. As I am a rank beginner with imaging, I let him do it all. I gather some time today the final result should appear somewhere here, but it looked quite nice from what I could make out from the raw images.
When Paul and Bob left ~2.45am I decided I would see how far I could drive the scope before major image breakdown. At 500x could clearly see Jupiters GRS and festooning as well as the equatorial belts. The mind boggles at what this is capable of in a dark area with excellent seeing. Needless to say I am very pleased, and would like to thank Paul for his efforts in tutoring me on the imaging. Being the original "old fart", I learn slowly, but he is very patient and I feel this is going to be a very rewarding time for me.
What we did decide is for a Pier to be built, as moving around was a no no when the camera was running etc etc. Not to mention the fact that the tripod takes up too much space in the 2.4mx2.4m area.
All in all a great night now all I have to do is spend all day trying to wake up, but this is definitely a labour of love.

Thanks again Paul and Bob.

[Astroman (Andrew Wall)]

Great to see you had a good time lastnight, amazing how we were only about 20m from each other but didn't actually meet.

oh well maybe next time. We may have to post some pics of ourselves (eeeeek!!!!!)

You dont want to see any photos of me, it would scare the pants of you..

[rumples riot]

Wow what can I say, we had a great time, well at least I did. The seeing was around 6/10 but the image in the Tak was unreal. Even looking at jupiter at 45 degrees up looked sensational. Belts clear and some festooning and even a couple of rafts. I have never seen Jupiter so clearly through any other scope. It really is an impressive piece of equipment.

In regard to the imaging, it was a bit of a learning curve for me. The settings for this scope were different from my own scope. So most of the Avi's were not of any reasonable quality. We did get a couple of good ones for Saturn, once I work out the settings for it.

As for Jupiter, I am really not certain as to whether the Avi's we captured wil be any good. The seeing was good, but my settings we not so good. However, be that as it may, I will try to get something out of it. I will post the images in imaging section.

Thanks Peter, for the pleasure of your company and the loan of your great scope. I hope to do the same again soon, especially around the time of Jupiter opposition. Great night.

[iceman (Mike)]

Sorry just moving it to astronomy chat