Who else do we know Dave that would not only think of pulling something like this off (I'd be happy to just get a moon in the image with Uranus), but actually have the skills and patience to pull the feat off with such clarity. Not too many that I can think of.
Who else do we know Dave that would not only think of pulling something like this off (I'd be happy to just get a moon in the image with Uranus), but actually have the skills and patience to pull the feat off with such clarity. Not too many that I can think of.
patience - 99.9% of the populace was just eliminated
Thank you everyone for your kind words of appreciation – I am humbled by them!
However, to put it all in perspective, I do have an excellent mount (Tak EM200), an excellent CCD camera (albeit some 10 years old!), the superb functionality of software such as The Sky and SkyTools for telescope control/pointing and the amazing processing aids of CCDStack and the ubiquitous Photoshop CS3.
I am just the monkey that drags the gear outdoors, assembles it, and then sits there pushing the buttons! But, even with all this hardware and software capability, I am still a servant to clear skies and the positions and separation of these moons. So there is a fair bit of good luck, chance and good fortune involved as well.
Thank you everyone for your kind words of appreciation – I am humbled by them!
However, to put it all in perspective, I do have an excellent mount (Tak EM200), an excellent CCD camera (albeit some 10 years old!), the superb functionality of software such as The Sky and SkyTools for telescope control/pointing and the amazing processing aids of CCDStack and the ubiquitous Photoshop CS3.
I am just the monkey that drags the gear outdoors, assembles it, and then sits there pushing the buttons! But, even with all this hardware and software capability, I am still a servant to clear skies and the positions and separation of these moons. So there is a fair bit of good luck, chance and good fortune involved as well.
Thank you once again for your nice words of appreciation – I appreciate them!
I’ve just updated the animation using a different technique in CS3 by overlaying the processed LRGB frame over the combined CCDStack registration frame and adjusting the positions of the processed moons to match their position on the CCDStack registration layer. Due to the extensive processing involved, the brightness and positional data for the animation does not have the fidelity of the raw data although the animation now looks smoother.
Also attached is the CS3 Layer view showing the animation tracks overlaid on the CCDStack registration frame.
Was Jupiter anywhere nearby during those nights of viewing?
Any chance the huge glare from Jupiter may have hindered the quality of viewing of Uranus? Or am I imagining a stupid scenario? (sorry for silly question, rookie when it comes to these things).
Last week of nights that i've had the dob out watching jupiter, I've noticed that they've been relatively close. At least I think it was Uranus :S
Anyway. That's some awesome imagery dennis. When you were recording it with the ccd, does it record in specific jpg frames, or does it record a live feed to an avi or some other streaming media format?
Thanks for your interest and questions. During that session, Jupiter was over 35° separation from Uranus, so there was no light pollution from Jupiter. I think that the planet Neptune was less than 10° from Jupiter though? The field of view of the animation is approximately 4 x 3 arcmins so it is quite tiny indeed. For comparison, the full Moon is approximately 30 arcmins in diameter, which is 1/2°.
The ST7 CCD camera records 765x510 pixel frames, one at a time in the FITS or proprietary SBIG format; it is a “still” camera rather than a webcam. When I process the frames (files), I finally save them as JPGs so that they can be viewed in the Forum and it also keeps the file size to a minimum.
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, at least you can see them. I can't.
