Nov 28th

Here's Jupiter from the night of the 28th. There's a moon shadow near the limb. Jupiter season is winding to a close, not sure if I'll get any more good pics until next opposition!

Nov 19th, 2010

Here is Jupiter from last Friday night (I think?) The jet stream was right overhead that night so conditions we not very good, but at least it was clear!

Clearing off the Hard Drive

The Straight Wall and surroundings on the Moon

An old Jupiter taken with a wide field planetary camera. From Oct 14th.

The same setup, taken in UV light.

Tested out a different set of software for deep sky imaging, and took this pic of the Elephant's Trunk Nebula. Misread the histogram on the new software a vastly underexposed the image! Was able to salvage the above image however.

Here's a pic of the tiny storm that is believed to be the first sign of the return of the Southern Equatorial Belt. Taken Thursday night.

Not Jupiter - The Dumbbell Nebula (M27)

This is my first Jupiter-free update in a while. This pic is of a planetary nebula, a dying star, in the summer constellation Vulpecula. It's called the Dumbbell Nebula but I think it looks more like a Bowtie Nebula. It's object #27 on Messier's list.

I took this picture with my 100mm refractor, the color data is from an image I took a few years ago with my DSLR, and the brightness (luminosity) was captured last month with my ST-402, a highly sensitive monochrome camera. I combined the two images in Photoshop. You can click on the pic to get a slightly larger version.

Telescope Comparison

I finished processing my data from the 12th last night. I had both the 9.25" and the 18" scope out that night , here's a comparison of how Jupiter turned out in each.

Jupiter - Oct 17th

Quick Jupiter from the 17th. The jet stream was right overhead that night so I scaled the magnification back a bit.

Jupiter - Oct 12th

My parents were able to peek at Jupiter on Tuesday night through the big scope, they seemed impressed. The seeing was good that evening, and I was able to capture this image. The moon Ganymede is just about to disappear behind Jupiter. Click for the full version.

Jupiter - Oct 10th

Here is Jupiter from last night. Just a quick process, I might go over this again later to see if I can get a little more detail. It was pretty hazy and it seems to have thrown the color off.

Jupiter on September 20th

Here's Jupiter from the night of September 20th. Seeing wasn't great but I think it turned out OK.

August 28th

Here's Jupiter from the morning of August 28th. The Great Red Spot was getting ready to rotate out of view when I snapped this pic.

Jupiter This Week

Lots of clear weather here in Cleveland this week, but seeing/atmospheric steadiness hasn't been good enough to get clear images of Jupiter. I pulled out the old mirror fan system and built a new one this week. The new fan arrangement really works well and I shouldn't need to tinker with it for a while.

Here are a couple pics of Jupiter, from Saturday night:



and from Tuesday night:



Interesting to see how the storm in the dark belt has changed over the course of a few days.

Big Jupiter

I have the new scope running very well now. The mirrors are collimated (aligned) pretty well now, the mirror still cools off really slowly but I installed some computer fans and I've figured out how to use them to best blow the tube currents out of the way while imaging. I also took a nice focuser off another scope and put it on the new one as an upgrade, added a motorized filter wheel, and am using an extension tube to squeeze out some more magnification. This pic is Jupiter & Co from Friday morning, taken in average conditions with clouds moving in and out of the area. Click on if for the full version!

Jupiter Remix

I reprocessed the last Jupiter image to reduce the noise a bit and to clean up the blue fringe on the right limb, here's the new version.

More Skunks

Here is Jupiter from this morning. I am starting to get the new scope dialed in. Click on the pic for the full version.

A skunk kit got into the garage while I was taking pictures, luckily I was able to convince him to leave peacefully.

Saw a Few Skunks Last Night

Continuing to work on the new scope. Saturn is getting really low in the sky and it's getting hard to get a clear view.

New Scope

I have been setting up my new (used) scope this week. Here is a test pic from Thursday. The optics weren't aligned correctly yet, and the mirror hadn't cooled off, but I wanted to test out the tracking motors (they work!)

And here's an image from last night. Still getting some minor kinks worked out. Can't wait for Jupiter Season in the Fall!

Jupiter and its missing belt

Jupiter is now in the morning sky, I woke up early on June 8th and took this pic as it started getting light out. Jupiter has gradually lost one of its two, reddish-brown belts this year. If you compare this pic to one of mine from last year, this missing belt is real obvious.

Saturn in IR

Here is the infrared image of Saturn I took on Thursday night. I combined this with the color data to produce the image in the previous post.

Saturn, June 17th

Here is Saturn from Thursday night. I'm experimenting with a different technique, using an infrared image in a luminance layer in Photoshop to improve sharpness and lower noise.

Saturn from Tuesday

We had a nice clear night on Tuesday and I grabbed this pic of Saturn.

2009 Jupiter

From the Vault; here's a Jupiter image I took last year and didn't end up processing it until this week. I'll probably start imaging Jupiter again this Fall. It'll be higher in the sky this year and the pics should turn out less fuzzy.

Saturn on April 27

I increased the magnification on Saturn this time. The equipment is all running well! No skunks sighted.

April Saturn

Here's Saturn from last night. Click for a slightly bigger version. I saw my first skunk of the year while I had the scope out!

Mars Mars Mars

I took this image on Tuesday night this week. (Click for a bigger version.) Sky conditions were very good. Mars is pretty small currently, but I managed to capture lots of detail on the small disk. The dark dot poking through the light clouds on the left is Olympus Mons, the solar system's largest volcano.

Clear Weather

The skies were clear in town on Saturday night so I got in some observing on the Orion Nebula despite the 12 deg temps. I used my new narrowband filter and it made the nebulosity much more noticeable, can't wait to try it on more objects. The seeing was pretty steady and I saw the 'F' star in the Trapezium for the first time.

Here's an image of the Trapezium I took last Winter.