The Astro-Imaging Thread

[Green Baron]

This is hardcore :-)

It is just ... it too big for someone with satellite connection like me. Do you have something like 1500/1000 ?

[LaydeeDem]

9 hours ago, Green Baron said:

This is hardcore :-)

It is just ... it too big for someone with satellite connection like me. Do you have something like 1500/1000 ?

Imgur was acting up last night so I used the compression-free service cubeupload. I'll swap out the links later today and see if that helps. In the meantime try the Flickr link?

Edited August 30, 2018 by Nutt007

[Adstri]

Probably the best picture I've ever taken.

This is a composite. The moons are from an overexposed image taken minutes before the raw data of Saturn was recorded.

From Left to Right the moons are: Titan, Enceladus, Dione, Rhea and Tethys.

Edited September 8, 2018 by Adstriduum

[Green Baron]

Impressive depth ...

[Matuchkin]

Reporting to this long-lost home from CloudyNights. What mounts do you guys use for tracking?

[Reactordrone]

4 hours ago, Matuchkin said:

Reporting to this long-lost home from CloudyNights. What mounts do you guys use for tracking?

I'm using an old LXD55 equatorial mount. Well, it's old now, it was new when I got it

[Green Baron]

I lost my guiding cam at night on the mountain when out with others. When i returned the next day it was gone. No somebody has two and i had to order a new one.

I use a Losmandy G11 mount and am just about to return to this hobby. Have finished adjusting things yesterday night. If all goes well the plan is to start with boring M31 tonight and Plejades later in the year.

[cubinator]

@Nutt007 and I have been conspiring to make a small project, and last night we were able to make it happen. The Moon was near the visible star Theta Librae, so by taking a picture of it at exactly the same time and aligning them to the star we were able to show the parallax of the Moon between our locations in New Mexico and Minnesota. I aligned the images in this online tool.

@cubinator's image (MN):

Spoiler

@Nutt007's image (NM):

Spoiler

The two images sized and aligned on top of each other:

As you can see, the moon is in a noticeably different location in the sky! How's that for amateur astronomy? Now we can do a bunch of math that I don't remember from high school geometry to figure out the distance from Earth to the Moon!

For comparison, here is an image with the Moons lined up instead of the star, to show that they are the same scale and orientation:

Spoiler

 

Edited September 15, 2018 by cubinator
Added reference image

[Adstri]

4 hours ago, cubinator said:

@Nutt007 and I have been conspiring to make a small project, and last night we were able to make it happen. The Moon was near the visible star Theta Librae, so by taking a picture of it at exactly the same time and aligning them to the star we were able to show the parallax of the Moon between our locations in New Mexico and Minnesota. I aligned the images in this online tool.

@cubinator's image (MN):

  Reveal hidden contents

@Nutt007's image (NM):

  Reveal hidden contents

The two images sized and aligned on top of each other:

-snip-

As you can see, the moon is in a noticeably different location in the sky! How's that for amateur astronomy? Now we can do a bunch of math that I don't remember from high school geometry to figure out the distance from Earth to the Moon!

For comparison, here is an image with the Moons lined up instead of the star, to show that they are the same scale and orientation:

-snip-

That's really cool!

[LaydeeDem]

Like @cubinator has already mentioned we recently did an experiment to measure the distance to the Moon via parallax. After some image analysis and spreadsheet wrangling the results are in:

We estimated the Moon to be 389,303.9 kilometers from cubinator's location and 387,894.8 kilometers from my location. Checking Stellarium for the real values show we're in error of only ~0.045%! I'll have a full write-up describing our method along with a spreadsheet that does all the math later this month.

[Adstri]

Perhaps next time someone can do planetary parallax?

[LaydeeDem]

Tonight's Harvest Moon:

Attempted to pull as much detail out of my little 300mm lens as possible. Stack of 40 images. Aligned and cropped in PIPP, stacked in AutoStakkert! with 1.5x drizzle, sharpening done in Registax. Color correction, saturation to bring out subtle color differences and a slight enlargement done in Photoshop.

[Adstri]

Here is a photo of every planet excluding Earth. It also includes the moon and Triton. 

All images taken by me over the course of about 2 years.

Edited September 28, 2018 by Adstriduum

[LaydeeDem]

1 hour ago, Adstriduum said:

Here is a photo of every planet excluding Earth. It also includes the moon and Triton. 

All images taken by me over the course of about 2 years.

-snip-

My dream photo right here. Congrats! What gear are you using?

[Adstri]

7 minutes ago, Nutt007 said:

My dream photo right here. Congrats! What gear are you using?

A four inch telescope and my phone.

I couldn't make this up.

However, Triton was captured with a long exposure.

Edited September 28, 2018 by Adstriduum

[Green Baron]

Incredible. Very nice marble collection ! Thanks for sharing.

[Adstri]

GIF of Mars rotating

Edited September 28, 2018 by Adstriduum

[LaydeeDem]

4 hours ago, Adstriduum said:

A four inch telescope and my phone.

I couldn't make this up.

However, Triton was captured with a long exposure.

They're phenomenal! It makes me wonder what I could pull out of my 4.5" Newt if it wasn't so terribly collimated. I'm in dire need of an upgrade.

[Green Baron]

This may be a stupid question, but is one of those that cannot be collimated ?

[LaydeeDem]

15 hours ago, Green Baron said:

This may be a stupid question, but is one of those that cannot be collimated ?

Not a stupid question at all. The answer is yes. It's a Venture RX-9 Newtonian reflector. Was built cheaply and there's zero way of collimating the primary mirror. It sucks.

[LaydeeDem]

Another Moonshot. More adventures in pulling detail out of my tiny 300mm lens.

Image Info:

The Moon on 11/14/18. Image is nearly true color, but the saturation has been boosted significantly to show subtle color variations in the Lunar surface. Blue regions, like the Sea of Tranquility, are more rich in titanium, while red areas are titanium-poor and contain iron.

 

Acquisition and processing details:

Spoiler

Processing:

Adobe Camera Raw - Raw conversion, lens correction, noise removal

PIPP - Alignment and slight cropping

AutoStakkert! 2 - Stacked best 90% of 51 frames, 1.5x drizzle

Registax - Wavelet sharpening, RGB balance.

Adobe Photoshop - Final color correction with curves tool, green channel replaced with a synthetic green channel using the channel mixer, (50% R + 50% B), saturation boosted significantly, image rotated, cropped and a slight contrast stretch applied. Image resized 2x.

Processing steps in GIF form: (You can really see just how little starting detail I have to work with here! Autostakkert's drizzle is like magic.)

Gear:

Canon EOS 350D

Canon EF-S 75-300mm lens

Acquisition:

300mm focal length

f/11

ISO 800

51 x 1/800" lights

Taken at 7:09 local time on 11/14/18

 

[Adstri]

12 hours ago, Nutt007 said:

-snip-

Really nice! My favorite moon images are the ones that show color detail!

I'd like to do a mosaic soon.

[cubinator]

On 9/18/2018 at 5:54 PM, Adstriduum said:

Perhaps next time someone can do planetary parallax?

Mars or Venus could be doable with rudimentary equipment under the right conditions...

-Bright-ish star (maybe two) very nearby in the sky

-As big a distance between the two observers as possible (say, one person in Canada and another in Argentina would be one ideal situation)

-Planet as close to Earth as possible

-Weather cooperates in both locations

 

With slightly bigger telescopes, (and a very cooperative star of course) I can see Jupiter measurements being reasonably accurate, too.

[Adstri]

4 hours ago, cubinator said:

Mars or Venus could be doable with rudimentary equipment under the right conditions...

-Bright-ish star (maybe two) very nearby in the sky

-As big a distance between the two observers as possible (say, one person in Canada and another in Argentina would be one ideal situation)

-Planet as close to Earth as possible

-Weather cooperates in both locations

 

With slightly bigger telescopes, (and a very cooperative star of course) I can see Jupiter measurements being reasonably accurate, too.

Jupiter's a bit distant, but I can see it working.

But I'd say Mars would be your best bet.

[lajoswinkler]

This was the best I could do with my 5 Mpx camera. The view with naked eye was so much better.