20250401 Stargazing with my family

Our small backyard opens up some cosmic opportunities.

I used my 85mm ED refractor for observation.  Wide field with a 20mm widescan, high power with a SVBony 9mm and a TMB 4mm eyepiece.

The moon was so close to M45, a great side that could be seen within the same field of view of the 20mm widescan.

Soon I pulled out my Canon 10x30 IS and my 18x50 IS for quick scanning.

I looked at a couple of open clusters.

We looked at the Jupiter, and the Mars.

Later I pulled out my green laser pointer, to show them around the night sky.

It was not exactly dark, but that certainly brings a lot of joy.

20250117 Jupiter again

Spent more than half an hour to fine tune the collimation, found something strange on the out of focus pattern.  

That irregularity on the 6 O' Clock location.

I captured 60s worth of frames this time, instead of 1000 frames. 

30% frames stacked:

60% frames stacked:

20250115 Planet exercise

It's very windy, so no good image is possible, so it's just for fun.

The bigger CMOS is simple to use, with the flip mirror everything is quick and simple.

Jupiter first, it's higher in the sky.

And then mars, it's lower and as always, the effect of atmospheric dispersion is much apparent.

Just for fun.

Stacked and processed two more shots:

Family stargazing

Randomly asked my kids to see if they are interested in stargazing, and to my surprise they both said yes.

Forecast told that it's going to be cloudy, and cloud started rolling when we observe.

Before it was totally covered, we watched M45, M42, Betelgeuse, Mars (to see the colors) and finally Jupiter with the Galilean satellites.

20240116 ASI 662MC

The new baby arrived, gonna test it despite the poor sky condition, I would say seeing 3/10 with transparency 5/10.

I am adjusting myself on the transparency rating, and if I were still in Hong Kong, I would say it's 6//10 and if I were to compare with the previous clear nights, I would say it's more like 3-4/10, even Orion was not too visible to the naked eyes.

With the strong tripod, the mount was steady enough for the Meade 8" SCT.  Focusing was tricky anyway, the mirror shift worsen the problem further but that was doable with patience.  Patience is cool weather came with a price, especially when you couldn't use the glove.

Anyway, here were the results.  First up were prime focus shots on the moon, given the pixel size of 2.9um, the optimal sampling would be like f/14.5 so f/10 is a bit under sampled.

Next up was the Jupiter, I've to adjust my Rigel Quik Finder in order to point at the Jupiter properly, the flip mirror did help but still requires some effort.  Adding a 2x barlows means oversampling.

First up is a f/10 shot, but with the flip mirror, I expect it works longer than f/10.

The Jovian satellites were smeared by the wind current.  Pushing up with a 2x barlows did not reveal any more detail but worsen actually.

I will try to attach the barlows lens cell to different locations of the optical chain to find an optimal one when weather permits again.

20231125 Second trial Jupiter and moon, 85ED scope with 5x Powermate

 The tripod is inadequate for the 8" SCT, so I went back to the 85mm ED scope.

Focusing is still a bit hard, but not impossible, so the result is better than before.  Will keep trying...

20231124 Trying out a new mount

I got a iOptron HEM15, mounted on Meade 8" SCT on it but my tripod was not doing well.  In order to prevent it from tip over, I spreaded the leg but it introduces even more vibration.  Accurate focus is difficult if not impossible.

Just to keep the results, all out of focus apparently:

Shall try again soon, maybe try a smaller scope first, and then move to the 8" SCT again later when I got a better tripod.

20231108 Jupiter

 Carefully aligned the corrector again, recheck collimation, windy night but far better result.

I will certainly spent more time on exercising the technique.

Collimation and first shot of Jupiter

 I did collimation around a month ago:

Spent over an hour tuning, and then the sky finally clear again on 22/Oct:

2005 and 2006 (GMT+1), seeing rather bad since Jupiter was still quite low. 

I could see low frequency seeing disturbance even at 50x.

Anyway, it's enjoyable to resume bigger aperture imaging after all those years, something like 20 years ago!

20230830 Jupiter

First Jupiter shot of the Meade 8" SCT

Just an exercise, and to try out the flip mirror.

20221002 Short Observation: M31 and Jupiter

M31 taken with my mobile phone, Samsung S20+ 

Next up is Jupiter with my 80mm refractor, 5x powermate with my ASI

upper one higher gain with faster shutter, apparently more detail, faster shutter is better for freezing poor seeing.

lower one clean at lower gain with slower shutter, a bit over exposed.

20220926 Jupiter Opposition

Just my very first Jupiter in Scotland, very poor capture, one of my worst shots.

Probably out of focus and very poor seeing.

Just a record, pretty cold outside at six degrees celcius only, it's now autumn.  

The OTA probably couldn't reach thermal equilibrium from inside taken outside, no need to be serious for taking planets with a 80mm scope.

20190925 Jupiter

On shooting the moon tonight, I accidentally found a clip which was not processed.

I suspect that it couldn't be stacked with AS!3 so it was left untouched, tonight I re-do it again with Registax.  Despite it's much slower, it works.

Taken at 1212 UT, most probably taken with the 85ED plus a 5x Powermate:

Registax still has a place on stacking, otherwise not only useful for its wavelet.

20190725 Jupiter

I've been keeping my eyes from inside my home for a couple of days.  Whenever Jupiter comes into the view from the window, cloud came up.  Today, I finally pulled out my scope to wait for a short peep.  My trusty Ranger is on the stage with ASI 120mm in order to maximize the chance of a single capture.

After waiting for long long time between the cloud gaps, I got two clips with only one processed finally.  The other one was too bad.

Poor seeing, and low transparency, taken at 1519 UT, with 5x Powermate.

20180721 Moon and Jupiter

There is a thick mist with low transparency, seeing moderate.

85ED with 5x Powermate, first time taking moon shot with this scope, I expect better result with better sky.

1312 (UT):-

,

1314 (UT):-

1416 (UT):-

And without removing the monochromatic ASI 120mm, I turned to Jupiter:

Taken at 1322 (UT), 5x Powermate, Drizzle 1.5x

20180716 Jupiter, experimental stacking of 5x and 2x

It is a very windy day, a typhoon will be passing by soon.  Expect very poor seeing but then it's rather decent at 6-7/10, nearly the best I can ever experience at home!  Transparency like 6/10, it's a very good night for me.

As usual, I used a 5x Powermate to capture two shots, drizzle is not used:

1304 (UT):-

1307 (UT):-

I didn't use my motorized focuser yet, because it's still being fine tuned.  Manual focusing is do-able with some more patience... the second shot was taken in attempt to improve the focus, but it seems similar.

Encouraged by the visual testing this afternoon, I pushed the 85ED again by inserting a 2x barlows after the 5x, which means f/60 at least, I estimate it to be f/66.7

1313 (UT):-

No more detail can be obtained over f/30 with the 5x Powermate alone.  Just an equipment test.

20180711 Jupiter as a test of the DIY electric focuser

Made a quick and dirty first version:

Still need to find better way to mount the motor so that it could be fixed along the OTA direction.

Anyway, it works.

We got 0.1/10 transparency, the Jupiter was a fuzzy patch of light with naked eyes.  I've to push the gain to maximum, and shutter to something like 0.3-0.5 second to get a very dim image. 

Manual focusing is impossible under this situation and it also proves that the electric focuser indeed worked.

1409 (UT), and I got only 200 frames due to the long exposure required for each exposure, and thus a very low frame rate.  Anyway, it is just to test the focuser.

20180710 Jupiter and a new telescope

I sold all my telescopes except my Tele Vue Ranger.  But then I wanted to look at the planets and I soon realized that the chromatic aberration is annoying.  I don't need aperture, and I need to keep portability so a better refractor is a normal step forward.

I didn't buy a new telescope for a long time.  I did buy some 2nd hand telescopes, and an absolute new one might be my C8?  This time, I bought a FCD-100 based ED refractor.  Let's see an image taken tonight first:

1342 (UT), taken with a 5x Powermate, we have the GRS on the lower left.  I'm pretty confident that this little new refractor is going to perform quite well.

Seeing was extremely poor, and cloud was floating around.  I got a single AVI after waiting for a long time.

A separate article will be written on the first night impression of this refractor, at less than half the cost of the Ranger twenty years ago!

20180706 Jupiter (missed the shadow transit)

I didn't do this kind of shots for many years, maybe like 10 years!

Too bad that cloud rolled in, and I missed the shadow transit!

A small telescope could bring much fun, I shall keep on!

20180627 Jupiter

Imaging time again!  Same setting as yesterday:

1441 UT.