Jupiter rolling

I got up early wednesday morning at 1.30 and went out to the telescope that was already set up on my balcony. I aimed it at Jupiter. After some focusing and calibration, I started recording a timelapse. I wasn't sure how it would fare. I have shot Jupiter before, but not with this telescope. And not from Norway. After some processing, I am now happy with the result. I see that I still have things to learn about getting the most out of the images. But that is something I love about astrophotography; there's always new stuff to learn. This is a 2 hour timelapse with one image per minute. Sped up so the whole sequence takes 10 seconds. The two moons visible are Europa on the left and Ganymede on the right. Europa cast a shadow on Jupiter at the end of the timelapse. An extra bonus!

Tech details : TAL 200mm Klevtsov-Cass, ASI178MC camera gain 200, 3mS exposure, 20 seconds recording. Processing in AS!3, used 25% best images. Wavlet sharpening and whitebalance fix in Registax, rotating in IrfanView. PIPP for animation.

Bubbly on the edge

 Yesterday, we had some views of the sun inbetween the clouds. And I used my homemade 5 inch h-alpha telescope for the first time since before the summer. There were some sunspots across the surface, but one of them cought my attention. It was right at the edge, and seemingly bubbling. So I decided to make a timelapse. The clouds came and went, so I set the timelapse at 30 minutes. At the end of the timelapse, a small cloud blocked the view. So hence the small "jump" in the recording. And at the bottom of the field, some dust was moving around. Making the wandering shadow you can see there...

Tech details: 5 inch homemade h-alpha, ASI178MM camera, gain 150, 2mS exposures. 500 exposures per image. Firecapture for capturing, Autostakkert 3 for stacking, imPPG for sharpening and stabilizing, Irfanview for coloring and PIPP for animation.

Longest timelapse so far

 The weather was great, so of course, I used the opportunity to create a timelapse of the beautiful area of sunspots. And there was some flares, and a lot of movement during the 4 hours I recorded. I have some problems with "newton rings" that I am trying to figure out how to resolve. And they are coming and going in this video.

Tech det: 5 inch homemade h-alpha, ASI178MM camera, gain 150, 1.8ms exposures. Stacked in AS!3, sharpened and aligned in imPPG and animated in PIPP.

A flare on monday 28/3-2022

There were a lot of fleeting clouds, but I just wanted to try out some timelapse. Big was my surprise when I suddenly saw a bright flare totally overexposing part of the chip. Unfortunately, the clouds made most of the flash out of reach. But I managed to get about half of the images bright enough to be used. And the rest had variable brightness, making it difficult. And the dark images made the timelapse jump at times. But it is nice after all.

Tech det : 5" homemade h-alpha telescope, ASI178MM camera, gain 150, 2.5ms exposure, stacked with AS!3, sharpened and aligned with imPPG, animated with PIPP.

 

Active sunspot

 The skies were semi-clear on saturday the 26 of March, so I set up my 5 inch homemade h-alpha scoep to catch a timelapse of a new, fairly large sunspot. And it was indeed active. The following timelapse was recorded over two hours around noon. I tried to color the images, but was never happy with the result, so I left it black and white.

Tech det : 5" h-alpha telescope, ASI178MM gain 150, exp 3ms. Stacked in AS!3, sharpened and aligned in imPPG and animated in PIPP.

It's alive!

 The Sun is definitely alive. Despite some passing clouds, I managed to capture a flare erupting. The following is a video made from images captured of\ver a period of about 1.5 hours. I had to delete some of the images due to the clouds partly obscuring the view. This made the video cleaner.

Tech details : Homemade 5" h-alpha telescope, ASI178MM gain 200, 500x2ms exposures. Captured using Firecapture, stacked using AS!3. Sharpened and aligned with imPPG. Colorized using Irfanview. Animation created with PIPP.

 

 

Trying out my new 5" h-alpha telescope

I had an idea a few years ago on how to build a large H-alpha telescope. Due to the pandemic and other reasons, I didn't finish it until lately. I have had to make some modifications and adjustments, but now it seems to be working. So I have now moved up from a Lunt 35 to a 127mm homemade beast. And MAN, apert

re is king! I struggled to focus properly due to the long focal length, and a lot of turbulence. But I finally got there, and the following is the result. I would say I am happy with this...

Tech details : 127mm homemade h-alpha telescope. ASI178MM camera, 1560x1560 crop. 1000x3ms exposures. Recorded with SharpCap, stacked using AS!3, sharpened in imPPG and color and unsharp masking in Gimp. 

The images show without and with the sharpening. I am not sure which one I like the most. Without Unsharp Mask is softer, but with, it becomes more "dramatic". Click on the image to view full size!