The Mars occultation on December the 8th

I got up at 5 in the morning to get ready. I had put out the telescope the previous evening so it would be acclimatized in the morning. I connected the camera to the PC and fired up FireCapture. I pointed the telescope to the Moon and focused as well as I could. I was ready, And I had half an hour to spare.

I had set up autoguiding which was working fine. I did take a full frame image of the Moon and Mars. Just as a start. I was ready.

There were some thin clouds in the view. But nothing that hindered the view.

As Mars was closing in, I changed the ROI to 400x300 pixels. And I planned to take a timelapse. I was ready a couple of minutes before Mars would disappear behind the Moon. And then things started going south. First, a thicker cloud moved past, causing autoguiding to fail due to the lower brightness, And Mars moved almost out of the view. I turned off autoguiding and moved the planet back into view. And increased the gain to compensate. I could now see the Moon's limb in the view already. My pulse increased as I now realized I had to speed things up. I set up a timelapse run. Continuous 100 frame videos of the scene. After the first video had been shot, a message popped up. "Do you want to overwrite the file?" Wait? WHAT? I pressed No. The message popped up again. The Moons limb was closing in. I went back to the main view to do things manually. But the record button was gone. It took precious few seconds before I realized that by NOT closing the autorun window, the record button would be gone. I closed it, and pressed "Record". Only to realize that Mars had slipped halfway out of view. I moved it back into view. My heartrate and blood pressure were now in the 200 range. I tried taking a number of files in a row just as I planned with Autorun, but the same message popped up. I realised the problem. File naming in FireCapture didn't allow several files to be written too close in time. So I had to wait a second or two between takes. I gave up the timelapse idea, and just settled for getting ANYTHING. And I did. After some processing, I did get a few decent shots of the occultation. And here they are. My heartrate and bloodpressure is now back to normal. I have learned some hard lessons about preparations. I thought I was prepared, and then this "feature" of FireCapture reared its ugly head, and my prep and planning failed. 

Tech details : 200mm Klevstov Cass at F/10. ASI178MC camera, gain 300, exposure 5mS. 100 frames per video. Stacked in AS!3 (100%), sharpened and RGB-aligned in Registax. Final touch-up in Irfanview.

Best resolution with new camera

The skies cleared for a short while on saturday evening, so I took the opportunity to do some timelapse filming. Unfortunately, as per usual, some clouds/fog ran in front of the planet. So the guiding failed, and Jupiter slipped out of view. But I did get about 1.5 hours worth of videos. I did the usual processing. But this time I also added another step. I found out that Gimp actually has a batch-mode! So I could do some sharpening there, and when I knew how to sharpen a single image, I just went ahead and did it with all of them. There is still some noise in the images, so I need to figure out how to make them less so. But I am getting there...

Tech det : 200mm Klevtsov-Cass w/2.5x Powermate, recorded with SharpCap. ASI678MC binning 2, gain 300 6.25mS exposures. 20 seconds of exposures with 40 seconds intervals. Stacked in AS!3, wavelets/whitebalance in Registax, extra sharpening in Gimp and animation in PIPP.

Jupiter October 11th

 Yesterday night was clear'ish. At least for most of the night. I started recording 4 hours of videos from around 11.30PM and went to bed. In the morning, I closed down shop and went to work. This evening, much to my disappointment, I found that most of the night was miss, since obviously a could had moved in front of Jupiter, making the autoguiding fail. And thus I only got 47 videos in total. But I DID get the Giant Red Spot! I loved it. So here is the short animation. This was also with a new camera, and without the Powermate I had used previously. There was a lot of turbulence, so the images didn't come out superclear, but I am happy with the result. Looking forward to the next really clear and steady night.

Tech det: Tal200 Klevtsov-Cass & F/10, ASI678MC camera, gain 200 exp 5mS. Stacked in AS!3, wavelets in Registax, animation in PIPP.

Jupiter 20 sept 2022

 I wanted to try higher sampling to see if the quality could be made better. So I pulled out my 4x Powermate. With 2x binning I was hoping to max out the resolution of my 200mm Klevtsov-Cass. I set Firecapture to record 240 videos of 1000 images over 4 hours. But, of course, after months of nothing, Windows decided this was a great night to update. So while I was sound asleep, and only about 90 minutes after I started the timelapse, Windows restarted and the rest of the night was a waste. But at least I got 82 images after processing. And I did get better resolution. Or at least, it seems so. I am still not pleased with my processing skills, but I am hoping that it will improve as time goes by. The moon Ganymede popped up casting it's shadow at the end of the timelapse. An extra bonus.

Tech details : Tal 200K telescope with 4x TeleVue Powermate, ASI178MC camera, gain 250, 16mS exposure. Processed in AS!3 (10% best images used), sharpened and WB fixed in Registax. Animated in PIPP.

 

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!

Moonlit February

 We have had a lot of clear evenings and nights lately, and I have used the opportunity to take images of a growing Moon. I managed to create images on the 6th, the 8th, the 9th and the 10th of February before the clouds gathered yet again. I have tried different techniques to get as much as possible from the images. I am still learning to process images taken with my new Klevtsov. And I think this is the most I have gotten from them. I decided to reduce them from the original size. The original sampling was about 0.25" per pixel. I doubled that to 0.5". It seems to make the images clearer and sharper. So I will maybe continue doing that. All images are mosaics of several images, since the field of the ASI178 only covers about 500x750". Click on the images to get original size. Right-click and choose "Open image in new tab" to zoom in on the details.

Tech details : TAL Kletvtsov-Cass 200/2000mm, ASI178MM camera with Astronomik ProPlanet 642 filter. Gain 200, 1000x4mS exposures. Stacked 25% best in AS!3, sharpened using wavelets in RegiStax 6, processed in Gimp 2.10.

 

February 6th :

February 8th:

February 9th:

February 10th:

The Moon with new (old) telescope

 A few months ago, I aquired an old Klevtsov-Cassegrain. I have been itching to try it on some high-resolution work. But weather and other reasons have made it impossible. Until yesterday. The moon was high, and a few days away from full. So there are some regions on the western parts that makes a great relief. And I wanted to capture that. I didn't care to take photos of the rest of the moon, as it is boringly flat. The telescope proved to be pleasantly sharp. I could even make out a number of cratlets in Plato. Although they aren't showing up at circles, they are obvious from the lightness compared to their surroundings. I will try later to picture those when the shades are different. And the atmosphere is calmer.

Tech data : Tal Klevtsov-Cassegrain 200mm F/10, ASI178MM 6ms exp, Gain 150, SharpCap for recording, AS!3 for stacking (20% best images), RegiStax 6 for wavelet sharpening, Image Composite Editor for stitching. 

For full image, click on the image, then open it in another tab. Then you can zoom to 100%. The original image is 7500x3500 pixels.