Telescope: LXD75 SC8 @ f/6.3, LX65 mount

Camera: Canon 600Da

Filter: GSO IR Blocking Filter

Exposure: 16×1/500 sec, ISO 1600, saved as RAW

Seeing: Fair, 3/5

Software: Backyard EOS, Autostakkert, Registax, Nebulosity, Photoshop

This was a quick peek at the moon taken as part of an imaging test using my LX65. This particular test was to determine whether I could frame the entire moon in a single field using a 0.63x focal reducer/field flattener. The source images were taken manually using a simple remote switch and the mirror lock-up function to work around vibrations from the DSLR’s mirror retracting. The sky was thick with haze which gave the moon a bit of an odd color, so I separated the image into its red, green, and blue panes and selected the blue data set for the final monochrome image.

Telescope: Astro-Tech 8” f/8 Ritchey-Chretien, Orion Atlas EQ-G

Camera: Canon EOS Ra, Baader Mk III MPCC

Filter: Orion Imaging Skyglow Filter

Guide scope: Astro-Tech 60mm, Starlight Xpress Super Star, PHD2

Exposure: 8x120sec & 9x120sec, ISO 800, saved as RAW

Darks: Internal (Long Exposure Noise Reduction On)

Flats: 32×1/10sec, sky flat taken at dusk

Average Light Pollution: Red zone, Bortle 8, fair transparency, low altitude

Lensed Sky Quality Meter: 18.3 mag/arc-sec^2

Stacking: Mean with a 1-sigma clip.

White Balance: Nebulosity Automatic

Software: Backyard EOS, Deep Sky Stacker, Nebulosity, Photoshop

This is my annual pilgrimage to the frozen outlands beyond the orbit of Neptune and my homage to Clyde Tombaugh who discovered Pluto on photographic plates taken at the Lowell Observatory in 1930. These two images were taken almost exactly 24 hours apart showing Pluto’s apparent motion against the background stars (marked by red ^ symbols). I say ‘apparent’ as this motion has more to do with the Earth than Pluto. The true motion of the outer planets is from west to east, but in these images Pluto appears to move from east to west (retrograde). This results from our changing perspective as the Earth sweeps past Pluto in its orbit around the sun. Pluto will remain in retrograde motion until October 6th.

When these images were taken (September ^1st and 2nd at between 9:30 and 10:00pm EDT) Pluto was 3.13 billion miles away shining at Mv 14.4. The sun’s illumination took a little over 4-1/2 hours to reach Pluto and the feeble reflected sunlight took another 4-1/2 hours to make the journey back to the Earth.

Telescope: Celestron C11 @ f/25, Orion Atlas EQ-G

Camera: ZWO ASI462MC, 2.5x Powermate

Filter: Meade IR cut filter

Seeing: fair, 3/5 with brief periods of 4/5

Exposure 4x(3min x 15ms), gain 275, saved as SER

White Balance: Nebulosity Automatic

Software: SharpCap Pro, AutoStakkert, Registax, WinJUPOS, Nebulosity, Photoshop

We finally had a brief spell of reasonably good seeing, probably the best that we’re going to get this year, so I think that this is getting close to as good as I’m going to get with the C11 and I’m pretty happy with it. I have one more thing that I want to try to see if I can pull out a little more detail, but I’m also anxious to try my 12” f/8 Meade ACF and at least a brief test with my trusty C9.25. With the moon waning towards last quarter I’ll be switching back over to deepsky imaging for a couple of weeks, so I’ll have a little time to think about it.

So much to try, so few clear nights!

Telescope: Celestron C11 @ f/25, Orion Atlas EQ-G

Camera: ZWO ASI462MC, 2.5x Powermate

Filter: Meade IR cut filter

Seeing: poor, 2/5

Exposure 5x(3min x 15ms), gain 275, saved as SER

White Balance: Nebulosity Automatic

Software: SharpCap Pro, AutoStakkert, Registax, WinJUPOS, Nebulosity, Photoshop

On this sequence I snuck the gain up a tad and the exposure down a tad and my system ran fairly smoothly with only few dropped frames. The sky conditions were very poor with the seeing a solid 2/5 with bright moonlit haze, but there was a fairly even stretch of thin haze between clouds large enough to squeeze in this sequence. Overall not a bad result.

Telescope: Celestron C11 @ f/25, Orion Atlas EQ-G

Camera: ZWO ASI462MC, 2.5x Powermate

Filter: Meade IR cut filter

Seeing: poor, 2/5

Exposure 3x(6x(3min x 20ms)), gain 250, saved as SER

White Balance: Nebulosity Automatic

Software: SharpCap Pro, AutoStakkert, Registax, WinJUPOS, Nebulosity, Photoshop

I’m starting to settle into a routine for imaging Jupiter while we have a bright moon in the sky. As the sky darkens I get my gear uncovered, powered up, and connected and I’ll leave it tracking low in the northeast before going to bed. I’ll get up about an hour before Jupiter reaches the meridian, slew to Jupiter, set the focus using a Bahtinov mask with one of the moons, and then take a series of 3 minute videos until the planet reaches the meridian. I’ll the park my scope, power down, unplug, and cover my gear, hand off the videos to Autostakkert for stacking, and head back to bed. The next day I will process the source images in groups of 6 as these seme to de-rotate very well in WinJUPOS. The sequence shown here were taken this morning just as the Great Red Spot was rotating out of view to the lower right and oval BA was rotating into view to the lower left, with a string of white ovals in between.

Telescope: Celestron C11 @ f/25, Orion Atlas EQ-G

Camera: ZWO ASI462MC, 2.5x Powermate

Filter: Meade IR cut filter

Seeing: poor, 2/5

Exposure 6x(3min x 10ms), gain 300, saved as SER

White Balance: Nebulosity Automatic

Software: SharpCap Pro, AutoStakkert, Registax, WinJUPOS, Nebulosity, Photoshop

This is the first test image taken of Jupiter using my ASI462MC on my C11. Oval BA shows a bit of color and a hint of detail. I need to work on optimizing the camera settings, but overall not a bad start.

Telescope: Astro-Tech RC8 @ f/8, Orion Atlas EQ-G

Camera: Canon EOS Ra, Baader Mk III MPCC

Filter: Orion Imaging Skyglow Filter

Exposure: 64×1/250 sec, ISO 800, saved as RAW

Seeing: Fair, 3/5

White Balance: Nebulosity Automatic

Software: Backyard EOS, Autostakkert, Registax, Nebulosity, Photoshop

During the first week of August we had a series of clear-ish evenings and I ended each one by grabbing a quick set of images of the waning crescent moon. Each picture was taken at about 5 o’clock and shows the terminator sweeping across the vast expanse of Oceanus Procellarum on the morning of August 1^st through the 4th.

Telescope: Meade Mak 7 @ f/38, Orion Atlas EQ-G

Camera: ZWO ASI462MC, 2.5x Powermate

Filter: Meade IR cut filter

Seeing: fair, 3/5

Exposure 10x(3min x 50ms), gain 250, saved as SER

White Balance: Nebulosity Automatic

Software: SharpCap Pro, AutoStakkert, Registax, WinJUPOS, Nebulosity, Photoshop

This was a bit of a surprise. This was my first night out with the ASI462MC and the weather wasn’t very good, but I hoping to perform some basic tests to get it focused and make sure that the drivers were in good working order. I stepped outside a few minutes before 2am and found Jupiter veiled in haze, but well placed in a relatively large clear patch and it stayed clear enough and long enough to get a complete set of 3-minute sequences. The focus was a tad soft, but not bad. It will be fun seeing how well this camera performs when it is actually clear!

If you look closely you can see Oval BA just emerging over the western limb. The Great Red Spot rotated out of view right before this sequence started.

Telescope: Astro-Tech RC8 @ f/8, Orion Atlas EQ-G

Camera: Canon EOS Ra, Baader Mk III MPCC

Filter: Orion Imaging Skyglow Filter

Exposure: 64×1/250 sec, ISO 800, saved as RAW

Seeing: Fair, 3/5

White Balance: Nebulosity Automatic

Software: Backyard EOS, Autostakkert, Registax, Nebulosity, Photoshop

This was a quick peek at the moon taken right before covering my gear after a long night of imaging. The setting sun is catching the western face of The Straight Wall and casting long shadows across the floor of Plato.

Telescope: Meade Mak 7 @ f/30, Orion Atlas EQ-G

Camera: ZWO ASI294MC Pro, 0C, 2” GSO 2x ED Barlow

Filter: Highpoint Scientific IR cut filter

Seeing: fair, 3/5

Exposure 1: 5min x 250ms, gain 300, saved as SER

Exposure 2: 5min x 100ms, gain 400, saved as SER

White Balance: Nebulosity Automatic

Software: SharpCap Pro, AutoStakkert, Registax, Nebulosity, Photoshop

This is an average of two quick sequences that I grabbed of Saturn before it reached the meridian. In part, I wanted to compare using longer exposures using lower gain versus sorter exposures and higher gain. I just so happens that these two sets were very similar, so I averaged them into a single image. I am very happy with the results and I’m looking forward to trying this again using a camera with slightly smaller pixels (an ASI462MC with 2.9um pixels). If you look really closely you can glimpse Rhea to the lower left of Saturn and Tethys to the upper right.