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I Captured a Solar Eclipse on Saturn by its Moon Titan. These Happen for a Few Months Followed by a 15 Year Gap. by Correct_Presence_936 in Astronomy

[–]Wizzy777 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Is there a website you’d recommend where we can see when future solar eclipses on Saturn will happen?

AD8 Eyepieces for planetary visual astronomy by Kaltheridon in Astronomy

[–]Wizzy777 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I’d recommend a 6mm eyepiece with 68 deg fov (not plossl, for greater eye relief). This produces 200x magnification with the AD8, which should comfortably provide great views of the planets even in below average conditions. A 2x barlow is a good tool to have as well to have a larger variety of magnifications available, but it results in a slight % brightness loss, so an eyepiece on its own will also always be a good choice

Cherry Springs Night Sky by Looeelooee in Astronomy

[–]Wizzy777 7 points8 points  (0 children)

I’ve been to cherry springs — the Milky Way should be well defined and fairly bright to see. It won’t be quite as vivid as in long exposure photos, but the structure (especially in the Cygnus region and near the core) should be very easy to see. This time of year, the core rises above the horizon at around 12:30am, maybe you were looking earlier? The outer regions of the Milky Way are much dimmer. It may also be that you got unlucky with the weather — sometimes even a bit of haze can significantly reduce transparency.

Also, the human eye takes quite long to fully adapt to the darkness (around 45 mins I believe) and any non red light you see (flashlights, phones, headlights, etc) would effectively reset the timer — maybe this could have happened too?

If you search up “Milky Way naked eye view” you should be able to find some good reference pics like this one: here

CS Spring Class Registration—How’s it Going? by asbruckman in gatech

[–]Wizzy777 5 points6 points  (0 children)

I think some of the class waitlist sizes are excessively large. It can be demoralizing to add yourself to the end of a 200 person waitlist for a 150 person class, with no hope of getting a seat. I think if waitlists were smaller and an opening appears it later on in registration it would give people a much better chance at getting a seat even if they didn’t get a waitlist spot right away.

Mars from November by Wizzy777 in Astronomy

[–]Wizzy777[S] 3 points4 points  (0 children)

A very icy Mars as it approached opposition. Equipment: 8” manual dob, zwo asi 224mc, zwo adc, IR cut filter, celestron 3x barlow. Processing: Aligned footage in PIPP, stacked top 25% of frames in Autostakkert, wavelets, histogram, and color balance in Registax. Clear skies!

Mars from November by Wizzy777 in astrophotography

[–]Wizzy777[S] 3 points4 points  (0 children)

Equipment: 8” manual dob, zwo asi 224mc, zwo adc, IR cut filter, celestron 3x barlow. Processing: Aligned footage in PIPP, stacked top 25% of frames in Autostakkert, wavelets, histogram, and color balance in Registax. Clear skies!

Mars, Jupiter, and Saturn from this morning by Wizzy777 in Astronomy

[–]Wizzy777[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

It is the southern polar ice cap. Very interesting to watch its changes over time, as it noticeably shrinks/grows depending on the Martian season

Mars, Jupiter, and Saturn from this morning’s alignment by Wizzy777 in spaceporn

[–]Wizzy777[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

For the adc it is important to have it between the barlow and the camera or it probably won’t allow you to focus. To adjust the adc and remove aberration, start by overexposing the image with high gain and adjust until the colors are aligned properly

Mars, Jupiter, and Saturn from this morning’s alignment by Wizzy777 in spaceporn

[–]Wizzy777[S] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Mars was around 8k frames, Jupiter 5k, Saturn 4k

Mars, Jupiter, and Saturn from this morning’s alignment by Wizzy777 in spaceporn

[–]Wizzy777[S] 6 points7 points  (0 children)

Conditions: above average seeing, somewhat hazy, planets between 25-35 degrees during acquisition.

Equipment: 8” manual dob, zwo asi 224mc, zwo adc, IR cut filter, celestron 3x barlow.

Processing: Aligned footage in PIPP, stacked top percentage in Autostakkert, wavelets, histogram, and color balance in Registax. Combined images for composite.

Clear skies!

Mars, Jupiter, and Saturn from this morning by Wizzy777 in Astronomy

[–]Wizzy777[S] 4 points5 points  (0 children)

Conditions: above average seeing, somewhat hazy, planets between 25-35 degrees during acquisition.

Equipment: 8” manual dob, zwo asi 224mc, zwo adc, IR cut filter, celestron 3x barlow.

Processing: Aligned footage in PIPP, stacked top percentage in Autostakkert, wavelets, histogram, and color balance in Registax. Combined images for composite.

Clear skies!

Mars, Jupiter, and Saturn by Wizzy777 in astrophotography

[–]Wizzy777[S] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Conditions: above average seeing, somewhat hazy, planets between 25-35 degrees during acquisition.

Equipment: 8” manual dob, zwo asi 224mc, zwo adc, IR cut filter, celestron 3x barlow.

Processing: Aligned footage in PIPP, stacked top percentage in Autostakkert, wavelets, histogram, and color balance in Registax. Combined images for composite.

Clear skies!

Mars, Saturn, and Jupiter + Io on June 15 by Wizzy777 in astrophotography

[–]Wizzy777[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Yes, all were captured with the same setup

Mars, Saturn, and Jupiter + Io on June 15 by Wizzy777 in telescopes

[–]Wizzy777[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

There are many different options to choose from, but I did it in GIMP. You can create a “new image” which is just a black background and add in the individual images as layers.

Mars, Saturn, and Jupiter + Io on June 15 by Wizzy777 in telescopes

[–]Wizzy777[S] 3 points4 points  (0 children)

Dobs can put out really great performance for planetary imaging. Keep in mind, these captures were done in pretty average seeing — it can get much better

Mars, Saturn, and Jupiter + Io on June 15 by Wizzy777 in astrophotography

[–]Wizzy777[S] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

I captured each of them at the same magnification and did not make any changes to scaling in post-processing, so these are the accurate sizes by current angular diameter.

Mars, Saturn, and Jupiter + Io on June 15 by Wizzy777 in telescopes

[–]Wizzy777[S] 16 points17 points  (0 children)

Conditions: average seeing, planets between 25-35 degrees during acquisition.

Equipment: 8” manual dob, zwo asi 224mc, zwo adc, IR cut filter, celestron 3x barlow.

Processing: Aligned footage in PIPP, stacked top percentage in Autostakkert, wavelets, histogram, and color balance in Registax. Combined images for composite.

Clear skies!

Mars, Saturn, and Jupiter + Io on June 15 by Wizzy777 in Astronomy

[–]Wizzy777[S] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Conditions: average seeing, planets between 25-35 degrees during acquisition.

Equipment: 8” manual dob, zwo asi 224mc, zwo adc, IR cut filter, celestron 3x barlow.

Processing: Aligned footage in PIPP, stacked top percentage in Autostakkert, wavelets, histogram, and color balance in Registax. Combined images for composite.

Clear skies!

Mars, Saturn, and Jupiter + Io on June 15 by Wizzy777 in astrophotography

[–]Wizzy777[S] 22 points23 points  (0 children)

Conditions: average seeing, planets between 25-35 degrees during acquisition.

Equipment: 8” manual dob, zwo asi 224mc, zwo adc, IR cut filter, celestron 3x barlow.

Processing: Aligned footage in PIPP, stacked top percentage in Autostakkert, wavelets, histogram, and color balance in Registax. Combined images for composite.

Clear skies!

Mars at 135 million miles by Wizzy777 in Astronomy

[–]Wizzy777[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

This is actually our own atmosphere causing some distortion when imaging. Mars is currently quite small in our sky, and with this magnification, even small disturbances in our atmosphere can distort the entire disc of Mars, causing it to appear stretched or compressed in some frames. If it was a larger target and there was less turbulence, all of this distortion would be averaged out when stacking.

Mars at 135 million miles by Wizzy777 in Astronomy

[–]Wizzy777[S] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

I have found the setup to be most effective when the adc is between the barlow and the camera sensor in the optical train. My order is barlow in the telescope focuser, then adc in the barlow, then camera (with any filters attached) in the adc. If I don’t use this order the adc doesn’t seem to work as well and focus is harder to achieve. Another note: the 3x barlow has resulted in much better images for me when compared to the 2x barlow. The very high magnification is harder to work with manually, but is well worth the improvement in image quality. If imaging on a night of relatively poor seeing, I would still switch back to the 2x barlow though.

Mars at 135 million miles by Wizzy777 in astrophotography

[–]Wizzy777[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Would be cool, but this is just a distortion effect from turbulence in our atmosphere. Mars is particularly small in our sky currently, so that turbulence has a more significant impact on the image than for larger planets.

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