It was about 65º F and breezy tonight with fast-moving intermittent clouds (low-level Cumulus?). I did about 10 runs with the camera, refocusing before each run. The reason I do this is because it’s close to impossible to tell if I’m in focus with Mars unless I can make out some surface details — which is close to impossible on my red-screened iBook using the Meade LPI imager. I had similar trouble with Jupiter earlier this year and I learned that by refocusing before every exposure I give myself the best chance of hitting one right on.

Here is the image from tonight’s optimum run. It’s a stack of 250 frames.

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Notice the “tan” area in the upper left quarter of the image. I tried to find current information regarding dust storm activity on Mars but I was not able to — or I just didn’t look long enough. I would be interested in knowing if this is indeed a dust storm or just an artifact introduced somewhere along the line in my imaging/processing sequence.

While we’re on about Mars, take a look at these synthesized images of the rovers on Mars. The images were created using a photorealistic model of the rover and Mars surface images shot by the rover. The size of the rover in the image is approximately correct and was based on the size of the rover tracks in the image. I think I’m going to add the color shots to desktop images I’m currently compiling for December.

They really fire the imagination!

I took the scope out last night in manual mode to shoot some portraits of the Moon. I took 49 shots in various configurations and camera settings as I was trying out the Canon Digital Rebel with the scope for the first time. I took many shots with the camera coupled to ScopeTronix 40mm ST Series Plössl but not one of them came out. I think the camera was so heavy that it was actually torqing the eyepiece in the tube and it caused all kinds of wierd warping of the image.

I then switched to prime focus configuration. If you aren’t familiar with this it’s where you attach the camera to the back of the scope’s optical tube assembly (OTA) which essentially turns my ETX90 into a 900mm telephoto lens!

I ended up with ONE perfectly framed shot that was reasonably in focus.

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Unfortunately I under exposed the image so some grainyness was introduced when I digitally enhanced the light levels in photoshop. I only took about 10 shots in this configuration as it required me to be a contortionist in order to frame and focus the shots — the Moon was near zenith so the scope was basically pointing straight up (which negated the need for the counter-weight, for those of you who have been following that…project?) As it happens one of the items on my Christmas list is the Canon Angle Finder C which really would have went a LONG way in assisting me tonight as I was trying to get under this.

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There was quite a bit of water vapor (and haze) in the air which was steadily increasing during the time I was outside. It wasn’t long before I began to notice a lunar halo much like the one I recently saw pictured over at Stuart’s Astronomy Blog. Here is my shot of this phenomenon.

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Lastly, probably the most interesting shot I took was of a prop plane that flew over. I was already focused on infinity so I swung the camera around and opened the shutter for about 5 seconds.

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Neato huh? At any rate it turned out to be a productive evening under the dirty skies. I finally got to bed about 4 AM (again this morning) to be awakened at 8 AM by my boys ages 1 and 3 (again this morning)… 🙁

Gotta love it!

The clouds gave me little break after midnight and I was ready to go with the camera on the tripod with the telephoto attached. I took about 3 dozen pictures at different settings in order to have the best chance of getting the “money shot.” The reason I do this is because I’m framing and focusing the old fashioned way, through the view finder. After each shot I get a few seconds of the image on the LCD but it’s basically meaningless in low light or astronomical applications. The proof is when you pack it up and go view the shots at the computer.

I got ONE shot…

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What impresses me more (ok so I’m easily impressed) are the features visible on the moon. Here is that same shot with Mars cropped out and a section along the western limb of the Moon near Grimaldi crater enhanced.

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Lastly, (again from the same shot) the moon at full resolution from the camera.

I remind you this is not a telescope but a 6 MP digital SLR with a 100-300 zoom telephoto. I REALLY need to get my act together and get the counter-weight system for my telescope built so I can attach this baby to my ETX90!

Hurricane Wilma scraped by us to the south yesterday. The good news is it would seem I was just out of her reach. We got very little wind and rain to speak of. Yesterday afternoon after the storm had cleared, the sky became a cloudless blue and the temperature dropped 20 degrees into the 60s… amazing. With the low humidity, cool temperature and clear skies it was “scopin’ time!”

I hadn’t had the scope out since May 20th (according to the Autostar controller) so it took me a while to get set up and oriented. The one thing I REALLY noticed now is that my clock drive has ALOT of slop and my focus is jerky at very fine adjustments. Perhaps when I can afford it I’ll have the whole thing supercharged. This service is praised by the leading ETX expert Mike Weasner. At any rate, once I had my target centered, the scope tracked fairly well and it was almost 10 minutes before I started to notice any drift.

My initial intention was just to observe Mars and call it a night as I had gotten a late start. Even at 276X, Mars was a nearly featureless pale pink disk… rather unimpressive. So I broke out my iBook G4 and the Meade Lunar Planetary Imager (LPI) and did half a dozen runs at varying exposures. The processed results came out a bit better than I expected.

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Even for nearly “ideal” viewing conditions locally, the was STILL alot of atmospheric turbulence. 🙁

Until next time!