Jupiter and Europa

Here's a shot from tonight. Seeing was supposed to be 5/5 according to Skyclock, but my raw .AVI were bouncing around like crazy. Below is the best shot of the night. The GRS stands our clearly, as does what I think is GRS junior literally right next to it. Europa is the small splodge at lower left.

• Meade LX200 8" @ F12
• Philips SPC900NC (2X barlowed)
  
• Captured in K3CCDTools
• 832 Frames
  
• 15FPS
• 1/33 Exposure
• Stacked in Registax
• Mild contrast enhancement in GIMP
  

More Imaging Fun with Jupiter

Tonight, the seeing was better than last night. Below are a couple of images I took while messing with different K3CCDTools settings...

















Below is my attempt to try and capture Jupiter with Io and Ganymede (from left to right). When I adjusted the settings, although the moons came out okay, the planet came out rather light/bright. I'll keep experimenting with it...

Shooting Jupiter Again

It's been donkey's years since I have imaged Jupiter using a webcam and my LX200. That was actually a problem for me tonight as I had to relearn what I had learned 18 months ago! Adjust all the settings, get focus, set the right fps etc. etc. Talk about annoying...

Anyway, the shot below is my best for the night. Seeing conditions were about 2/5 tonight so I as pushing it. I need to think about getting a better resolution camera (DMK series or similar) but this will do for now).

Not sure what the dark spot is at near center. The reddish splodge at top right is one of its moons, Io.

Image details:

• Meade LX200 8" SCT @ F12.6
• Philips SPC900NC Webcam
• 2170 frames
• 15 frames per second
• Captured in K3CCDTools
• Stacked in Registax
  

Copernicus

Despite rather ordinary seeing conditions (which made the moon dance around like mad when viewing it on the computer through the webcam) I wanted to shoot Copernicus as it seemed to be at its best. Below is the best shot from the night.

I got a bit fancy-pancy with this one. The shot itself is the result of 1,790 out of 3,000 frames shot at 15 frames per second. However, I also took the equivalent of a dark frame by shooting an .AVI file through the scope with the lens cap on. I then averaged the frames that were extracted out of the dark .AVI file and then used layers in GIMP to merge the two together.

The result is just fine. If seeing conditions were more stable this may have come out a lot better. Still, you can see some rather nice detail, especially with string of smaller craters at lower left.

Bullialdus Region

Here is a photo of an interesting lunar region. Compare it to the map copied from Virtual Moon Atlas. The crater Ballialdus sits nicely in the top right, and you can see some decent ridge detail within its walls. Amongst the other craters to the West, are a series of rilles which are rather striking. It's a pretty neat site through the eyepiece and makes for an interesting image, IMHO.

My image:

























Virtual Moon Atlas Representation:

Capturing the Moon

You could say I turned into a bit of a Luna-tic tonight! ;-)

Anyway, we had nice clear skies which were somewhat stable. The moon sat almost at zenith, and my scope was behaving admirably! I decided to take some more snaps after attempting the photo of the moon with the Pleiades using more conventional methods.

Firstly, I took a quick snap using the DSLR. Nice detail, okay color. This is a 1/120 exposure at F6.3. Click on the image below for full size.

























Then I connected my Philips SPC900NC webcam to the scope via a 2X barlow and shot some closeups. I was getting some sort of interference with the image, and I am not sure where that came from. It had a minimal effect on the images, though, except for those taken near the day/night terminator.

So, the various shots are below. I identified the various features using the Virtual Moon Atlas.

Enjoy!

Straight Wall:



















Montes Appenines (taken without 2X barlow):



















Arzachel H Crater:



















Valles Alpis & Cassini Crater:



















Clavius:



















Longomontanus: