Dirty Skies

Archive for February, 2006

I think I’m finally getting the Meade Lunar Planetary Imager (LPI) down. This morning the temperature was in the mid 40s F. I got the scope outside about midnight and let it equalize for about an hour. I also uncapped the LPI and put it out there as well… hey the cooler the better with CCDs right? There were some wispy high cirrus clouds but it wasn’t enough to obscure the Moon at any time so I decided to go for it anyway.

Each of these Moon stacks is under 20 frames (the one on the right is 3 I believe) down from about 200 frames each. There was a lot of atmospheric turbulence as usual but I think I got some decent results.

Before switching to the Canon EOS 300D I did about a dozen runs with the LPI on Saturn and achieved what I think is my best shot yet of the ringed planet with the LPI.

I tried to get Saturn with the 2x barlow attached as well but it just wasn’t happening so I gave up after about 15 minutes. I was cold, tired and lacking in patience at this point.

I attached the 300D and at prime focus for what has become my requisite Moon portrait.

click for larger

Ok I’ve joined the Frappr wagon. If you have a second please add yourself to this blogs Frappr group.

I was getting ready for bed yesterday morning about 1 AM when I realized that sleep is overrated anyway.

I got set up in the yard by about 2 AM to try some runs with the LPI. It had been in the 50s for a few days now and I thought perhaps the atmosphere would have settled down a bit from Monday… I was wrong. It was still “wobbly” as ever. I managed to glean at least a few shots from the evening and then attached the Canon EOS 300D for the evening’s Moon portrait. After that I pointed at Saturn and took a number of different exposures in order to image both the planet and then to overexpose it in order to grab the large moons. I was successful. Enjoy.

Shots from the LPI:

Lesson learned tonight, take ridiculously long movies with the LPI. Each of the above stacks started off over 300 frames. After aligning and throwing out the blurry/distorted shots, I ended up with only a dozen or so frames each to stack! I’m actually considering putting the LPI in the refrigerator for 30 minutes before I go out next time and see if I can’t reduce some of the noise.

Portrait of the Moon with the Canon EOS 300D:

Waxing gibbous 92% illumination

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Saturn with the Canon EOS 300D:

Animation, over exposed with Starry Night overlay

Lastly, if you haven’t seen this or been following the comments to this post over at Ian Musgrave’s Astroblog, have a look… there’s something kinda neat cooking.

Well folks, almost every night this week I’ve gotten no more than about 4 hours of sleep — and tonight I had the pleasure of sitting at a car dealership for 4 hours buying a new car (which actually IS a pleasure now that it’s over — as it’s my first “new” car in 18 years).

Adieu, adieu… to yieu and yieu and yieu!

As I indicated in the previous post I began the night with the Meade Lunar Planetary Imager (LPI). Here are the results of that effort. None of these stacks really blows me away, and I’d consider maybe 2 of them decent shots (060206_MoonLPI1010 is perhaps my favorite aesthetically speaking). You can see for yourself.

All of these shots are stacks of over 100 — some of the better ones approaching 300. As I went through these (frame by frame) the point was driven home to me just how much my atmosphere sucks. At 10 frames/sec I was still throwing out maybe 15 of 20 frames due to the smearing effects of heat driven turbulence.

The final image at the bottom of this set is an assemblage of 3 images taken around the general location where I took the most shots — major landmarks are labeled.