New Camera!

Here's an image of the cloudy skies over my home taken yesterday night with my new ZWO Optical ASI 120MC. The image is a 30-second exposure. The Summer Triangle stars Vega (top right), Deneb (top left) and Altair (bottom) are clearly visible. You can also see from the treeline why I had to build Walnut Ridge Observatory--there's not a lot of sky visible through the foliage!

The camera comes packed in a pleasing box and has a really useful accessory--a removable 180 degree all-sky lens (which I used to take the picture above).

The Camera Box

The Camera and Fisheye Lens

The camera has a very respectable QE of 55, is capable of high framerates at reduced resolutions (up to 65FPS) and can handle single exposures of up to 1024 seconds. The I120 is not cooled, which means long exposures can be noisy. However, I plan on adding a removable peltier cooler to the back of the case. For less than $25 extra, I'll get very superior performance. The camera also comes in a monochrome version. While the monochrome camera has some advantages (no Bayer Matrix and slightly higher sensitivity), the cost of adding a filter wheel was prohibitive, so I opted for the color version, which will do pretty much everything I need in a single shot. I'll post more on the mods, as well as more images (when the inevitable clouds clear).

Nova Delphini

Here's a 40- second shot of the new nova in Delphinus, which is a naked eye object. This image was taken with an ETX-125 and a Nikon D40. It's a single shot to get a record of the nova for the blog. Nova Delphini is the blue star near the center of the image. The "bobbliness" of the stars is due to vibration of the scope, but the shot shows the nova rather well.

AR 1818 After Flare and Prominence

After a long, cloud-enforced hiatus, I had both free time and (relatively) clear skies coincide today. The images of AR 1818 show it about 40 minutes after a significant M-3 Class flare. As you can see, it is very bright in H-Alpha. The other image shows detail of a lovely prominence on the sun's edge near the active area. Imaged with PST-SolarMaxII and LifeCam.

Saturn on July 12, 2013

Here are some Saturn images (first imaging from the new Walnut Ridge Observatory at West Point, IN). Seeing was downright diabolical--maybe 1/5, if that.  Focus was almost impossible to achieve as the image was "boiling" (the planet was visibly twinkling to the naked eye). The captures were with the 14 inch ACF with a Microsoft LifeCam Cinema HD. Captures were at 30FPS, 1280x720. Each capture was 2000 frames, with 400 and 800 of the best frames stacked for the images respectively. Stacking in Registax 5.1, wavelet processing in Registax 6 and lots of processing in Photoshop. The results show some nice color, but little detail. You can just make out the yellowish area in the north polar region which is where the polar hexagon lies--as captured very well by other amateur imagers as well as space probes.  The first image is a composite of the two processed images. It has a little more color depth and contrast, but the Cassini division is not even visible. Click on the individual images for a larger pic.

AR 1795 and AR 1787 on July 10, 2013

Above is a rather poor image of the complex area around spots AR 1785 and AR 1787 (towards the 12 o'clock position in this image).  The clouds broke for about 20 seconds and I captured around 200 frames before the skies clouded again. The image is disappointing due to poor seeing and the small number of frames I had to work with.  Taken with PST+SolarMaxII with LifeCam Cimema HD.

Solar Mosaic and a Small Gallery for June 18, 2013

After days of cloud, we finally got some imaging weather again.  Today's mosaic shows increasing activity on the solar disk.

The lighter, active area below and to the left of center is a complex of spots: 1770, 1772, 1774 and 1775. The prominence at the 3 o'clock position may be associated with AR1768, which is exiting the solar disk.

Here is a close-up of that active area:

And finally, here are 2 pix of the prominences at the 3 o'clock and 3 o'clock positions:

Today's Mosaic and Solar Gallery June 6, 2013

We finally had some decent imaging weather here in Indiana as the clouds of the past week or so moved on, leaving clear skies.  AR 1765 is the bright area in the center of the mosiac.  I also took a couple of "zoomed in" images of AR 1765, as well as activity in the area of ARs 1762, 1763, 1764, and 1766. AR 1762 has the potential for X-Class flares, but AR 1765 looks much more active in H-Alpha.  Images were captured with a MicroSoft LifeCam Cinema HD at 640 x 480. 400 frames were captured for each image, with the best 80 stacked and processed. The mosaic was rendered with MICE, a free program.

The Sun on 06/06/2013

AR 1765 and Environs

AR 1766 and 1764

                                          AR 1763 and 1762