last weekend's moon-venus conjuction

many noticed the conjunction of the moon and bright venus after sunset last weekend.  turned my planetary rig to venus, but failed to detect any clouds.  

moon-venus
telescope-camera
saturn below, just above the tree line
2/2/2025 8:40 PM local

Conjunction close up:

moon venus conjunction
composite image to include earthshine
6:23-6:25 PM local

Venus Close up.  sadly failed to detect any surface cloud structure:

Venus UV filter
2025-02-02 01:57 UTC

Moon at same scale for no good reason:

Moon
2/2/25 6:23 PM

Imaging details:
2/2/2025
Eastbluff, CA

venus close up
ZWO ASI664MC
celestron 11" Edge HD, no barlow
East Bluff, CA
2025-02-02 01:57 UTC
180 second captures
Shutter=0.820ms
Gain=351 (58%)
Histogramm=88%
FPS (avg.)=866 !
captured with firecapture
stacked in autostakkert
processed in registax and photoshop

used neither ADC nor barlow for fear of blocking UV

venus moon conjunction
nikon D850
F-S DX NIKKOR 55-300mm f/4.5-5.6G ED VR
1 minute video captures
stacked in autostakkert
processed in registax and photoshop
images used for composite:

Comet C2024 G3 Atlas survives

Comet C2024 G3 Atlas survived it's close pass with the sun, causing a stir in the astronomy community as comets surviving such a trip tend to be very bright.  some, even visible during daylight.  

While this one was in theory bright enough to see during daylight, it's trajectory kept its line of sight close to the sun and heading south.  so not a great target for northern viewers due to the sun's glare.  

On 1/15/25 I managed to catch it from the top of signal hill shortly after work.  It was visible in binoculars, slightly better than this image, but not visible naked eye:

C2024 G3 Atlas
1/15/2025 
approximately 5:41 PM local

Wider view:

C2024 G3 Atlas
1/15/2025

About 30 people were gathered on top of signal hill to catch the sunset (none for the comet).  As amateur astronomers are wont to do, I attempted to share my catch with my neighbors: handing off the binoculars to a couple next to me, I told them to look above the string of lights heading up the far hill...

after a few failed attempts, I showed them again and they found it, at least pretending to be pleased.  

In running through my images, I discovered the problem: there were intermittently more than one string of lights "going up the hill" and they were moving--massive arrays of lights working at the port of Long Beach.  

Comet C2024 G3 ATLAS
Activity at 
Port of Long Beach
1/15/2025 
5:41-5:47 PM

 

image details:

1/15/2025

Hill Top Park, Signal Hill.

comet first detected in binoculars at 5:41 PM local, approximately 36 minutes after sunset.

smoke from the LA fires darkening horizon.  

not visible naked eye.  

nikon D850

F-S DX NIKKOR 55-300mm f/4.5-5.6G ED VR

1/25 sec @ f/5 ISO 400 195 mm

second jupiter of the year 2025-01-03 05:39.2 UTC

 still more good seeing, this time through light fog.  

The great red spot can be seen just peaking off the right side (better shown in the animation below).  There appears to be a long tail of turbulent clouds "following" the GRS in the brown southern equatorial belt.  

Animation:

2025 01 03 05:32.9-05:45.6 UTC

initial view for winjupos orientation caught detail on Ganymede:

Jupiter and Ganymede
2025-01-03 05:28.8 UTC

Imaging details:
exposures were 2-3 times longer than normal due to light to moderate fog

first jupiter of the year 2025-01-02 06:03.2 UTC

another night of good seeing, managed to get the barlow out for 2x magnification before the fog rolled in

first of the year
technically 1/2/25  06:03.2 UTC
but it was 10 PM on January first local

Jupiter
2025-01-02 05:57-06:10 UTC

Sadly, fog totally obscured mars later in the evening.  

imaging details:
above

the animation is composed of individual captures

couldn't resist pushing the processing a bit hard as the data was pretty good
difficulty tuning the eADC now with the barlow because the numbers are so damn small

will try installing the software

sadly the instructions call for arcane knowledge of driver installation.  

Happy New Year. Jupiter 12/31/24 3:48.6 UTC

happy new year all.  

the region between the 2 blue festoons was blazing away through medium to heavy fog.  

you can also see a recent storm in the southern equatorial belt (white patch to the right of the lower of the two thick tan bands)

Image details:
see annotations

best 4 of 9 capture attempts over a 10 minute period.  

the image was upsampled 3x, processed then reduced to 50%, so 1.5x from native.

conditions have been tough recently, either terrible seeing, clouds or heavy fog.  i've often noted the seeing can be excellent when it's foggy, but there's usually a very short window to image before total fog out, with the challenge of massive dew formation.  this one was captured through breaks in the fog with the dew heater on max.  The region was never totally clear and completely fogged at times.  had to feather the exposure time during captures to keep the exposure reasonable.  The lowest exposures were still 3x that of a clear night, going up to 10x. used virtualdub to delete overexposed frames (PIPP didn't work).  

Jupiter, Ganymede shadow transit 11/10/2024 08:41.5 UTC

Here's Ganymede's shadow transiting Jupiter on 11/10/24:

Jupiter
2024-11-10 08:41.5 UTC

My goals for the evening were quick test shots of saturn and jupiter 

saturn was disappointing with mediocre seeing at low altitude,

but when i turned to jupiter the seeing improved dramatically

this combined with the GRS and a Ganymede shadow transit led to sleep deprivation.

Here's an animation of a portion of the shadow transit:

Jupiter
2024-11-10
08:24.8 to 08:48.6 UTC

wide view:

Jupiter and moons
2024-11-10
08:19.9 UTC

Saturn and moons earlier that night:

Saturn and a few moons 
2024-11-10
07:09 UTC

Imaging details:

ZWO ASI664MC

sunobserver eADC from astro hutech

celestron 11" Edge HD, no barlow
East Bluff, CA

11/10/24

90 second captures

Shutter=1.000 ms

Histogram=61%

gain 431

245 fps

captured with firecapture
stacked in autostakkert (upsampled 3x)
combined in winjupos 
processed in registax and photoshop

down sampled 50% for a final 1.5x for the first shot

1x for the animation

.5x for the wide field.

saturn was imaged low in the sky earlier that evening

the seeing was mush down low, but the eADC did well.  

This was my third night out with the eADC

the first required a bit of fiddling learning the controls/modes

the numbers on the readout are comically small. 

i had to magnify it with my cell phone

the alignment was good, but not perfect. 

the second night i dialed in the alignment perfectly, but the seeing degraded.

the third night, i just plugged the thing in, 

didn't touch the controls 

the correction was perfect all across the sky.  

very impressive.  

The ADC tuning tab in firecapture helped align the ADC:

winjupos continues to show it's value:  

the image derotation section has an option to correct the position of planetary moons and their shadows.

this allows you to stack individual moon images in one fell swoop with image derotation.  

hence more apparent detail on ganymede than i've ever captured before.

the shadow stacking didn't work out as well, leaving some artifacts (removed in photoshop), but it did mask the shadow out from all the images not at the reference time, so a help there.

here's a winjupos screen shot accurately showing distortion of the shadow on the edge of jupiter and even the penumbral halo:

winjupos screen shot showing
ganymede and shadow positions

carpe noctem, saturn leads the planet parade

depressed about the time change?
get out there and enjoy the night.  
saturn is perfectly located for early evening viewing
followed by jupiter in december
then mars opposition in january

enjoy

Saturn 
10/21/24 06:07 UTC

Imaging details:
first light new camera and eADC

the ZWO ASI664MC

an upgrade from the 290MC
the frame rate was 50% higher for this image

sensitivity theoretically higher as well.  

the sunobserver eADC from astro hutech is an electronic atmospheric dispersion corrector

that uses an accelerometer to adjust the correction angle as the scope rotates across the sky

eliminating the need to correct the ADC throughout the night

very nice for a long session, though i have to say the numbers on the read out are comically small. 

i had to magnify it with my cell phone

while i have no problem with this small type.  

celestron 11" Edge HD, no barlow
East Bluff, CA

10/21/24

05:53-06:21 UTC

17 x 90 second captures

Shutter=2.347ms

Histogram=31%

gain 431

300 fps

captured with firecapture
stacked in autostakkert (upsampled 1.5x)
combined in winjupos 
processed in registax and photoshop