still more great lunacy: theophilus and friends, ghost crater

also seen in the wider image in the previous post is this trio of craters:

Theophilus, Cyrillus and Catharina craters
 9/13/2021 02:54 UTC 

the age of these craters increases from left to right (north to south):
theophilus (left) has steep sharp terraced walls and a steep triple peaked central mountain.  

cryillus (center) has more rounded walls, with the northern interrupted by theophilus.  the central peak is also rounded and less prominent.  

catharina (right) has low rounded edges with no terracing and multiple craters interrupting/obscuring the rim.  nothing remains of the central peak.  

Lastly, can you find the "ghost crater" in this wider view (click for full size)?

ghost crater daguerre upper left
(straight up from theophilus)
almost entirely covered by lava
 9/13/2021 02:54 UTC 

ghost crater daguerre
almost entirely covered by lava
 9/13/2021 02:54 UTC 

references:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theophilus_(crater)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cyrillus_(crater)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Catharina_(crater)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Daguerre_(crater)

Image details:
camera ZWO ASI 290MM 
filters: ZWO IR pass 850 
(seeing was mediocre with the 850 filter clearly sharper than a Baader IR pass "685")
celestron 11" Edge HD, no barlow
East Bluff, CA
9/13/21 02:43-03:02 UTC
moon waxing crescent 6.6 day old
FPS (avg.)=73
Shutter=12ms
Gain=251 (41%)

more lunacy, rupes altai

here's the feature that helped me identify the crater in the previous post:

rupes altai 9/13/2021 02:54 UTC 

the distinctive curved white line is called rupes altai, a ridge that can be best seen in the lunar morning with the sun shining on it's face (5 days after the new moon), or in the lunar evening with it casting shadows (4 days after the full moon).

nearly 500 km long and 3 to 4 km high, it's the rim of a gigantic impact basin (mare nectaris-smooth area upper left in image below)

it terminates on the right hand side at the crater piccolomini

a wider view (click on image for full size):

rupes altai, lower right 9/13/2021 02:54 UTC 

rupes altai, rim of giant impact basin
mare nectaris

Refs:
wikipedia
LPOD

Andrew Planck BLOG

Image details:

camera ZWO ASI 290MM 
filters: ZWO IR pass 850 
(seeing was mediocre with the 850 filter clearly sharper than a Baader IR pass "685")
celestron 11" Edge HD, no barlow
East Bluff, CA
9/13/21 02:43-03:02 UTC

moon waxing crescent 6.6 day old
FPS (avg.)=73
Shutter=12ms
Gain=251 (41%)

let the lunacy begin with john of holywood aka sacrobosco

 i know very little about the moon, but once in a while i'll turn my planetary rig to the really bright thing in the night sky.  my usual approach is to take pictures of cool looking stuff, then learn what i've captured later.

Craters within craters caught my eye here:

sacrabosco 9/13/2021 02:43 UTC

The age of a lunar object is often estimated by how many craters there are.  so craters filled with other craters are probably old structures.  the soft cratered rim also looks old.  It took me quite a while to identify the central crater:

"Sacrobosco is an irregular lunar impact crater that is...a readily identified feature due to the three circular craters that lie on its floor." (err not so readily by me) wikipedia

Named after John of Holywood, Johannes Sacrobuschus Sacrobosco - British astronomer, mathematician (c. 1200-1256). ref

here's a wider view, click on the image for a full screen moon walk:

sacrabosco 9/13/2021 02:43 UTC

lunar surface detail is best photographed near the terminator (dividing line between light and dark) as the enhanced contrast brings out detail.  the problem with that is that most lunar atlases have a bright full moon view with a black shadow overlay, but no actual shadows on the surface.  here's the atlas view of the central crater:  

note that the 3 internal craters are easily visible, but the larger and much older crater is difficult to see without the sun's contrast bringing out its soft edges.  i was only able to identify it by finding the bright ridge at the top of the larger image and working backwards...

UPDATE:

i just found the needed site:

nasa's scientific visualization studio

gives relatively high resolution images with appropriate shading based on date as well as some labels

https://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/4874

(wish i'd found it earlier)

Image details:
camera ZWO ASI 290MM 
filters: ZWO IR pass 850 
(seeing was mediocre with the 850 filter clearly sharper than a Baader IR pass "685")
celestron 11" Edge HD, no barlow
East Bluff, CA
9/13/21 02:43-03:02 UTC
FPS (avg.)=73
Shutter=12ms
Gain=251 (41%)

Venus in infrared and ultraviolet 9/13/21

Here are several images of venus captured with infrared and ultraviolet filters. UV  light shows cloud structure which cannot be seen in the visible spectrum while IR in this case gives a sharper image, but no cloud detail:

Venus IR 9/13/21

Venus UV 9/13/21

Venus UV (colorized) 9/13/21

Venus IR as red, UV as violet 9/13/21

the seeing was fair to poor.  my intent this day was to image mercury, but i could not locate it during daylight with my overloaded mount.  here are the raw stacks with two different IR pass filters one at 685 nm, the other 850 nm.  the 850 being further into the infrared is generally preferred for mercury or poor seeing conditions, the latter being the case here:

Venus IR (raw stack) 9/13/21

Image details:

camera ZWO ASI 290MM 

filters: Baader IR pass "685", ZWO IR pass 850, Baader U-filter bw 320-380nm
celestron 11" Edge HD, no barlow

East Bluff, CA
9/13/21 00:13-02:17 UTC

685 filter:

FPS (avg.)=212

Shutter=0.101ms

Gain=234 (39%)

850 filter:

FPS (avg.)=20

Shutter=1.351ms

Gain=234 (39%)

UV filter:

FPS (avg.)=201

Shutter=4.952ms

Gain=351 (58%)

solar stuff

Solar Prominence Ha 
8/15/21 18:20 UTC

 

Solar Prominence Ha 
8/15/21 18:20 UTC
Exclusion

Solar Prominence Ha 
8/15/21 18:32 UTC
smaller prom from the side of the disk (rotated up)

There was a lot of excitement in the solar community this week due to a series of solar outbursts directed at the earth, some massive.  I actually caught the beginning of one visually on 10/28, but did not take pictures.  according to spaceweather.com a cannibal coronal mass ejection (fast moving coronal mass ejection, running into a slow moving one) hit the earth creating auroras visible as far south as 39 N in central california; detectable in cameras as far south as joshua tree. 

it was of course cloudy here so i missed it all as well as the taurid meteor shower and the new moon :(

The images above show a pretty big solar prominence i captured on 8/15/21 and have absolutely nothing to do with the events described ;)

Image details:
Ha Lunt 60 PT double stacked
zwo ASI 290MM

manual tracking on alt-azm mount

20 sec captures
FPS (avg.)~93-178
Shutter~0.331-2.283 ms
Gain=351 (unity)
East Bluff, CA
8/15/21 18:20, 18:32 UTC

Jupiter got smacked

the astronomy community was abuzz last week when an amateur astronomer in Brazil captured video of a  bright flash as a meteor estimated at 100 m crashed into jupiter.  At least 10 other observers independently observed the event, making it the most observed impact on jupiter to date; the eighth recorded since the first was observed in 1994.  More information can be found in this sky & telescope article

Had the meteor struck earth it would have been equivalent to 34 megatons of TNT (hiroshima was 15 kilotons).  Jupiter's massive gravity is thought to protect earth from many of these collisions.

Despite the fact that observers were not able to find any residual storms (which have been sighted after prior impacts), i decided to check out the impact site with a methane filter.  unfortunately, the Jupiter Central Meridian calculator cited in the article is now defunct and spat out the wrong data--so i completely missed the site (holy homophones).  nevertheless i got some colorful pictures of jupiter:

Jupiter 9/16/21 04:38 UTC.  RGB left, Methane center, Methane as red, GB right

Imaging details:
camera ZWO ASI 290MM with ZWO RGB filters
Baader methane 889 nm 8 nm bandwidth
celestron 11" Edge HD, no barlow
East Bluff, CA
90 second captures, 2x binning for methane
gain 351, exposure ~0.6-1.0 ms, 30% histogram, ~280 fps
methane exposure 375 ms, 2 fps

a rocket at night: falcon 9 launch 9/13/2021

visually it was a spectacular event, there was something surreal about seeing the long bright orange rocket plume slowly rising up through the trees.  it looked very...well rocket-like.  perhaps we'll be used to it in years to come.  perhaps residents closer to vandenberg are already used to it--tired of it?

 Unfortunately, my images were pretty much a bust, but here are a few salvages, the best from my cell phone:

Falcon 9 from Coastal Peak Park 9/13/2021

image details:
Samsung Galaxy Note 9
f/1.5, 1/4 sec, 4 mm

Nikon D850
Nikon Nikkor AF-S DX Telephoto Zoom 55-300mm f/4.5-5.6G ED VR
f/4.5, 2 sec, iso 5000, 55 mm

much processing in photoshop to correct star trailing due to camera shake as my remote wasn't working.  

venus mars (moon) conjunction 2021

The conjunction of venus and mars on ~7/12/21 made it to many astronomy calendars, including mine.  Planetary conjunctions are typically scenic visual events for the unaided eye.  That being said, this one was pretty unimpressive (i could not see mars), but it gave me an opportunity to practice/learn with a conventional camera.  

Here it is the day before closest approach with the moon nicely aligned (Mars is the tiny dot just above the tree on the left):

mars-venus (moon) conjunction 7/11/21 20:38 PM pacific

Close up of the red planet

Here's closest approach the next day. mars is a tiny speck just to the left and below venus, lower right:

mars-venus conjunction 7/12/21 20:33 Pacific 

Image details
nikon D850
AF-S DX NIKKOR 16-85mm F3.5-5.6G ED VR 

eastbluff, CA 7/11,12/2021

for the bottom image i captured close up videos of the moon at 2 exposures, one very bright with earthglow, the other capturing the bright detail, but no earthglow.  I made a composite of the two, preserving detail and showing earthglow, and placed it in the final image in which the moon was clipped...

...it made no difference at the scale in the image above, but it was an interesting exercise :)

rising moon refracted

i decided to image the last supermoon of this year as it rose from the beach at corona del mar:

Moon rise 6/24/21 Corona Del Mar

you'll note it's quite distorted.  as the moon is rising, the light is traveling tangentially thru a thick layer of atmosphere which causes distortion as turbulence bends (refracts) the light.  on this particular evening there was so much distortion, it was impossible to get a round looking moon as it rose.  there are basically two approaches to this problem: 1. wait for the moon to rise higher and capture a sharper image or 2. embrace the distortion.  To put it another way (as alan smallbone often writes): "One photo out of focus is a mistake, ten photos out of focus are an experimentation, one hundred photos out of focus are a style."

here's a great shot rob middleton took with me at cdm, showing off the zoom of his nikon coolpix P900 camera:

love the iconic palm tree next the gigantic deformed moon. 

Here's the other approach: an image captured as the moon rose higher.  it's a composite of a long exposure for the landscape, and a close up video stacking and processing 1,000 extremely short exposures:

more "experimentation":

Here's an animation of the rising moon.  it almost looks like it's passing thru an inversion layer:

Interestingly, when you first see the moon rising, it's actually below the horizon--the rays are bent by the atmosphere, changing the apparent position.  Here's a website explaining all sorts of related phenomena, including the green flash: http://hyperphysics.phy-astr.gsu.edu/hbase/atmos/mirage.html

This close up shows a green fringe at the top and red at the bottom, again due to atmospheric refraction:

Another gigantic moon and palm tree shot from rob:

a few test shots from the night before. had to wait for the moon to clear the cloud layer (it was still pretty super):

pastel moonrise 6/23/21

Image details

nikon D850

AF-S DX NIKKOR 16-85mm F3.5-5.6G ED VR 

6/24/21

corona del mar, CA

rob middleton's images:

nikon coolpix P900

lunar eclipse 5/26/21

with clouds forecast, i set my alarm for 4 AM and woke to see the sky clearing.  with some ambivalence i dragged myself out of bed, grabbed the camera set up in the garage and managed to catch the eclipse just as the moon cleared the clouds, watching it set again into a cloud bank.  

lunar eclipse 5/26/21 4:15 AM pacific
clearing clouds

lunar eclipse 5/26/21
composite image
cropped bright lights

partially eclipsed setting into cloud bank

Image details

nikon D850

AF-S DX NIKKOR 16-85mm F3.5-5.6G ED VR 

5/26/21 ~4 AM 

east bluff, CA

all highly cropped, probably should have used longer focal length lens as the wide star field is unimpressive with this level of light pollution

sunspot AR 2824 and the solar frenzy

The sun burst out of its minimum this weekend with a series of explosions on Saturday May 22nd, the likes of which haven't been seen in years.  While I missed the burst, I captured images of the offending spot on Sunday--my first solar images in 2 years:

AR 2824 and friends Ha 5/23/21 21:11 UTC

AR2824 Ha 5/31/21 21:21 UTC

Solar Prominences Ha 5/23/21 21:05 UTC

Something lifting off? Ha 5/23/21 21:03 UTC

artistic composite view (exclusion) Ha 5/23/21

The bursts are forecast to hit earth's magnetic field in the late hours of May 25th, potentially triggering auroras.  A big bonus for north western viewers staying up late for the lunar eclipse in the wee hours of May 26th.  

the accompanying radio bursts were so loud they drowned out a local thunderstorm (Thomas Ashcroft's radio data): 

View the dynamic spectrum

listen to the audio

While NASA's Solar Dynamics Observatory recorded a series of flares:

movie

Here's a list of annual sunspot activity over 15 years from spaceweather.com, a great site for solar activity information.  showing the minima around 2019 and 2008, confirming an 11 year solar cycle that's been documented for centuries:  

Spotless Days
Current Stretch: 0 days
2021 total: 46 days (32%)
2020 total: 208 days (57%)
2019 total: 281 days (77%)
2018 total: 221 days (61%)
2017 total: 104 days (28%)
2016 total: 32 days (9%)
2015 total: 0 days (0%)
2014 total: 1 day (<1%)
2013 total: 0 days (0%)
2012 total: 0 days (0%)
2011 total: 2 days (<1%)
2010 total: 51 days (14%)
2009 total: 260 days (71%)
2008 total: 268 days (73%)
2007 total: 152 days (42%)
2006 total: 70 days (19%)
Updated 24 May 2021

Image details:
Ha full disk Lunt 60 PT double stacked
zwo ASI 290MM
FPS (avg.)=39-178
Shutter=0.331-1.78ms
Gain=351 (unity)
East Bluff, CA
5/23/21
21:05-21:11 UTC

mars wrap up

Mars is all over the recent news with a fleet of space craft arriving: 

-NASA's perseverance pulled off a crazy landing with a supersonic parachute (which just sounds cool), followed by a heat shield, then rockets, and finally a sky crane lowering the lander into the dust with the rocket hovering above. NASA video.  

-the UAE's Al'Amal (hope) is orbiting the planet and filming. 

-China's Tianwen-1 is orbiting, preparing to send down a lander.  

Perseverance is loaded with easter eggs including a binary message encoded in the parachute: "Dare Mighty Things", the motto of NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) and the coordinates of the JPL visitor's center: 34°11'58.0"N 118°10'31.0"W. 

More easter eggs here

You can even follow the perseverance twitter account:

"Hobbies: Photography, collecting rocks, off-roading" 😄

so here's an excuse to process the rest of my mars opposition images.  the following sequence shows the south polar cap slowly melting in the martian summer (though some of the change is due to rotation).  

Mars 2020
Click for full size

Here's a final shot at shorter focal length from the evening of the great conjunction:

Mars 12/20/2020
wave goodbye

long winded technical imaging stuff: 

the right hand image above was captured with a one shot color (OSC) camera.  an 850 nm IR filter was used to capture IR frames.  how can an IR filter work with a OSC camera?  all of the color filters pass IR (this is why you need an IR blocking filter for many OSC cameras).  so theoretically a relatively long IR filter will pass IR to all color pixels giving a mono IR image.  

unfortunately i didn't realize i needed to uncheck the color balance during acquisition, so the pass-through wasn't uniform by color: it yielded the typical checker board appearance one sees with an undebayered color image.  color conversion gave a blue tinted image.  each of the "color" images were identical, so a simple color balance gave a mono image.  perhaps it was the conditions or the filter, but the debayered IR image offered no improvement in resolution compared to the red filter.  which is not my experience with a mono camera, though i've not tested the 850 mono yet.  

***will have to try again with the white balance adjusted next season

from a practical stand point IR/OSC images probably don't add much unless there's a major dust storm interfering with surface visibility as in the 2018 opposition.  

in a prior post i noted that while using IR as luminance generally improves the contrast/sharpness of the blue surface detail, it loses subtle cloud detail.  i note an interesting corollary to that with this image: using IR in place of the red channel will enhance clouds as they appear bluish compared to the background:

Mars 11/15/2020 06:17 UTC
IR-G-B

Image details:

celestron 11" Edge HD

ZWO ASI 290MM

ZWO RGB filters, Baader IR pass "685" nm

30% histogram

firecapture, autostakkert, winjupos, maxim, photoshop

9/29/20 07:35 UTC

2x120 second captures each filter, 400 FPS

gain 351, exposure ~.2 ms, 

tried a methane filter for fun which was like a bad IR filter :(

10/11/2020 8:27 UTC

2x120 second captures each filter, 400 FPS

gain 351, exposure ~.2 ms, 

10/14/2020  07:48-08:09 UTC

very good seeing

*televue 2x barlow*

2x120 second captures each filter, 200 FPS

gain 351, exposure ~1 ms, 

elevation ~60 degrees

11/15/2020 06:17 UTC

ZWO ASI 290MC

ZWO 850 nm IR pass filter

6x120 second captures RGB, 400 FPS

gain 351, exposure ~.2 ms, 

Eastbluff

Southern California...