Try increasing gamma if dark sections aren't distinguished

Try increasing gamma if dark sections aren't distinguished

Saturday, September 18, 2021

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

Tuesday, September 14, 2021

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.