Jupiter and Saturn on a warm summer night

had a rare warm summer night with clear skies and decent seeing.  unfortunately my mount is on the fritz, so i was unable to get out the big scope, but had a nice session with my C8 cruising the summer sky, then finished off imaging saturn and jupiter which just happen to have the GRS in view:

Jupiter 9/4/22 07:00 UTC
click image for large size

It's been a while since i've imaged saturn, the ring tilt is really decreasing.  better view of the globe, north pole difficult:

Saturn 9/4/22 07:15 UTC

Imaging Details: 
celestron nexstar 8 gps, zwo adc, baader IR/UV block filter, zwo asi 290 MC
90 sec captures

jupiter 
FPS (avg.)=66
Shutter=1.000ms
Gain=351 (58%)

saturn
FPS (avg.)=70
Shutter=14.24ms
Gain=351 (58%)

Eastbluff, CA 9/3/2022

color boosted lunar eclipse

some models predict all the colors of the rainbow can be detected at the edges of an eclipsed moon.  here's an image at the end of the total eclipse with the color saturation boosted to bring out the color:

5/15/22 lunar eclipse
color saturation boosted

A discussion on the cloudy nights forum covers it.  There are 3 phenomenon leading to color on the eclipsed moon:

1. preferential scattering of shorter wavelength light as it passes through the earth's atmosphere (red sunset effect).

2. atmospheric refraction of light (prism effect).

3. preferential absorption of red light by ozone in the upper atmosphere (blue filter effect).  

i'm only seeing red going to blue, but none of the rest of the rainbow in this image. 

if you look below the blue section, there's a hint of teal (the blue level is equal to green, but never exceeded by it).

Here's an over-the-top article on the topic:
High-resolution spectroscopy and spectropolarimetry of the totallunar eclipse January 2019

image details:
5/15/22 
near pacific ridge trail head overlooking el moro canyon in crystal cove park (southern california)
nikon D850
poor transparency 
F-S DX NIKKOR 55-300mm f/4.5-5.6G ED VR @ 300 mm F/5.6

lunar eclipse 5/15/22

 The 5/15/22 lunar eclipse began with the partially eclipsed moon rising during full daylight--it being May:

full moon rising

Well, not exactly full:

eclipsed moon rising

In this wider view the partially eclipsed moon is visible rising in the shadow of the earth beneath the pink belt of venus, indicating the sun has set...a shadow within a shadow

partially eclipsed moon rising in the shadow of the earth, opposite the set sun

Here's an attempt at the progressive eclipse:

rising lunar eclipse sequence

And a star aligned view of the second half of the eclipse, showing part of the earth's shadow (thanks dave):

Eclipse end, star aligned.  

A bright star (upper left of moon) popped into view after being occulted by the passing eclipsed moon:

At the end of the eclipse the "blood red" moon had a prominent turquoise stripe.  Thought to be due to ozone in the upper atmosphere blocking red light. 

blue stripe at eclipse end (no saturation boost)

Short video showing the color change (4x speed):

refs:
https://www.phenomena.org/atmospheric/beltofvenus/
https://science.nasa.gov/blue-banded-blood-moon

image details:
5/15/22 
near pacific ridge trail head overlooking el moro canyon in crystal cove park (southern california)
nikon D850
poor transparency 
wide view:
AF-S DX NIKKOR 16-85mm F3.5-5.6G ED VR  @ 32 mm f/16?
close ups:
F-S DX NIKKOR 55-300mm f/4.5-5.6G ED VR @ 300 mm F/5.6

the rig:

samsung galaxy note 9

f/2.4 1/15s 6.0mm ISO 250

eta aquarid?

i've recently had bad luck hunting bright meteors under my light polluted skies. Here's my latest effort during the eta aquarid meteor shower.

star trails 5/6-7/22

didn't catch much in the way of meteors, but distortion and chromatic aberration at the edge of the fisheye lens made cool oval star trails and subtle color fringing around polaris:

star trails around the north star, polaris (short arc)

here's a meteor candidate:

Meteor? 5/7/22 ~01:34 PDT
(north upper left)

pretty sure it's not a plane--i'm expert at identifying those, living near an airport.

heavens-above.com (link requires login)  lists one potential satellite.  it's about the right place, direction and time:

Cosmos 1980 rocket pass 5/7/22

Meteor or Cosmos 1980 rocket pass?

but stretching the chart out, aligning on the stars, and allowing for fisheye lens distortion in the image...

the streak in the sky appears to be in cygnus while the satellite passes in cepheus on the chart:

Meteor or Cosmos 1980 rocket pass?

the direction is also about right for an eta aquarid.

so cosmos rocket or eta aquarid?

i'm thinking meteor...

or is it something else?

 

imaging details:

5/6/22 10:46 PM - 5/7/22 2:54 AM (battery died), Eastbluff, CA

poor transparency

nikon D850

Sigma 15mm F/5 EX DG fisheye

30 sec, iso 200

sunspots (AR 2991, 2993--2997, 2999?) 4/23/22 22:07 UTC

a nice set of sunspots were on display the weekend of 4/23/22.  Here's an animation comparing two views: a traditional "broad band" view showing the spots visible with neutral filter, and a view with a hydrogen alpha (Ha) filter showing ionized hydrogen plasma in dancing magnetic fields above the visual surface.  

Sun WL vs Ha 2/23/22 22:07 UTC

while i generally find the Ha view more interesting, it tends to mask the detail of the sunspots as well as the subtle "granules" on the surface of the sun.  

the visual surface of the sun is called the photosphere, while the Ha/plasma layer is called the chromosphere as hydrogen plasma emits mostly red light.  

Here's a composite Ha view combining a surface image with a much brighter image showing the prominences projecting off the disk edge:

Sun Ha Composite 2/23/22

Here's a small animation of one of the prominences over 4 minutes:

Prominence 4/23/22 22:43-22:47 UTC

another of surface filaments between the sunspots no flares :(

Prominence 4/23/22 22:29-22:37 UTC

next day i pulled out a big scope for higher resolution views of the spots, but the seeing wouldn't really support the magnification

Sun broad band 4/24/22 22:18 UTC

a 2x barlow added no detail :(

Sun broad band 4/24/22 22:25 UTC

Imaging details:

the "broad band" images were actually taken with a Lunt 60 Ha scope with the pressure tuner "off band". this is basically the equivalent of a red continuum filter which, to my eye, passes as "white light".
this conveniently allows "white light" and Ha images through the same imaging train with only a minor adjustment.
  
4/23/22
Ha Lunt 60 PT 
sky-watcher star adventurer mount

full disk
zwo ASI 174MM 
Ha disk
FPS (avg.)=172
Shutter=0.458ms
Gain=190 (47%)
Histogramm=75%

Ha prominences
FPS (avg.)=114
Shutter=4.575ms
Gain=190 (47%)
Histogramm=100%

Ha tuned off band
FPS (avg.)=121
Shutter=0.131ms
Gain=190 (47%)
Histogramm=72%

close up animations
ZWO ASI 290MM 

disk face
FPS (avg.)=71
Shutter=0.468ms
Gain=190 (31%)
Histogramm=78%

prominence
FPS (avg.)=253
Shutter=3.946ms
Gain=190 (31%)
Histogramm=100%

4/24/22
white light images 2/24
celestron 11" Edge HD
ASA mount
ZWO ASI 290MM 

"wider" close up
IR pass 685 filter (sharper than green due to poor seeing)
FPS (avg.)=21
Shutter=0.091ms
Gain=256 (42%)

close up with 2x powermate
ZWO green filter 
FPS (avg.)=38
Shutter=1.847ms
Gain=256 (42%)

processing:

autostakkert
best 20 frames of 20 sec captures

registax, photoshop

East Bluff, CA
4/23-24/22 

Starry Stormy Night

I don't usually post others' work, but I sort of collaborated:

StormyStarry Night

Notice anything unusual about the sky?

The sky is not filled with van Gogh's stars, but rather swirling storm clouds on jupiter's north pole captured by the juno mission.  The foreground is my daughter's rendition of van Gogh's Starry Night.  After seeing this awesome flyby of jupiter captured by the Juno space craft, my brother commented that the clouds were reminiscent of Starry Night.  So I took a picture of my daughter's painting, a screen shot of the NASA flyby and combined the two in photoshop.  

Here's her original a la van Gogh:

Starry Night by Alice circa 8th grade

and here's the flyby paying homage to kubric (suggest full screen view):

Juno Flyby of Ganymede and Jupiter
Video Credit: Images: NASA, JPL-Caltech, SWRI, MSSS;
Animation: Koji Kuramura, Gerald Eichstädt, Mike Stetson; Music: Vangelis

https://www.nasa.gov/multimedia/guidelines/index.html

more than you wanted to know about 2001 a space odyssey

Ice Giants and Moons

Here's a capture of Uranus equatorial north (earth's) up:

Uranus
11/29/21 06:50 UTC

Uranus' north pole is rotated to the left 90 degrees relative to the orientation of the rest of the planets in the solar system. a cloud on the north pole makes the left side brighter.  

Here's a wider view using a much longer exposure showing...

the moons of Uranus
Miranda is above, but lost in the glare as it's too close
11/29/21 06:36 UTC

Here's Neptune:

Neptune 11/29/21 4:04 UTC

and a brighter view showing Triton:

Neptune and Triton 11/29/21 4:04 UTC

The magnetic fields of the ice giants uranus and neptune are unusual in that, they are highly skewed/off center from the axis of rotation.  a recent study suggest this is due to super ionic ice (which is just fun to say).  

Imaging details:
camera ZWO ASI 290MM with ZWO RGB filters
celestron 11" Edge HD, no barlow
East Bluff, CA

11/29/21 04:04-06:36 UTC
120 second captures
gain 456, exposure ~5-12 ms, 30% histogram, ~60-200 fps

3x upsample (drizzle)