Posts Made By: Jason Higley

The Moon (all are single exposure afocal in 60mm Traq Telescope and Kodak):

http://setisociety.org/Moon-Nov1907-056.jpg

http://setisociety.org/Moon-Nov1907-183.jpg

http://setisociety.org/Moon-Nov1907-167.jpg

http://setisociety.org/Moon-Nov1907-103.jpg

http://setisociety.org/Moon-Nov1907-141.jpg

http://setisociety.org/Moon-Nov1907-084.jpg

Regards, Jason H.

Conditions-Moon almost full, clouds rolling in, seeing=go back inside.
60mm telescope on a tilt-a-whirl mount (i.e. no tracking)
9mm eyepiece, $10 from Bill Burgess at a star party.
3 filters stacked: Celestron 96, Parks PL & a Tasco green moon filter.
Camera - The Amazing Spiderman 3-in-1 Digital Camera, $19.67-Walmart.

Relief on the Moon's Limb
http://setisociety.org/moonspidermanPhoto005.jpg

Moon (w/vignetting, it's hard to keep this tiny chip centered)
http://setisociety.org/moonspidermanPhoto037.jpg

http://setisociety.org/moonspidermanPhoto150.jpg

The camera can shoot stills, video clips, and can be used as webcam, and has a Quarter-20 screw that permits using the Orion Steadypix to keep it next to an eyepiece. Although low-resolution, 640x480, the camera seems somewhat light sensitive as I had to use 3 filters (even resorting to a green Tasco Moon filter out of desperation) even though I was only using a 60mm with a 9mm EP.
Testing the bottom :^) Jason H.

I'm not a Deep Sky imager (yet), but I figure perhaps somebody here might appreciate the method of acquisition (even though most folks can do much better from their driveways, but since I don't own a good mount), tonight I was using the NASA SOHO online database, and I stacked 20 frames from May 2007 to create this shot of M45:

http://setisociety.org/PleiadesSOHO20framesproc.jpg

Considering that this is from a "SOLAR" space telescope (and the Sun is just outside of the frame), and the LASCO camera only has a resolution of 56 arc seconds per pixel (that's not a typo) I think it did O.K., and apparently it gets down to at least Mag 8.81 (on an easy to identify star I checked via Starry Night Pro.)

Awhile back I processed this one of M25 and M17 via SOHO
http://comsketch.com/SOHODEEPSPACEM25M17.jpg

And this one is Saggitarius star clouds near M-8
http://comsketch.com/SOHODEEPSPACE1.jpg

Regards, Jason H.

In another cheap experiment, I put a hose clamp on a Timex electric lamp timer that I bought in Walmart for 6 bucks and mounted my Kodak on it to get these 64 second 400 ASA shots

Comet Holmes (the red orb) and M45

http://setisociety.org/CometHolmesandPleiades.jpg


Mars, Orion and The Pleiades
http://setisociety.org/OrionMarsM45Dec607-185.jpg

I know this next one is noisy (and I live in a light polluted area), but considering that it is only a 14mm camera objective on a cheap point-n-shoot camera mounted on a lamp timer, I couldn't believe that the stars came out that round or that the Orion Nebula would even show up!

http://setisociety.org/OrionandMars.jpg

I very roughly aligned it to Polaris (no scope, just eyeballed it) Here are some shots of the timer (yes that is a bungee cord and yes those are twist-ties :^)

http://setisociety.org/TimexTimer1.jpg
http://setisociety.org/TimexTimer2.jpg
http://setisociety.org/TimexTimer3.jpg
http://setisociety.org/TimexTimer4.jpg

Regards, Jason H.

Here's a short stack from last night (Dec. 13) with a Panasonic Lumix camera (no external computer present to record) at the eyepiece of a 6" newt.

http://setisociety.org/marsdec1307-047regproc.jpg

(Just reporting what happens when you do this; don't kill the messenger. :^)

Regards, Jason H.

Using images from the SOHO satellite taken within the last 24 hours, I stacked this shot of the Sun about to cross the plane of our galaxy (relative to us.)

http://www.setisociety.org/soho22Dec07regtwoproc.jpg

Those are the Saggitarius star clouds in the background, with the plane of the galaxy running from the top left to the bottom right. The galactic center is within this image (per Starry Night Pro) at the 5 o'clock position. The circular feature in the center of the image is the occluded Sun. The two bright streaks near the Sun are the trails of Mercury and Jupiter over hours of time.

Regards, Jason H.

I took this afocal single exposure tonight (make sure to enlarge to full size in browser)

http://setisociety.org/Mars-Moon-23Dec07-Tasco60.jpg

The disk of Mars seems to have resolved nicely considering the stats: Full Moon in the field of view (with a little vignetting), 60mm Tasco refractor on a non-tracking wobble mount, 20mm generic Plossl EP, Kodak Z730 point-n-shoot camera.

Regards, Jason H.

Here are some of the interesting Galaxy images I've seen doing galaxyzoo.org classifications:

http://www.setisociety.org/r588017705091006510.jpeg

http://www.setisociety.org/neatgalaxypair.jpg

http://www.setisociety.org/neatgalaxypair2.jpg

http://www.setisociety.org/r587742773487403233.jpeg

http://www.setisociety.org/r587725577499181249.jpeg

http://www.setisociety.org/r587725591457759368.jpeg

http://www.setisociety.org/r587728676855283746.jpeg

http://www.setisociety.org/r587732053243855010.jpeg

http://www.setisociety.org/r587736584963817537.jpeg

http://www.setisociety.org/r587736584975745218.jpeg

http://www.setisociety.org/r587737826216771681.jpeg

http://www.setisociety.org/r587738615950868486.jpeg

http://www.setisociety.org/r587738947220799529.jpeg

http://www.setisociety.org/r587739406763950191.jpeg

http://www.setisociety.org/r587739407317205030.jpeg

http://www.setisociety.org/r587739407876554999.jpeg

http://www.setisociety.org/r587739849151086788.jpeg

http://www.setisociety.org/r587742576451387522.jpeg

http://www.setisociety.org/r587742889704161555.jpeg

http://www.setisociety.org/r588010878221680732.jpeg

http://www.setisociety.org/r588017115055849537.jpeg

http://www.setisociety.org/r588016892782182559.jpeg

http://www.setisociety.org/r588017567635996819.jpeg

http://www.setisociety.org/r588017627767767163.jpeg

http://www.setisociety.org/r588017603620175965.jpeg

Perhaps this forum's the best considering the posters' affinities?

Regards, Jason H.

Nowhere as nice as the large ones here; I guess I'm test-driving the mini/economy model :^)

Saturn
http://setisociety.org/05JAN08-002RegProc.jpg

Panasonic Lumix point-n-shoot camera (stored in camera using internal video mode, no laptop/PC present), 6" newtonian scope, afocal at 10mm eyepiece.

Regards, Jason H.

All of these objects except for one were found by other people and were posted under the Weird and Wonderful forum under the oddballs thread over in galaxyzoo.org (which uses the Sloan Digital Sky Survey at http://www.sdss.org as a data source.)

http://setisociety.org/object2.jpg

(I found this next one myself during classification)

http://setisociety.org/object1.jpeg

http://setisociety.org/object3.jpg

http://setisociety.org/object4.jpg

http://setisociety.org/object5.jpg

http://setisociety.org/object6.jpg

BTW, if one uses galaxyzoo.org or the SDSS site, one can see the exact RA and DEC of each object you classify (and those of others who post in the forums), in case somebody here wants to follow up on one of the larger, closer freaks.

Regards, Jason H.