Videotaping the Heavens, 2003/2/8Posted By Dave Mitsky |
I helped a friend wring out an ITE DeepSky Pro video camera on Saturday night (see http://www.itetelescopes.com/products/cameras/overview.php?p=D_SkyP). The relative humidity was a miserable 65% and the temperature was -14 degrees Celsius or less. All told I spent about 5 hours outside imaging the moon, Jupiter, and quite a few deep-sky objects using the camera and a 12" Meade LX200 SCT working at f/6.3. Despite my many layers of warm clothing I was as cold as I've ever been while observing. The numbing chill served to make working the camera and telescope controls a frustrating experience at times. Frost covered the table that held the monitor and camera controller and the SCT was more than slightly sluggish by the end of the session.
Unfortunately, C/2002 V1 (NEAT) was too close to the horizon to image by the time we got everything working properly.
The Barrow lunar sunrise ray was visible through a 12.5mm orthoscopic eyepiece but not on the video monitor or the videotape upon playback. Another ray, one previously unreported, was visible just north of Barrow. Add this one to Tony Donnangelo's growing list of lunar ray discoveries. (Tony called me to inform me about this new ray.) One of the interesting aspects of Saturday night's moon was an X-shaped area of illumination on the dark side of the terminator. Before tearing down the LX200 we had a look at the Curtius ray. The moon was close to the horizon by then and the seeing was horrible but I believe I saw that ray too. And so I witnessed three lunar rays in one night, a record for me.
I did manage to image Io's reappearance from eclipse at 3:48 UT (2003/2/9 UT). Long before that we had watched Io being
occulted. Images of the moon and Jupiter were done with a lunar filter and the Sense Up control set at 2, the lowest level. At this setting Jupiter's equatorial belts were discernible but the Galilean satellites were a bit subdued.
At one point I happened to gaze overhead just in time to see a fine -2 magnitude meteor streak across the zenith on a southwestern trajectory.
Images of the following deep-sky objects were captured successfully: M31, M32, M35, M37, M42, M51, M65, M66, M81, M82, M103, NGC 457, NGC 869, NGC 884, NGC 2903, and Alcor-Mizar. We used the Sense Up control set at 96 for these images. Due to image scale and other factors the images of M37, M42, M82, M103, and NGC 869 were the most impressive to me. Some of the mages (M32, M81, and M82 for example) looked similar to those at http://www.lafterhall.com/avastellacamex.html
Dave Mitsky
Unfortunately, C/2002 V1 (NEAT) was too close to the horizon to image by the time we got everything working properly.
The Barrow lunar sunrise ray was visible through a 12.5mm orthoscopic eyepiece but not on the video monitor or the videotape upon playback. Another ray, one previously unreported, was visible just north of Barrow. Add this one to Tony Donnangelo's growing list of lunar ray discoveries. (Tony called me to inform me about this new ray.) One of the interesting aspects of Saturday night's moon was an X-shaped area of illumination on the dark side of the terminator. Before tearing down the LX200 we had a look at the Curtius ray. The moon was close to the horizon by then and the seeing was horrible but I believe I saw that ray too. And so I witnessed three lunar rays in one night, a record for me.
I did manage to image Io's reappearance from eclipse at 3:48 UT (2003/2/9 UT). Long before that we had watched Io being
occulted. Images of the moon and Jupiter were done with a lunar filter and the Sense Up control set at 2, the lowest level. At this setting Jupiter's equatorial belts were discernible but the Galilean satellites were a bit subdued.
At one point I happened to gaze overhead just in time to see a fine -2 magnitude meteor streak across the zenith on a southwestern trajectory.
Images of the following deep-sky objects were captured successfully: M31, M32, M35, M37, M42, M51, M65, M66, M81, M82, M103, NGC 457, NGC 869, NGC 884, NGC 2903, and Alcor-Mizar. We used the Sense Up control set at 96 for these images. Due to image scale and other factors the images of M37, M42, M82, M103, and NGC 869 were the most impressive to me. Some of the mages (M32, M81, and M82 for example) looked similar to those at http://www.lafterhall.com/avastellacamex.html
Dave Mitsky