The jet stream forecast was favorable over the year end break, so I reconfigured the PTO to planetary mode and got a few series of LRGB imagery while the sky was clear. All the images were analyzed for impacts and reports were submitted.
I was lucky enough to get permission to assist a local STEMM student with a science fair project. The project involved spectroscopy and I was able to put my filter wheel mounted Star Analyzer 200 to good use. I was able to get images of stars in each major spectroscopic class. I was also able to get the spectrum of Uranus as a system capability test. I use the RSpec software program to process the spectra. Although I use a monochrome camera, the package is capable of synthesizing a color spectrum once it is calibrated. That is what is displayed under the spectrum profile chart.
A class A star has very prominent hydrogen absorption features in its spectrum. This makes it a good target for calibrating a spectrographic system. Elements in a star’s atmosphere absorb specific frequencies of light which are unique to the element. This is why we see a dip in the light’s intensity at that point. The dips in this spectrum, indicated by the blue lines, are due to hydrogen absorbing the light. This set of frequencies are known as the hydrogen Balmer series.
Menkalinan – Class A star
I also took an image of Uranus just to see what the SA-200 was capable of. The blue lines in this instance identify the frequencies of light that methane would absorb. As you can see there are significant dips in the spectrum at those frequencies.
Uranus
This is the image of Uranus that was processed by RSpec to produce the profile chart. The brightest spot is Uranus and the brightest streak to the right of Uranus is its spectrum. The other 4 obvious spots are magnitude 10 background stars.
The PTO is still set up for planetary imaging. I was able to wait out the clouds and got some shots of Jupiter early this morning. The planet is currently in the constellation Ares and transits around 0445 CDT which puts it high overhead at dawn. At 1600 CDT today, the planet will halt its forward motion and appear to start backing up in the sky. This retrograde motion is an illusion due to the Earth’s and Jupiter’s locations in the solar system and their relative motions.
The image is, as indicated, a full LRGB image. The jet stream forecast was for good upper level conditions and the fine detail in the cloud tops show that to be the case.
The European Space Agency(ESA) launched its JUICE mission to Jupiter on the 14th of April 2023. Its ultimate targets are the icy moons of Jupiter, hence the JUpiter ICy moons Explorer moniker. But its first planetary target is not Jupiter. First off, it is heading for the Earth. In fact, Jupiter will only be its 5th planetary encounter. The space craft will get a velocity boost from Earth in August 2024, Venus in August 2025, another from Earth in September 2026 and the final Earth gravity boost in January 2029. Only then will the JUICE spacecraft have enough energy to make the trek all the way to Jupiter. It will arrive at its final destination in July 2031.
The mission’s purpose is to investigate the possibility of habitable environments on the three Jovian moons that are suspected to have significant amounts of liquid water beneath their surface ice: Ganymede, Callisto and Europa. To that end the mission carries a suite of science instruments contributed by Japan, France, the US(NASA), Germany, Italy, the UK, Sweden, and the Netherlands.
This animation is a set of ten 60 second images taken on the evening of the 14th. I hope to get additional imagery of the JUICE spacecraft on each of the 3 Earth gravity assist passes.
Even though the occultation of Mars by the Moon was not visible in the Florida panhandle, we were close enough that it was a near miss. While this is not one of my normal occultation targets, I was able to come up with a combination of scope and camera to get both objects into one field of view. I was able to live stream about 12 minutes of the Moon closing on Mars before clouds ended any possibility of watching the rest of the event.
Moon / Mars
This is one frame of the streamed video. I was pleasantly surprised that surface detail was still visible on Mars with the camera gain set as low as it was to prevent overexposure of the Moon.
