2018 Perseid Meteor Shower

 General Commentary, Jupiter, Mars, Meteor, Planet, Saturn, Solar System, Wide FOV  No Responses »
Aug 152018
 

The 2018 Perseid meteor shower was the perfect opportunity to test my equipment and procedures for full sky imaging. I had previously set up the camera in my backyard but the trees severely limit my FOV and the light from the base keeps the sky pretty bright. The Munson observing site the EAAA shares with the NWFAA would have neither of those limitations and the addition of the meteors would provide a more accurate evaluation of the camera sensitivity.

I started the run at 2046 (L). I’ve annotated a copy of the first still image to show the 3 classical planets that were visible along the southern horizon. Venus had already set below the western tree line. The lens I currently use for the all sky view is designed for a 1/2″ sensor camera. My camera has only a 1/4″ sensor which is apparent by the cut-off Big Dipper. A sizeable portion of the sky is not visible due to the lens/sensor mismatch. North is at the top of each picture.

The evening started with some high clouds but ended up fairly clear. Along with several meteors there were a lot of aircraft. My personal meteor count was 69 but that included several meteors that were not Perseids. Meteors not aligned with any known shower are called sporadic meteors.

This is an assembly of 2,251 10 second images taken on the evening of the 12th of August and morning of the 13th. The images are played at 0.1 seconds per frame. A quicker video (0.03 sec/frame) is on the Facebook page.

After several hours of Earth’s rotation, additional constellations and objects were visible. Of note is the constellation Perseus (the namesake of the meteor shower) and the Andromeda galaxy just visible as a smudge on the night sky. Although I have viewed the Andromeda galaxy naked eye before, Monday morning was the most prominent that I have ever seen due to Munson’s lower light pollution.

Lessons learned from this outing:

  • Extend exposure time to at least 20 seconds to increase the signal to noise ratio. That will also half the number of exposures I have to process.
  • Look for a 1/2″ sensor camera to avoid wasting FOV.
  • Look for a more sophisticated dark frame algorithm (note the peppered appearance of the clouds early in the video.
 Posted by at 11:33

Clearing skies here and there.

 Mars, Planet, Saturn, Solar System  No Responses »
Aug 032018
 

We finally had a break in the clouds (here) last night (02 Aug). Unfortunately, the sky only cleared after Jupiter was hidden by my western treeline. That left, from west to east, Saturn, Mars, Neptune, the Moon and Uranus. Saturn and Mars were easily targeted. Neptune was very low on the horizon and the atmosphere was just too turbulent to get any useful pictures. At around 3 billion miles away, Neptune is less than 20 pixels wide using my optics. By the time the Moon was in view, the clouds had started to close back in and I shut everything down.
 

 
It appears obvious that the planet wide dust storm on Mars (there) is finally starting to dissipate. The storm was first observed on the planet by NASA’s Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO) on the 30th of May. NASA reported that by the 13th of June the Opportunity rover was dealing with total darkness the entire 24h 37m Martian day. Being solar powered, it had to go into survival mode when the atmosphere became too clouded with dust to charge its batteries. The last contact with the rover was on the 10th of June.

I have not heard any word yet on whether or not Opportunity has survived the storm.
 

These images were taken with my secondary scope. I had to dismount my 10″ Newtonian to get the primary camera power supply out of the mount for troubleshooting. The 10″ is cumbersome and mounted high enough that I had to get some help to get it down (thanks Dennis). I am able to mount/dismount my 8″ SCT without help so that was pressed into service until my deep space camera returns to operational status.

 Posted by at 21:28

Planetary update

 Jupiter, Mars, Planet, Saturn, Solar System  No Responses »
Jul 092018
 

Since I am still working on getting my deep space camera working, the PTO remains configured for planetary imaging. Over the past week, in between the clouds and fireworks, I’ve been able to get images of Jupiter, Saturn and Mars. The only one I could not get was Venus; the afternoon clouds would just not cooperate.

 
I was able to image Jupiter last night (8 Jul). It transits the meridian around 2030(L) so once the clouds cleared it was close to my western tree line. I imaged it right up to the time it was obscured by leaves. The obvious spot on the cloud tops is the shadow of the Jovian moon Io. The moon is just visible to the right of the planet as it starts to pass in front of the planet.
 
Saturn and Mars I imaged on the evening of the 4th once the flashing stopped and smoke of the fireworks cleared. This time there was no evidence of Saturn’s atmospheric storm. It may have dissipated or it may just be on the other side of the planet.

 
The map of Mars(r) shows the same central meridian as the image(l) and illustrates the surface markings that would normally be visible. Although recent atmospheric readings by the Curiosity rover indicates the dust storm may be starting to wind down, the planet wide dust storm is still obscuring our Earth based view. It may take some time for the dust to slowly settle out of the atmosphere. All the images are south at the top.

 Posted by at 20:10

Mars and its phantom ice cap

 Mars, Planet, Solar System  No Responses »
Jun 072018
 

Here is the first Mars RGB image from this morning’s session. This was taken a couple of hours after the luminance one I posted earlier. After processing the imagery, I was confused by the south polar ice cap looking like a ring.

At first I thought it was a processing artifact, but it was visible in the raw video. So, I went to the recent series of Mars images on the APOD web page. Those photos were taken by Damien Peach, one of the best planetary imagers on this planet. What I had assumed was the southern polar ice cap appears to be a bright polar cloud. What I had originally thought might be a cloud in my monochrome image was in fact the light Hellas basin south of Syrtis Major.

This is my first planetary image assembled from separate RGB images taken using my Flea 3 camera and Xagyl filter wheel. The learning curve is a little steep, but as a first attempt, the image is acceptable. This is only the first. I was able to take RGB streams of Jupiter, Saturn and Mars for a total of 44 GB.

 Posted by at 13:52

Quick look – Mars 2018

 Mars, Planet, Solar System  No Responses »
Jun 072018
 

This is my first quick look image of the 2018 Mars apparition. I also captured RGB imagery but it will take a day or so to process and align those.

What is easily visible is the southern polar ice cap. It also looks like there may be some atmospheric clouds visible, but it will take a processed color image to see if that is true. Currently, the planet is headed for opposition on the 27th of July.

 Posted by at 03:49
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