Key |
Sun =  |
Luna =  |
Venus =  |
Mars =  |
Jupiter =  |
Saturn =  |
Deep Sky =  |
experiment =  |
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Date: |
Images of: |
Description: |
October 25, 2003 |
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Two huge sunspots on the Sun's surface
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August 26/27, 2003 |
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Mars at its closest!
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August 24, 2003 |
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Mars, 24 hours before its closest pass to Earth.
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August 20, 2003 |
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Mars again.
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August 18, 2003 |
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Sharper Mars, better color setting with the ToUCAM.
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August 13, 2003 |
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WE ARE BACK!
The C8 is back from repair!. It has a new
matched corrector, cleaned optics and has been collimated. Just in time
for Mars' close approach. Already the results are exciting!
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September 30, 2002 |
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All sort of stuff from a single roll of Elitechrome: Ikeya-Zhang, Perseids and the ISS.
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September 21, 2002 |
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Harvest Moon rising over the North Cascades
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September 20, 2002 |
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Sun and Harvest Moon with the Coolpix
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June 19, 2002 |
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All I managed was M57.
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June 10, 2002 |
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Partial Solar eclipse, only managed to get the Coolpix working...
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April 31, 2002 |
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Clear night, took a snap of the planetary alignment with the
digital camera (Coolpix 885).
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February - April 31, 2002 |
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Weather hasn't been cooperative and I've been mainly experimenting
with film, so there's not much to look at. I did take some
pictures of Ikeya-Zhang, but they didn't scan well.
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February 3, 2002 |
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Clear, but hazy skies, first session in a long time. First use of
the C8 with the f/3.3.
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December 23, 2001 |
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Great session of good steady air, quickcam on M42
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December 14, 2001 |
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First imaging session with the new EQ-6 mount, this time I'm trying video integration.
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November 18, 2001 |
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LEONIDS! Unbelievably clear skies for November. My first real attempt at film wide field. I did
manage to catch a few meteors, too!
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October 17, 2001 |
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First time out since I collimated. Now I'm fighting fog!
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September 29, 2001 |
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Still trying to get the sharp image of Saturn I've been dreaming about.
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September 22, 2001 |
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My first planetary images with the C8. Saturn was the target this evening.
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September 10, 2001 |
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Finally. I managed to get some images at the prime focus of the C8.
I focused the quickcam during the day and found it much easier to fine
focus it that night. First images of M57 for me.
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August 11, 2001 |
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No images today, just great seeing. Spent the weekend in Leavenworth, WA under 6.8+ skies!
My wife and I counted over 30 perseids in an hour, which was quite spectacular.
M31, M33 and the Twin Clusters were naked-eye visible and as
was the North American Nebula. I don't recall seeing skies so dark
in recent memory. Back to the light-polluted, smog-laden skies of Seattle....
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August 9, 2001 |
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First film images, Canon SLR at the prime-focus of the C8.
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August 1, 2001 |
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Working on perfecting dark frames, short session due to clouds.
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July 27, 2001 |
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Still experimenting with QCV2 settings...
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July 27, 2001 |
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Good seeing, good tracking and my first resolvable deep sky images! M13 and M31.
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July 25, 2001 |
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First deep attempt, not so good.
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June 21-July 24, 2001 |
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I've been fortunate enough to have been loaned the use of a classic
Orange Celestron C8 SCT! I have been spending most of my time familiarizing myself
with its operation, and with the moon blotting out of most the seeing, I
haven't had the opportunity to do any deep-sky imaging. I'm anxious to
try some video integration on the brighter Messier objects. I'm amazed at the
difference in seeing between the 8" and my ETX. Will I ever be able to go back?
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June 21, 2001 |
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The moon with the Orion Shorttube and vesta.
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June 21, 2001 |
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Security Camera CCD on the sun with Shorttube and ETX.
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June 17, 2001 |
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Security Camera CCD and Vesta Pro on the sun.
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June 17, 2001 |
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Security CCD (low lux). My first sunspot pictures.
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June 8, 2001 |
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VestaPro on the 2x barlow. Poor seeing, heavy haze and bright moon.
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June 4, 2001 |
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VestaPro on the 2x barlow, this time, with the aid
of a clothes pin, I achieved good focusing.
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May 31, 2001 |
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VestaPro on the 2x barlow, not the best clarity.
I made an animation showing rotation, too.
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March 5, 2001 |
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Slightly better with the use of a Hartmann mask. |
March 5, 2001 |
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Images still not up to par with the Quickcam yet. |
March 3, 2001 |
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First experiments with Steve Mogg's c-mount adapter. The results are very promising. I really need to fix my ETX so I can properly tune the software and camera with the object in the field of view for longer than 3 seconds. |
February 21, 2001 |
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Simple mosaics of the moon with the Orion Shorttube 80mm and Vesta Pro |
February 17, 2001 |
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I'm back! After a long hiatus, I'm armed with lots of new gear that I hope to expand my horizons with: - T-ring for my Canon SLR
- Solar filter for the ETX
- Philips Vesta Pro camera
- Universal Webcam adapters from Steven Moog
Tonight I was experimenting with COAA's AstroVideo video integration software. The camera is a Panasonic BP330 low-lox security camera. Since I do not have a c-mount adapter, I simply pointed the camera at the sky and played with video integration. The result is commonly known as star-trails. |
October 1999 to present |
New baby, new house, new job mean little time for astronomy these days. Hopefully soon I'll get back out there! |
October 21, 1999 |
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Finally managed to catch Saturn with the quickcam, as well as Jupiter. |
October 20, 1999 |
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More Jupiter, better this time. I wanted to get some before the rainy season set in. |
September 2, 1999 |
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Jupiter images, too much power, so they're a bit blurry. |
July 27, 1999 |
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Partial lunar eclipse animation! Also, a new image of Jupiter |
May to July |
Mars is getting smaller, but Jupiter is rising very late, so I hope to be focusing my attention on it starting mid-July! |
May 21, 1998 |
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Experimenting with settings on Mars. |
May 14, 1998 |
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Mars shows some features, finally. |
April 29, 1998 |
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Better performance of the color quickcam, boring Mars though. |
April 28, 1998 |
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First light of the new Color Quickcam! The results are less than thrilling. |
April 24, 1998 |
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Horrible atmospheric distortion! |
April 23, 1998 |
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More processed Mars images |
April 22, 1998 |
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Really nice images and animations of Venus |
April 19, 1998 |
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Really nice images of Mars, some AVI animations, too. |
April 17, 1998 |
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Quickcam meets the barlow |
January to date... |
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Record-breaking rain streak here in Seattle. Terrible season for astronomy in Seattle. I could have put up some wonderful Venus-Jupiter conjunction images, too! And I've only used my Autostar twice! |
January 3, 1998 |
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Still experimenting with software |
December 3, 1998 |
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Experimenting with new software |
November 29, 1998 |
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First clear, moonlit night in weeks. |
November 6, 1998 |
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Another moon mosaic. |
November 5, 1998 |
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A day after the brightest full moon of the year. Damn Seattle. |
November 2, 1998 |
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The moon is nearly full. Another mosaic of images, but not as high quality. |
October 29, 1998 |
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The moon is out! Only the 2nd time since I have had my scope, first time at prime-focus. |
October 26, 1998 |
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Jupiter's moons are all in a row, like pearls on a string. |
October 21, 1998 |
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Jupiter bands and moons in one shot! |
October 19, 1998 |
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More of the same. Still no luck with M31...trying everything I can think of. |
October 18, 1998 |
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More of the same. Trying to clarify the bands of Jupiter a bit more. No luckgetting M31 focused/imaged yet, either. |
October 15, 1998 |
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The quickcam is back! And this time its at the prime-focus! Yay! Lots of pictures of Jupiter. |
October 7, 1998 |
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Only managed about 1 hour of observing time, it was teerribly overcast. Alsoborrowed Gary's Barlow lense for higher magnification. |
October 5, 1998 |
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These are the first quickcam images that I've made with my Meade ETX. Thisare from the 2nd night that I've actually owned the telescope. The moonwas full, and Saturn and Jupiter extremely bright. |