JAdmin – Page 10 – DROGENBERG

A nice clearing between weeks of clouds allowed to image the two majestic planets currently dominating our Northern skies.

Seeing was at best average but did certainly not allow the use of a barlow.

These images have been processed harshly to get any detail out of them. Probably not very aesthetic but for now they need to serve their best. I might try a less harshly processed version if that reveals any details at all.

South is up on all images. Europa is transiting Jupiter together with it’s shadow. on Mars, the North pole is clearly visible, but also three cloud-tops of Tharsis volcanoes. A nasty diffraction edge on the right (west) , but also some bluish clouds on the eastern rim of the planet.

Better luck next time, it was nice being at it again.

A classic object, which was imaged from the trusty old HEQ5 SkyWatcher mount, the Nikon D750 and a telelens borrowed from a good friend, Tienen-based photographer Gust Vandermolen: a Nikon F4 300mm.

This lens has excellent optics and is all-metal built – between 1987 and 2000. In my experience, even prime focus tele objectives like this one, will not achieve the stellar sharpness that modern APO refractors can bring.

The resulting image picks up a bit of interstellar nebulosity – thanks to the dark skies of Grandpré, and one could argue that the image quality is ok. However the image size has been reduced to coope with star shapes. Especially the left side of the image has a bit of left-feathered stars.

Imaged @ F4 and ISO800 for 100 frames of 2 minutes or 3hrs and 20m total.

Guiding was done with a standalone guider MGEN version 2. It must be years since I used this little device, but it still runs like clockwork. it did not take 10 minutes before it was off doing it’s work. The Guidescope was a TS 50mm F/4 guidescope

Author: JAdmin

Mars and Jupiter

Pleiades from Grandpré