September 2024

September 15th 0750 GMT Sun 

 

There was thin cloud around. It did not stop me from capturing sunspots but I thought I might not be able to photograph faculae. I used my usual settings of 1.54m focal length, ISO 100 and 1/500 second exposure.

September 14th 2255 GMT Moon and Jupiter 

 

Sometimes sessions are quick and easy, like my solar shoot earlier in the day. This was anything but, as I struggled with our high fences and I could not find objects that I usually get quite quickly. Also there was a lot of haze around, especially near Saturn, making any chance of Titan impossible.

 

First up was the Moon at 1.54m focal length, ISO 100 and 1/400 second exposure.

 

I increased the exposure to 1/200 second to try to capture Jupiter's cloud belts. It didn't work and there was only a hint of the cloud belts.

I finished with a few shots of Jupiter's moons at 1.54m focal length, ISO 6400 and 1/3 second exposure. The stack worked on three of the moons but not all four, so I processed a single shot.

I combined the two above shots to form a composite view, as Jupiter's disc is over-exposed in order to capture the moons.

September 14th 0845 GMT Sun 

 

I snapped the Sun with my Mak and DSLR at 1.54m focal length, ISO 100 and 1/500 second exposure. I reflected that I had survived Friday 13th without major incident.

September 13th 2230 GMT Moon, Jupiter and Saturn 

 

The Moon was low in the south west. it was too low for my telescope, so I used my DSLR at 300mm focal length, ISO 100 and 1/500 second exposure.

 

Then it was down to the serious business! The main target was planetary moons. I started off by taking lots of dark frames at 1.54m focal length, ISO 6400 and 1/3 second exposure.

First was Saturn, well-placed in the south. I took lots of shots, hoping to stack them. I did not capture Titan.

 

I changed the ISO setting to 100 and tried exposures from 1/100 to 1/10 second to catch the planet. I just caught a fuzzy ball!

Jupiter was not so well-placed, being low in the east. I took lots of frames at the original settings to catch the moons. 3 were clearly visible in my camera viewfinder. I caught yhe moons but focus was not sharp.

 

I then changed the settings to ISO 100 and various exposures from 1/200 to 1/100 second exposure to try to capture planetary detail. I didn't but thought I would have better luck when  it was higher in the sky.

September 13th 0740 GMT Sun 

 

It was Friday 13th and nothing bad had happened yet, although there was still a lot of day to go. Meanwhile, I snapped the Sun with my Mak and DSLR at my usual settings.

September 13th 0440 GMT Betelguese 

It was the dreaded Friday 13th. Dawn was breaking but Sirius was obvious, low in the south east. I could also see Betelguese, Procyon and Rigel from an upstairs window. Betelguese seemed rather faint at about magnitude 0.7.

September 12th 2000 GMT Moon and Melotte 20

 

I snapped the waxing gibbous Moon at 300mm focal length, ISO 100 and 1/500 second exposure.

 

I snapped Titan and, again, spotted a possible other moon.

I took some more shots of Melotte 20, with the intention of stacking.

September 12th 0730 GMT Sun 

 

The sky was clear, so I did some full disc shots of the Sun with my Mak and DSLR at 1.54m focal length, ISO 100 and 1/500 second exposure. Although the Sun was quieter than recently, I was able to see sunspots quite easily.

 

 

I followed up with a hydrogen alpha shoot with my PST and DSLR. I took one set of shots at automatic settings. As usual, I processed the green and red data separately.

Next I set the camera to 55mm focal length, ISO 400 and 1/20 second exposure.

Unfortunately, there was not much detail in the red data and, on this day, the green data was good but no match for my 127mm Maksutov in white light.

September 11th 2100 GMT Saturn and M31

 

I set my DSLR to 300mm focal length, ISO 6400 and 2 seconds exposure. I started off with a set of dark frames. I used these 10 frames plus 10 from September 9th.0

I took a few shots of Saturn, hoping to catch Titan again. I also saw a faint star-like object near Saturn, maybe another moon.

 

I took some shots of the Andromeda Galaxy (M31).

 

I tried to find a few other deep sky objects but was struggling and called it a night.

September 11th 2025 GMT Moon 

 

The Moon was about to set. I had to walk a few yards from the front of our house to snap it with my DSLR at 300mm focal length, ISO 100 and 1/400 second exposure.

September 11th 1220 GMT Sun 

 

I caught a gap in the cloud but botched the first set of images my overexposure the Sun. I used my Mak and DSLR at 1.54m focal length, ISO 100 and 1/500 second exposure and tried again.

September 10th 2250 GMT Planetary Moons

It was still clear when I attempted to catch Titan and some of Jupiter's moons. Unfortunately, cloud interfered with the latter. I set my DSLR camera at 300mm focal length, ISO 6400 and 2 seconds exposure and hoped.

The Saturn with Titan shot worked, as the day before.

The sky fuzziness did not help the Jupiter shot, neither did the fact that one moon was very close to the planet. I did a lot of processing to show the two visible moons but the result was rather messy.

I tried a different process. It was much clearer but only showed one moon,

September 10th 1925 GMT Moon 

 

After a drenching in the late afternoon and early evening, the sky cleared. The Moon was very low in the west. I photographed it with my DSLR at 300mm focal length, ISO 100 and 1/250 second exposure. I only managed one decent image, so processed that with no stacking.

September 9th 2230 GMT Deep sky 

 

Conditions had got worse since my solar shoot in the afternoon. I set my DSLR to 300mm focal length, ISO 6400 and 2 seconds exposure. I started off taking some dark frames.

I took a few shots of Saturn, hoping to catch Titan. I did.

 

I took shots of Epsilon Lyrae, with Vega in the same field of view.

 

I shot Alcor and Mizar.

 

 I finished with Melotte 20 before thick cloud rolled in for good.

September 9th 1500 GMT Sun 

 

I did a photo session with the Sun using my Coronado PST. I took one set of photos at automatic settings and another at ISO 400 and 1/25 second exposure.

The green data showed some sunspots and shading.

The automatic exposure showed just a plain red disc.

When I used a lower ISO and shorter exposure, I was unable to get a full disc image but I processed some as partial discs. I did not get anything exciting but some shading.

September 4th 0735 GMT Sun 

 

The weather forecast for the morning had been poor but the sun was in a clear patch of sky above some cloud. I snapped it with my Mak and DSLR at my usual settings.

September 3rd 2250 GMT Saturn and Deep Sky

 

There was a lot of cloud about but I still took my DSLR camera out at 300mm focal length, ISO 6400 and 2 seconds exposure.

I took 25 photos each of Saturn, the Seven Sisters and Melotte 20. I shot a few dark frames, hoping to run some stacks.

Stacking 25 photos instead of 10 and using dark frames made no difference to the shot of Saturn with Titan. It made a difference with the deep sky shots, especially with the Seven Sisters, especially as they were very low. That is also why I did not see capture any nebulousity.

September 3rd Solar Reprocesses

I revisited a solar hydrogen alpha shot from August 20th. I tried using various combinations of the GIMP functions Brightness/Contrast, Curves and Exposure. The centre of the disc was over-saturated but I managed to reveal some plages near the solar limb, especially near the prominences. 

I also revisited a white light shot from the same day. It did not stack, so I tried a different set of images. They stacked and I applied my usual processing in GIMP.