Saturn will be at opposition on Feb 24 so now is a good time to photograph the ringed planet. Image below taken last night just after 11 pm.
Sky was clear, turbulence varied between 5 and 6/10, transparency was fair (inversion), temperature around 24°F, location was Gary’s observatory near Niwot, CO using Pete’s scope, a Celestron C11, F6.3 focal reducer, Televue 2.5X Powermate, and DMK 21AF04.AS video camera 1/30 sec shutter, 30fps.
Image below of Mars from last night around 11pm, MST. Clear, transparent sky, 22°F , 2-3 mph wind, but turbulence not good, maybe 4/10 — too much movement to even check collimation. Image came out far better than I expected. Celestron Nexstar11 telescope at cassegrain focus, Phillips Toucam 840K, 20 fps, 3/4 gain, 100% brightness, and 1/500 sec shutter. Approx 4000 frames aligned, stacked, histogram adjusted, and wavelet filtered with Registax4. Resized 150%. North is approximately up, east to the left in the image. The central meridian should be around 19 degrees, so that is Mare Acidium near the top, Mare Erythreum is the dark feature extending from 9 o’clock on the left. Sinus Sabeus extends from about middisk to the 5 o’clock position.
Since I was up taking images of 17P Holmes, I captured Mars as well just before shutting down. According to the S&T Mars Profiler, that should be Mare Cimmerium extending from the left to about midway across and then Mare Sirenum extending onward to the lower right.
Image taken with Celestron Nexstar 11 telescope, Televue 2.5X Powermate, and Phillips Toucam 840K webcam. Location was from Louisville, CO. Sky was clear, no wind, temperature 48°F, very good transparency, and turbulence 7/10.
Jupiter is setting earlier each day so its getting more difficult to get good views of it; I’ve pretty much given up on imaging it anymore this year. Last night I set up the telescope to get some moon pictures. It was still too bright to find any alignment stars but Jupiter was shining brightly above the Moon. The bands were very distinct and I could even see the red spot about to rotate around the western limb. So I couldn’t resist, just a couple more Jupiter shots…
Image taken with Celestron Nexstar11 and Phillips Toucam 840K at cassegrain focus.
Above image taken with Celestron Nexstar 11, Televue 2.5X Powermate, and Phillips Toucam 840K webcam. Approximately 3 minutes video for each image, aligned and stacked with Registax4. Enhanced with Photoshop Elements2.
Sky was partly cloudy, temperature 85°F, no wind, transparency excellent, and turbulence varied from 6/10 to 5/10, location Louisville, CO.
Mars is 1.3666 AU (127 million miles or 204.4 million kilometers) distant and appears to us on Earth as a gibbous disk about 6.8 arc-sec across and 0.58 magnitude in brightness. The next opposition is on Christmas eve of this year when it will be much closer (0.59 AU), -1.6 magnitude in brightness, and 15.8 arc-sec across, or just over double its present size. Central meridian was 38° so its probably Mare Erythraeum and Sinus Meridani which appear as the vague features on the disk. The bluish north polar cap appears as well.
Images taken with Celestron Nexstar11 telescope, Televue 2.5X Powermate, and Phillips 840K webcam, image in approximate NW orientation (north up, east to left). Image aligned and stacked with Registax4. Sky was mostly clear, turbulence around 6/10, transparency very good, 2-3 mph wind, and location was Louisville, CO.
Images taken with Celestron Nexstar11 telescope, Televue 2.5X Powermate, and Phillips 840K webcam, image in approximate NW orientation (north up, east to left). Image aligned and stacked with Registax4. Sky was mostly clear, 68°F, turbulence around 6/10, transparency very good, 2-3 mph wind, and location was Louisville, CO