Category: Photography

I went back to the River Ridge Observatory Saturday night to work on planets again.  I had noticed some dust motes on my color camera that I’ve not been able to clean yet so I switched to my monochrome camera. It has a higher resolution.  I started with Jupiter of course, and while the contrast is a little low look at these details!  The Great Red Spot is at about 8 oclock near the edge and see the turbulence in the South Equatorial Belt?

Mars was next and man it is bright!  I didn’t wait until it or especially Saturn in its best position because that would be about 1 AM or later. I’ve flipped and rotated Mars to account for the diagonal, North is up. On the left is Syrtis Major Planitia. The light area at about 1 o’clock is Olympus Mons (tallest volcano in the solar system). Check this map (http://mars.jpl.nasa.gov/gallery/atlas/).

Finally, Saturn. No self respecting photographer would have shot Saturn this low in the sky but I did anyway. It sharpened up pretty well.

Here is a reasonably large sunspot group shot with my 80mm Celestron Onyx ED and ASI120 MM camera. I got the monochromatic camera to complement the color ASI120 MC camera I use for planets and it did a good job here.  I got the scope and the light duty Celestron Nexstar mount with next year’s total solar eclipse in mind.  All three performed well today although I have to work on my technique.  I had to have Jack focus the scope while I ducked my head under a towel and peered at the laptop screen.  I’m planning to get some easy to pop up canopy for the eclipse sometime and that would help here too.  A better focuser might help. Not Jack, he did fine, but a dual speed replacement for the OEM focuser.