We have seen a good number of images taken in the last month, but David Whalen has been very persistent in trying to get better with imaging Jupiter. Last Saturday the seeing was great and David captured his best Jupiter so far. With seeing as bad as it has been for months, this was very rewarding for David. The image was taken with his C1100, a DMK41AU02AS, 500 frames captured with ICapture and stacked and processed in Registax6. Very nice job David!!!

We were asked to train the CE Summer Camp counselors on astronomy. 6 counselors attended the session at the Jon Wood Field with Chapter members Frank Garner and Theo Ramakers. We started off with observing the close conjunction of Mercury, Venus and Jupitor together with the Hendersons, followed with explanations and observing of some of the night sky objects one can see at this time of the year. Here an image of the Close Conjunction of the planets.

Have you ever thought about using the Hubble Space Telescope to image? Well some of us have done that!!
I thought I share this email from Christopher Go with you.
Theo Ramakers

Today is the 4th anniversary of the discovery of the Red Oval BA. In connection with this, I am releasing the latest Hubble Space
Telescope image of Oval BA which our group took during September 2009
last year.
More info at:
http://astro.christone.net/redjr.htm

Regards,
Chris
Christopher and Vicky Go
Christone Industries

The problems with this year’s outreach program for the week 2 of Charlie Elliott summer campers started before we actually were on site. Stephen’s cases with eye pieces and hand controllers were stolen the night before. However, Stephen did not let up. He was at the Camera Bug first thing on Wednesday morning to see if Tim could get him the pieces he needed to make the outreach event happen!! At 11:30 he was uploading the latest version of the software for the new controllers, but at that time the clouds had already rolled in at Charlie Elliott, 60 miles to the east, so we had to cancel the solar event. Stephen, thanks so much for your effort and your attempts to still make this happen and thanks to Tim for helping him out!!!

The evening session was still on with an inside presentation by Theo Ramakers and outside observing if the clouds would let up. Theo presented material of the NSN on the solar system, followed by a flight throught the solar system showing views future astronauts would be able to see using the program Celestia. After visiting earth, our moon, and practically all the planets and some of Jupiter’s moons, the kids had many questions. Outside the clouds were still persisting, so we had to cancel the observing part of the outreach program. Taking the observing cancellations aside, overall a great event!

Thanks to the management of Charlie Elliott, especially Julie Duncan, for inviting us again this year to reach out to those kids and try to spark interest in Astronomy and Space Exploration, and the members of the Charlie Elliot Chapter, Stephen, Frank and Jim Soboleski, who had volunteered their time but could not because of mother nature.

Click here or use this URL for images of the program.

http://www.ceastronomy.org/gallery/main.php?g2_itemId=6790

Theo Ramakers

Is an occultation something you would like to observe? Here is your chance: June 29, around 1:35 a.m. the gallilean moon Io will partially occult the moon Europa!!

This year the orbital plane of the galilean moons around Jupiter is aligned with earth perfectly for a large number of these (partially and total) occultation. The next one after that, convenient for our time zone, is July 6th when Io will partially occult Europa again at 3:45 a.m. And if a little later is more convenient for you, try July 13th. You than will have to observe at 5:55 a.m.

Happy (moon) hunting under Clear Skies
Theo Ramakers

Another International Year of Astronomy Event!

Thanks to Chapter member Jim Honeycutt the Covington Library will show images made by local amateur astronomers in the region, so far Charlie Elliott Chapter members! The exhibit is open during normal library hours and can be seen in one of the meeting rooms. A sign guiding you to the exhibit is displayed at the entrance.

Images displayed so far are from Jim Honeycutt, Larry Owens, Stephen Ramsden and Theo Ramakers. If you have an image which you would like to add, please go to the library and add it to the collection.

The library will show the images until May 19th. So if you are in the neighborhood, please stop by and enjoy!

Clear Skies
Theo Ramakers

Those of you who were at our last meeting learned from Jon, that Venus is lining up to have a nice conjunction with the moon on December 31. At the same time, Jupiter and Mercury wil have their own conjunction.
Check this image out and see how all four of them are getting ready for this. (Image taken at CE on December 29, 2008)

Hello everyone,

Larry Owens here with a reminder that the “Challenges of Imaging Jupiter” class will be held Saturday, August 23rd at Oxford college in Covington, GA, starting at 2:00 PM.  The class will probably last about 2 hours.

Everyone is welcome and there is no need to register.  We’ll have 2 labs.  The first is a Registax lab.  We’ll process some filtered monochrome AVI’s of Jupiter, then move on to processing and color combining the resulting raw images with PhotoShop in the second lab.  If you have a laptop with Registax and PhotoShop loaded, please bring it with you.  The classroom will have computers, but we can only load Registax for the class.

Please see directions and a short outline of the class below.

Directions to the campus:

http://www.atlantaastronomy.org/CEWMA/oxford_directions.html

Once in the building, proceed down the hallway to the elevator, and come to the 2nd floor.  Take a right out of the elevator, turn left at the end of the hallway and the classroom will be on your right after the bathrooms.

Here’s a short outline for the class:

Overview of the course
Why is Jupiter such a challenge?
Jupiter Stats and issues for the imager
Advantages of color cameras
Advantages of monochrome cameras
Monochrome cameras and Jupiter
   Time limits & frame counts
Basic strategies for monochrome imaging
   RGB vs. R(G)B
   Green luminance
Equipment
   Filter wheels, focusers, cameras and scopes
Sampling, what is it and how to get creative with barlows and extensions
General acquisition guidelines
Monitor calibration and using a “standard candle”
Standardized processing techniques
   Preserving the relative contrast between each filtered image
   Assembly line method
   Creating wavelet schemes
   Creating Photoshop “action sets”
      Saving time and improving processing consistency between sessions
Registax techniques for Jupiter
Registax Lab
Photoshop processing demo
   Demo using the manual method
   Demo using an “action set”
   Creating action sets for Jupiter processing
Photoshop Lab

Hope to see you there,
Larry Owens

Jon and I made it out last night to CE with 4 others, Tim, Will, Bob and Ray.  Great company!!

Jon and I teamed up to image the GRS transit around 10:53.  Unfortunatly Jupiter had not gotten out of the murky air at that time, so the resulting image is pretty soft.  About 1/2 hour later the conditions started to improve a lot, but the transit was past.  The image shows the GRS and some interaction with the Oval BA.

http://ceastronomy.org/gallery/main.php?g2_itemId=3188

clear skies,
Theo