The Dutch Observatory

Tried to image on thursday evening, but the seeing was too bad.  Last night it was a lot better.  Here the best image of the evening.  Maybe the seeing is slowly returning here.  The image shows the GRS as it just passed the CM and the oval BA has moved quite a bit.

OK, I got my sanity back.  It almost has been three weeks since I have had any halfway decent seeing.  Yesterday it was so bad I could not even get Jupiter focussed.  I started thinking that my camera might be broken.  Well today it showed that it was not.  Periods of reasonable seeing of several seconds at a time during the imaging sessions made me feel better again    Here the best image from last night which was one day before opposition and Jupiter is a whopping 49.9 arc seconds.  I hope that tonight the seeing becomes terrific for opposition, but we’ll see.

Another night where I thought the conditions would be great, but the seeing was about the same as the day before.  Where are the seeing conditions from the middle of August gone?

Skies are clear after a period of cloudy skies.  However the seeing did not live up to the forecast, but it was good being out again.  I am not happy with the result, but I guess you cannot get more than what you can capture.

Went to Charlie Elliott for observing the Perseids.  We had a nice crowd out there!  Stayed until about 1:30 but did not see too many meteors.  However a few very nice ones and all the friends made it all worth a while.  Went home and started imaging.  Here Jupiter with the GRS and Oval-BA on August 13th.  The barge in the NTB still looks like it might split….  (Click on small image below to view full sized image)

Here an image of Jupiter on August 12. The “boring” side of Jupiter?  Not any more for now.   The disturbances in the NEB in Gary Walkers image from August 9th have become much more pronounced.  We’ll have to follow up on this.   (Click on image below for full size)

Here another image from August 11th.  This is a composite of 4 images showing 45 minutes of the planet’s rotation.  (Click image below for full size)   

Jupiter on August 11th.  One image showing the filtered images and the RGB, as well as a single RGB image.  All taken between 2:00 and 3:00 local time.  The conditions were better than average.  Watch the Oval-BA as it continues to pass the GRS.

I haven’t been able to keep up with my images.  Finished processing and uploading some images from August 10th.  Conditions were average.  Here Jupiter around 8:27 UT with the GRS rising at the following limb.  It looks like the barge in the NTB might be splitting.

The Oval BA is nicely progressing in passing the GRS.  I believe its center has a pale spot, while the area around the Oval BA is pretty dark in all filters with the exception of the North side.  Also the red barge in the NTB might be ready to split.  The red image shows the split faintly, which is more pronounced in a larger inverted image of the red channel. Click on the large image icon in the gallery for the larger image.