The Dutch Observatory

Mars on Thanksgiving day 2009!  The seeing was not good and I ended up with some soft images.  Could not bring out more contrast without the images ringing.  It looks like there might be some dust in Xanthe?  For the rest the image is too soft to make out specific items other than the general albedo regions.

A clear night again after 3 days of rain and clouds.  There is nothing special to see at this “blank” side of Mars, except the destinct NPC.

Mars on November 16th.  Clouds can be seen over Mons Olympus, Tharsis and Phoenicis Lacus. Probably the last image for a couple of days.  The clouds are coming again! 

Saturday morning was nice and crisp and wide thin and high cloud bands, but very humid which kept me busy between runs to keep my corrector plate from dewing up.  I managed one OK image during the 1 1/2 session.  Some indications of clouds can be seen over Olympus Mons and Tharsis or Arsia Silva.

Tonight was another opportunity for a mutual event with the moons Ganymede and Io.  Ganymede would occult Io starting at 22:20 UT and complete the occultation at 22:46 UT.  Both moons were travelling in the same direction.  In addition, the images taken see a moon shadow beginning a transit of Jupiter around 22:59 UT   and another shadow leaving the disk at approx. 22:55.  The problem was that local sunset was at 22:32 UT.  So I would need to start imaging before the sun had set.  I used my binoculars to locate Jupiter, but it took me until a few minutes into the event to get things positioned right.  In addition, I had a problem with WinJupos showing the graphical info for this specific date, so I checked Sky and Telescope, but they showed Ganymede’s shadow start crossing the disk at 23:02  and Io’s shadow leaving the disk at 23:06.  So I am confused.  Sorry for the everexposure of Jupiter, and not being able to calibrate this better because of the light conditions when I started.  Here the result of this ”early” event. 

Jim Soboleski called me to take a look at his SBIG camera. However, I wanted again take the opportunity to image Jupiter first.  Here Jupiter on the evening of November 8th.

Jupiter on November 7th.  The weater continues with bright skies and average/above average  seeing.  Tonight I ran three series with different gamma settings, one at 100, one at 70 and one at 60.  The last image out did the two others.  The Oval BA shows very pale.  Lots of activity in the NEB and NTC.  It won’t be long and Jupiter will have moved behind the tree line at my home, so any other images of this apparation will have to come from Charlie Elliott.

The weather keeps being kind to us.  Although the seeing and transparency are not 100%, the conditions are 100% better in the last few says than they have been in a long time.  Anyone can tell me if the yellowish area over Isidis Region and Aetheria are dust or clouds, or maybe nothing?  Here 4 of the 5 images I ran this morning. 

Had to make use of the clear skies and image Jupiter.  Here Jupiter on November 6th.

Adding another day to our streak of nice days.  November 6th I made a series of 3 images of which I am posting the RGB and individual filtered images.