The Dutch Observatory

The forecast showed better conditions for 5:00 A.M.  So I set my alarm clock for 4:30.  It was clear, but the humidity was 90% and it kept me going to keep the corrector plate from dewing over.  Once I setup,  I thought I had problems with my Celestron barlow lens, but when positioned in front of  the filter wheel, the magnification was too big and I did not get enough light to get decent exposures, so the the barlow went back behind the filter wheel again.  Here my Mars image from this morning.  The clouds moved in before I knew it and I could not even complete the blue AVI of the second set.  Here Mars with Syrtis Major at the CM on the evening limb.

After 9 days of clouds and rain, the sky broke open a little.  However, I could see the cloud cover to the west and south.  But it was OK for the time it took me to image Jupiter again.  Conditions were still very humid, with transparency around 4/10 and seeing 5/10.  Here one of the 5 images from Thursday evening with Io just starting its transit.

Today was a busy day with the chapter doing an outreach program for the Children School of Atlanta at Charlie Elliott Wildlife Center.  The seeing and transparancy were great but with a very high humidity, which required me to use my “hairblower” on the corrector plate several times to keep it from dewing over.  So I took the opportunity to finish the event making an image of Jupiter with the GRS.  Here Jupiter with the GRS and Europa.  Notice how the channel around the GRS has broken into the SEB.  I wonder how this will develop.

I’ve been imaging Mars earlier this week, but had problems processing them.  Here an image from this morning when the seeing was pretty good.  However I could hardly keep the dew off my corrector plate.  Here Mars as it becomes more active.

I did finish the animation sequence of 1 1/4 hour of rotation of the planet.  I had to stop imaging because Jupiter started to get behind the trees that obstruct my view of the Western sky.  So here the animation.  Visible is also Io as it approaches the planet and starts its transit.  (Click the thumbnail to start the sequence.)

The seeing conditions finally turned in our favour and we had some great seeing and transparency.  I made a series of 9 images and am working on a 1 1/4 hour rotation animation which I will publish when I am satisfied with the result.  In the meantime here one of the images.  The image shows Io while it is starting its transit accross the planetary disk.

The weather conditions sterted to change.  Here Jupiter with the GRS just past the meridean on the evening of October 18, 2009.

Well, 4 of us, Frank Garner, Dan Schmitt, Jon Wood (Yes Jon!!) and I, setup scopes this mornig early to image the LCROSS impact. However at 5:00am we were covered with a blanket of clouds. Eventually they went away, but just about 5 minuts before the impact, a thin blanket of clouds moved in. The first avi 1/2 minute after the impact was reasonable but the others became worse as time went on.  The processed images did not look different than the once I took two days ago for the trial run, except the quality was a lot worse.
Shown here is an animated sequence covering a period of 5 minutes.  From Two minutes prior, to 3 minutes after the impact.  The only change in the images is the level of overexposure caused by the density of the clouds moving through.  The target area is just inside the crater and a little left of the overexposed area on the left. (Click the thumbnail to activate the animation).  Don’t forget to look at the movie I made of this event on YouTube.

     

Watching NASA afterwards, it looked like we did not miss anything, because all visible observations they showed did not show a plume either.  I wish NASA would not have made such a hipe out of the LCROSS mission and get all those kids involved in observing. It must be a let down for them not to have seen a plume.

Two images of Mars from this morning.  Both Transparency and Seeing were great this morning.  Temperature was around 57 degrees and the humidity was 87%.  I captured these images with a gamma setting of 73 which I believe ends up in a better contrast.

Tomorrow the LCROSS will impact the crater Cabeus on the South Pole on the moon.  Dan Schmitt and I spend some time last week getting familiar with the area where the impact will happen.  This morning I made a trial run of the event.  Here are two of the images made of the crater and impact area.  The Centaur upper stage is anticipated to impact at 7:31:30 and LCROSS is following at 7:35:45 Easter Time.  In the left image the impact location is in the right wing of the dark area a little left of the center, just behind the brighter spot.  (Reminds me of a soaring Eagle)  Tomorrow I intend to use another barlow whith a little more magnification and center around this area.  Keep my fingers crossed that not in the last minute a cloud will obscure the event as 4 months ago when a 1/2 hour storm came though as I was ready to image an ISS transit of the Sun.