The Dutch Observatory

Beside having been busy with outreach programs and my pier project, I’ve been imaging Saturn this apparation since early March, but the quality has not been good.  Finally I took the time to process some of them and did the best I could.  Remember conditions in March/April were not that great.  Here four images starting with March 7th and ending with April 30th.

It has been busy since the last meeting at Charlie Elliott. We had several solar and night star parties for some schools and the website needed updating. So I just am getting the time to process the last image which I have not published yet. Here Mars from the evening of April 15th under fairly good conditions while it still was just over 8 arcsec. in size.

I’ve been wrestling with my images over the last few weeks.  Made a lot of them but could not get them focused right.  Finally, I  believe I got it resolved or at least it is a lot better.  Last night made some images of Mars and Saturn. Mars is now just over 8 arc seconds, the same size it was early last November.  A lot of clouds over Tharsis extending into Amazonis

Well, I started my new pier for observing at home.  The nightly ordeal of setting up is taking its toll!  I ordered a 6  7/8″ diameter steel pipe and a top and bottom steel plate all 1/4″ thick.  They did arrive on March 26th.  I took them to S&K in Covington for holes to be drilled and tapped and fo be welded together.  They did a fantastic job and yesterday Dan an I picked it up and dropped it off at the powdercoat paint shop.  On Monday it should be ready!   Can’t wait to bring it home and start digging the 2′x2′x2′ hole for the concrete base.

I did setup after we came home from visiting a friend and decided to make a series of images of Mars. The weather was nice, and seeing was not too bad, although it went bad at the end.  I ended up making 13 images seperated 10 minutes from each other, so it spans 2hours.  Click on the thumbnail below for the best image of the series and click here for a two hour Mars rotation animation.  You can see the conditions getting bad at the end.  Clouds over Aethiopsis and clouds or mist extending beyond Aeria at the preceding limb.

My goal for imaging tonight was the International Space Station. However Frank and I missed it somehow.  So because the conditions were very good, I changed my plans and changed to Mars and Saturn.  These are my first images after Mars drops below 10 degrees.

The first night in a long time that we had some good conditions again.  Here Mars as it is just a little bigger than 1o arc seconds. 

The first time this year where the weather was nice (56 degrees) and the sky was clear.  However when I started imaging, the seeing turned out much to wish for.  Seeing was not good, so the images turned out very washed out.  I started with my WO barlow and all extensions and followed up with the Klee 3x barlow.  The latter could not coop with the jittering image, so only used the first run which is at f/32. 

The transparency and seeing were a little better than average today, so I made a few runs after I came home from dropping the Sky Quality Meter of in Loganville.  Here an image showing almost the identical CM as yesterday, just a few degrees off.  The image shows that the clouds have intensified a little.

The weather starts to cooperate a little better!  After coming home from making 12 Dark Sky Quality measurements in Newton ad Walton counties, I still had time to make three images of Mars.  Here one of them.  Lots of cloud activity!  Clouds can be seen over Alba Patera, the volcanos Ascraeus Mons, and Pavonis Mons and clouds extending in the Valles Marineris at the P-limb