Pier Project

I just have paid a visit to the blacksmith where my pier is to be made.

It is almost ready to rock!
The picture below shows a similar pier project in which the big difference will be the bottom plate; mine will be really wide (oh, my...!) and square.

These are the specs I have came up with:

A- 250mm/10"
B- 750mm/29.53"
C- 100mm/3.94" (adjustable)
D- 20mm/0.78"
E- 110mm/4.33"
F- 700mm/23.56"
G- 152mm/5.98"
H- 980mm/35.58" (depending on C)

E/G is a DIY (actually a blacksmith's job) Losmandy MA adapter to connect to my G-11 mount.

I will have it delivered next year, by tuesday or wednesday and will have to set it up as soon as the weather allows it to be bolted on.
In the meantime, a Telegizmos 365 T3G2 cover is also expected soon next week to permanently set my rig up.
Looking forward to it very much.

Hope I can post a picture of the entire rig soon.

Moon (20101216)

The skies have cleared up a bit and the setup got dusted off :)
Seeing was not so great as can be figured out by the stack I got of some 30 frames, out of 1700 frame avi file.
Anyway, it was so nice to have a glimpse of the moon, M31, M42, NGC2392, NGC 884 & 869 (double cluster).
This evening I invited Mateus, my 6y-o (I guess) little neighbor to have his first view through a telescope. Though not a "wow!" guy, he enjoyed it pretty much watching those DSO's and Moon.
Here he is, next to the setup

Mateus all dressed up, ready to rock in his first astronomy experience.

He was able to detect those faint whitish "clouds" without a doubt. Cool; I did not have to tell him what to look for. He spotted them right away, though he doesn't know (yet) what a galaxy is or, for that matter, how HUGE the Universe is...

Before he joined me, I had some time to snap a couple of moon shots:
this one was shot at a 68%RH & 3.1ºC (37.58ºF)

full resolution

shot at 60%RH & 3.6ºC (38.48ºF)

full resolution

M33 - Oct. 17th

The Triangulum Galaxy (M33) is located on the Triangulum Constellation and lies between 2.4 to 3.0 million light years from Earth. M33 shines at mag. 5.7 and was discovered by Charles Messier in 1764. It is believed to have been first spotted in 1654 by Hodierna.
Under dark skies it can be seen with the naked eye.

Oct. 17th
10x 600" at -20ºC
FS102NSV + ST2000XM + C Astronomik IIc
Flats only.
Maxim + CS4
reduced to 800x600

higher resolution

Jupiter, Nov 4th

Though seeing and transparency were far from good (fair, to be honest), I gave it a shot at Jupiter.

Comet 103P/Hartley

Comet 103P/Hartley 2 was discovered on March, 15th, 1986 by Hartley, Malcolm at U. K. Schmidt Telescope Unit, Siding Spring.
It is 1,5 km across and will pass some 18.000.000 km away from Earth, on October, 20th.
Image:
FS102NSV + ST2000XM + CLS Astronomik IIc
35x 45" bin 2x2 @ -20ºC
Darks & Flats
MaxIm & CS4
Leiria, October, 14th - 22h55m-23h43m UT
Low transparency, 98% RH and, almost quarter Moon... :(

Jupiter, GRS, Calisto & Io

Lots of detail on the planet and on the moons...
Io is transiting and casting a shadow on Jupiter, while Calisto is quietly taking its tour around the planet.
Best picture ever of those moons. :-)

details

Jupiter, GRS, Calisto & Io

Night of multiple avi recording.

details

Jupiter reprocessed (9/9)

Managed to reprocess some "old" files and came up with this "new" picture...
Image #1:
reduced to 80%
still needs some work over right limb and Io (not shown).

image #2
original processed image (reduced to 70%)

Jupiter, Sep 28th

One lucky shot between the clouds...
C11 f/30
TV 3x
DMK21AF icx618
RGB Astronomik IIc
Leiria, 23h45m UT

NGC281, Sep 12. 2010

Reprocessed my previous image.
This time I have dark subtracted the frames and have also removed one Ha and one SII frames that were not good.
5x 600" Ha & SII
5x 700" OIII

full resolution

NGC281, Sep 12. 2010

Fisrt time Ha, SII, OIII imaging.
Image: FS102NSV + ST2000XM + Astronomik filters
Guiding: SW 70mm + DMK + PHD
6x 600" Ha
6x 700" OIII
5x 600" SII
No Darks nor Flats.

Jupiter & GRS, Sep. 9th, 2010

High clouds and low transparency ruined what could have been a very good night.
Io is on the upper right corner, kind of escorting the GRS.
Autostakkert & CS4.
Image is resized to 80%.

full resolution

Jupiter & Io - Sep. 8th

Rain is gone but clouds are still around...! :(
I was able to get the gear out and set it up for a Jupo shooting session, but the seeing was not that good.
Stack of some 700 frames per channel, in Astrostakkert & CS4.
Time is UT.

details

GRS Aug 29th

details

Jupiter, Aug 28th @f/20

This time I gave it a try with other camera settings.
Here's what I did different:
a) decreased the exposure time to 1/30sec for each channel;
b) limited the recording time to 45 sec per channel;
c) kept the gain at 438 (R&G) and boosted it up to 591 for the Blue channel - IC Capture.

It took me just under 2´30" to get a full RGB data set, compared to the more than 3 minutes previous settings: limited the capture to 2000 frames, which would end up at a 1´06" per channel, with a total time of around 3´30", including manual filter changing and gain/exposure time adjusting for Blue.
It seems it pays off...

details

Jupiter, 25 Aug @f/30

Testing continues, this time at f/30 (FL 8400mm).
Image details seen on "full resolution".

Full resolution

Jupiter, Aug 25, ICX618 fisrt light

First ligth with new CCD chip (ICX618ALA) installed on my DMK21AF.
Seeing was good though there was still some turbulence. This is my best planetary image ever and I am pretty excited about this new CCD.
C11, Powermate 2x, RGB Astronimik IIc, modded DMK21AF (icx618).
Registax & CS4.

M16 in Bicolor NB

Pillars of Creation in Bicolor Narrowband Imaging.

7x 900" Astronomik 6nm Ha
5x 900" Astronomik OIII
FS102NSV @f/6 + ST2000xm

full resolution

Yeda Prior Occultation by Roma asteroid, July 8th, 2010 #2

Data analysis of Delta OPH occultation by 472 Roma:

full resolution

FS102NSV + DMK21AF @30fps+ Red Astronomik IIc filter


Report update:
we had 4/4 positive occultations. LSanto did get a dimming star.

Yeda Prior Occultation by Roma asteroid, July 8th, 2010

First time ever!
I joined a team of AA's hunting down asteroid Roma in its path in the night sky, luckily for us, right in front of Delta Ophiuchi.
We got together in Alentejo by 7:00 pm and there we were given David Dunham's own gear, so we could take it to our own observing spots. Yeah! you got it right! David Dunham himself!
Boy what a thrill, being able to be part of it.
We got debriefed and then we took off to our 4 separate spots. Two teams of two and one team of four were put up and off we went, each one with one of David's gear. For the record: #1 Pedro Ré & Carlos Saraiva; #2 Luís Santo & António Silva and, Filipa & Rui Branco; my cousin Sérgio Bernandino and me; Rui Gonçalves (the project leader was all by himself).

Spots:
Ré's - 38° 37' 1.3152"N, 8° 4' 50.0694"W
Santos' - 38° 30' 17.77"N, 7° 35' 44.35"W
mine - 38°59'19.74"N, 7°12'21.24"W - 20kms west of predicted center line.

My setup:
FS102NSV + DMK21AF + G11

So, time to prep everything and check it twice. The hardest part was making sure David's camera was pointing at the right spot. I guess it was, but maybe, we'll never know...
Well, time went by just like that. When we realized it, it was time. Boy, it was so funny!
We hit the record button at 22h59 to make sure we would capture the occultation on both setups. We didn't see it coming.
After 5 minutes, we were so desperate since he haven't had seen a thing...
Time to call out project leader to feed him with the "bad" news; to make it even worse, he had seen it... man, this would turn out to be a very embarrassing situation for us :-)
We then decided to play the AVI file and... YES! There it was. It had been recorded! 3 seconds of a partial occultation, just after 1 minute we hit the "go" button. But only on my PC did we check; we didn't want to mess around with David's camera. We just hope it is there too.
We had nailed it! :-)

Time to pack up and meet the other guys to check how they did. We had 3 out of 4 occultations. Two full and one partial (ours). Now we need to gather all the data to make it useful.

This was one hell of a very exciting experience and being part of it was just crazy.
We even met David and his wife face to face and all of us were given a "souvenir" to remember this moment: a Nasa/Space Goddard key chain, that I'll treasure forever.

Left to right: Luís Santo, Sérgio Bernardino, Rui Gonçalves, Carlos Saraiva, Pedro Ré, Juan Gonçalves, David Dunham, António Silva, me, David's wife - Estremoz intersection N4/N245, July 9th @+- 1:30am

Oh, BTW, did I mentioned the great dark skies? You got it!
And the original spot I had in mind didn't work because it was chain locked... No prob: Easy enough in Alentejo, just a few kms away we made it quite nice, despite some wind blowing.

IC5070

IC5070, the Pelican Nebula, Jun 22nd, 2010
10x 900"
Astronomik 6nm Ha
Imaging: FS102NSV f/6 + ST2000XM
Guiding: SW 70mm + PHD + DMK21AF

Full resolution

Quarter Moon

Some time before nailing M27, I paid Selene a visit in Red channel.

M27 in Ha - Jun, 15th, 2010

M27 in Astronomik's Ha 6 nm.
FS102NSV + ST2000XM + Orion OAG + DMK21AF
8x 600"

Satrun, Astrostakkert reprocessed

Saturn, reprocessed on just released Emil's Astrostakkert.
This shot was taken on March 13, 2009.
C11 + DMK21AF + RGB Astronomik IIc.
500 frames each channel.
CS4 for Levels and Noisware.

M109 - Apr 11, 2010

Still working out the AO8 unit.

13x 600" @-20ºC
darks, bias, flats (borrowed)

full resolution

M97 and M51

Another try with AO8 unit under a still somewhat hazy skies, though not as wet as the night before.
Main goal was to check how the AO8 would handle and not so much about the picture itself.
It seems I still have to work on the setup since the stars are not perfectly round. Reasons for this could be decollimated optics, misalignment of imaging train on the visual back...

This time I aimed at M97 and M51.
Setup:
C11 + 0.63x FR + AO8 + ST2kXM/CFW10
Losmandy G-11

M51
1x 1200" @-20ºC
Darks, Flats and Bias

MaxIm & CS4

full resolution

M97
6x 600" @-20ºC
Darks, Flats and Bias
MaxIm & CS4

full resolution

AO8 first light

April 8th, 2010
AO8 unit first light, despite the haze and the frequent need to handle a hairdryer to remove the dew out of the CL.
I did it on my C11 with a Celestron's 0.63x FR and ST2000XM/CFW10.
I targeted M13 and M64 .

M13
2x 150" & 1x 120" @-30ºC
No Darks nor Flats.
MaxIm & CS4

full resolution

M64
1x 420" @-20ºC + 3 x 600" @-30ºC + 1x 180" @-20ºC + 1x 300" @-20ºC
Borrowed a Masterdark from another shot, no flats.
MaxIm & CS4

full resolution

M81

Reprocessed M81!
FS102NSV @f76.8
ST2000XM
CLS Astronomik IIc
12x 600"
Darks (and flats from another photo)
MaxIm & CS4

full resolution

Not yet the way I'd like it to be!

M101

Another shot at Pego do Altar's Messier Marathon, on March 13, 2010.
FS102NSV f/6.8
ST2000XM selfguided
CLS Astronomik IIc filter
6x 600" @-20ºC
darks (flats from another picture... :-p)
MaxIm DL & CS4

full resolution

Pego do Altar Messier Marathon, March 13, 2010

Long awaited Messier Marathon, scheduled some 4 months ago and threatened by one of the most rainiest winters I can recall in a very ling time.
Nice time along with some fellows AAs and big time to get away from downtown city lights sky.
This proved to be a much appreciated place and I'm sure we'll get back there in the future.
I had, however, some energy shortage... my vehicle battery ran dead just after some 1h30'. Unbelievable; I didn't even hear the inverter's beep, letting me know it was time to start the motor on, for some minutes... Well, I had to jump start it with the help of someone's car...
I took advantage of Pedro Ré's expertise and knowledge to setup my Maxim's routines. Guiding was very good and I was able to integrate M101 for some 60' and also M81 for another 120'.
Didn't take flats nor darks.
This is just a first processing routine:
image: FS102NSV, f/6.8, selfguided
mount: Losmandy G-11 Gemini
ccd: ST2000xm, CLS Astromomik IIc filter
MaxIm DL and CS4

full resolution

AAPOD - February 15, 2010

AAPOD - February 3, 2010

I am glad and proud I made it again: one more AAPOD (http://astronomy.fm/)!

http://imageshack.com/a/img922/2970/nofMb3.jpg

http://astronomy.fm/aapod/2010-02-03_Plato-and-Alpine-Valley.html

JC/2010

Mars, Feb, 1st, 2010 f/30

Before seeing deteriorated, I was able to snap this Mars.
Stack of some 800 frames per R&G channel and 600 B.
C11 @f/30
Registax 5 & CS4.
Seeing 5/10.

JC/2010

Mars, Feb, 1st, 2010

Seeing has gotten a little better and allowed for a couple of tries at f/30.

First off, I didn't push hard to f/30 but rather to f/20.
It looked promising and seeing was quite nice for my local standards - 6 story roof top building, with scattered fireplace chimneys, though none was burning at the time.
I got the following picture, a stack of some 1000 frames per channel, in Registax and CS4.

Since it looked so nice, I tweaked collimation and pushed up to f/30. Boy, I could see fine detail on the R channel image on the laptop screen. I was glad that it was worth the waiting... only to become evident that seeing was only getting worse...
This is the best I was able to get, just some 50 minutes later...
C11 @f/30, DMK21AF, RGB Astronomik IIb
Registax & CS4.

Got to keep waiting for better skies...
JC/2010

Plato & Alpine Valley

Leiria, (PT) Jan 24th, 18h26 UT

After such a long time under clouded skies I was finally able to set my gear up and shoot some pics.
Though it was not perfect, it was ok to get rid of the spider webs and dust LOL!
This one was shot right after the C11 had been taken outside, so no thermal equilibrium was achieved. Nevertheless, I made the attempt.
C11 @f/10
DMK21AF, Red Astronomik IIb.
stack of 450 (out of 3000) on Registax & CS4.

full resolution

(c) JC/2010