Monday, August 06, 2018
Animations of the July 28 Lunar eclipse (2018)
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| Entire sequence of the eclipse stacked and aligned in GIMP, starting every 5 minutes until totality and then every 10 minutes until the Moon finally disappeared behind the roof tops (4:06 am.-6:23 am) Sadly the later stages are made rubbish by whatever compression GIMP uses, but you can see the beginning of the glow as maximum eclipse passes (totality ended at 6:44 am; click to embiggen). | Inital sequence of the eclipse up until the start of totality stacked and aligned in ImageJ, starting every 5 minutes until totality. I didn't do the full sequence as aligning moon images in ImageJ is a right pain, and they tend to get out of sequence. but the quality of the fully eclipsed images is much higher. |
Here, as promised, are my animations of the total lunar eclipse of July 28. Because the motor drive on the telescope decided to stop working, I had to manually drive the scope, and the images were not aligned, so I had to align the images by hand. This is a pain in both GIMP and ImageJ (even though there are tools in both to do it they each have their own limitations.
But in the end it work out okay, mostly. not too happy with the way GIMP made the eclipsed images low res, but it does give you a feel for what it was like.
Labels: animation, astrophotography, eclipse, gimp, imageJ, Moon
Thursday, October 20, 2016
Mars and M22 in Hydrogen Alpha Light (9 October 2016)
Labels: cluster, imageJ, iTelescope, Mars
Monday, November 04, 2013
The ISS in Pegasus, 4 November 2013
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| The International Space Station passes through Pegasus on Monday 4 November, 8:45 pm ACDST. 7 images stacked and SUMMED in ImageJ. Canon IXUS 400 ASA 5 second exposure. Click to embiggen. | 10 Images cropped and animated using ImageJ, I moved the camera for the last few shots, so I couldn't add them to the overlay. (click to embiggen) |
So I got to see the first decent ISS pass in the series that begins this week. It was beautiful, with the brightening ISS flashing through Pegasus. Tomorrow it passes Venus, hope the weather stays clear.
Labels: astrophotography, imageJ, ISS, unaided eye
Monday, September 09, 2013
C/2012 V2 LINEAR, 9 September 2013
A bit too close to twilight for good resolution, will try again later to try and improve the tail.
Labels: comet, imageJ, iTelescope
Wednesday, June 05, 2013
Asteroid 1998 QE2, 4 June 2013
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| Asteroid 1998 QE2, 4 June, 9x10 second exposures stacked in ImageJ and MAX Z-project applied. R filter, iTelescope T9 (click to embigggen). | Animated GIF from the 9 frames, it's still zipping along. |
Although Near Earth Asteroid 285263 1998 QE2 is well past it's closest approach it's still a nice bright target. Compare today's pictures and animation with the ones from the 31st, from the 28th and the from the 24th. Bad weather has meant this is the first time I've had a chance to get any images since cloud ruined closest approach on the 1st. Still had a bit of a weather problem, but not bad enough to not get images.
Labels: asteroids, imageJ, iTelescope, NEO
Saturday, June 01, 2013
Asteroid 1998 QE2, 31 May 2013
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| Asteroid 1998 QE2, 31 May, 24x10 second exposures stacked in ImageJ and MAX Z-project applied. R filter, iTelescope T9 (click to embigggen). | Animated GIF from the 24 frames, it's really zipping along now. |
Near Earth Asteroid 285263 1998 QE2 is fairly hooting along now. Compare todays animation with the one from the 28th and the from the 24th. Closest approach is a mere 4 and a half hours away, but then the asteroid will be too close to the horizon to image (and now cloud is ruining my 1 July run). I'll have another go tomorrow.
Labels: asteroids, imageJ, iTelescope, NEO
Thursday, May 30, 2013
Asteroid 1998 QE2, 28 May 2013 (and viewing hints)
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| Asteroid 1998 QE2, 28 May, 12x10 second exposures stacked in ImageJ and MAX Z-project applied. R filter, iTelescope T9 (it's the bright point like object, the stars are trailed as the scope tracks on the asteroid). | Animated GIF from the 12 frames |
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| Evening sky as seen looking north from the Siding Springs Observatory at 11 pm AEST (similar views will be seen elsewhere at an equivalent time) | Close up view of the track of 1998 QE2. The tick marks are every 3 hours, closest approach is at 4:59 AEST June 1. |
Near Earth Object 285263 1998 QE2 will be of interest for the those with modest sized telescopes and up. This is a "bright" (bit better than magnitude 11), relatively slow mover, visible from all of Australia (and the world) and you don't have to do much fancy foot work to catch it as it passes through Libra.
285263 1998 QE2 is a whopping 2.1 Km diameter rock that will be 15.2 Earth-Moon distances from us at closest approach.
It is closest on May 31 at 20:59 UT. That's 4:59 AEST June 1 in Australia. But it is pretty bright before this (magnitude 10.8), and is actually slightly brighter after this (magnitude 10.7 for a couple of days). From Australia it is quite high in the sky, and passes some reasonably obvious sky landmarks, so is easy to find. Also, it is moving fast enough that after a relatively short while you can see it move with respect to the background stars.
Standard planetarium plotting will work well, if your planetarium program can import orbital elements. Unfortunately Stellarium chokes on NEO orbits, even 1998 QE2, which is relatively far away, so you have to use something else. You can also create an ephemeris directly from the Minor Planet Center. For MPC ephemerides or downloadable orbital elements go to
http://www.minorplanetcenter.net/iau/MPEph/MPEph.html
Here's my GIF animation as a Youtube video http://youtu.be/tCY2Cl8eaOQ
Even better, here's Andrew Wall's widefield video from tonight
Labels: asteroids, imageJ, iTelescope, NEO
Thursday, May 09, 2013
Comet C/2011 L4 PanSTARRS, May 8
Not bad for a first pass, I've got a few more images to stack and play around with.
Now off to be so I can be ready for the eclipse tomorrow.
Labels: C/2011 L4, comet, imageJ, iTelescope
Sunday, March 24, 2013
Supernova in M65, 23-03-13
Here's a better image from Rolando Ligustri.
The supernova is reported to be still brightening, increasing from magnitude 16.4 to 15.8. It is located at RA 11 18 56.95 DEC +13 03 49.4
Labels: imageJ, iTelescope, supernova
Wednesday, January 09, 2013
Asteroid Apophis, 9 January 2013
Asteroid (99942) Apophis is the original "killer asteroid". After some inital worry, it is now realised to be (mostly) harmless. Despite close approaches in 2029 and 2036, the probability that this rock will hit us is extremely remote (1 in 250,000 for the 2036 return, not at all for the 2029 approach).
The first very close approach of Apophis is in 2029 (when it will be visible to the unaided eye at around magnitude 3), however on January 9 at 14:09 UT when it is 0.0968 AU away it is visible in serious amateur scopes at magnitude 16.
Apophis will remain bright for the next few days, and is nice for it's iconic status, rather than any beautiful images we might take.
Labels: asteroids, astrophotography, imageJ, iTelescope
Tuesday, January 08, 2013
Occultation of Spica by the Moon, 6 January 2013, the Follow-Up
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| Widefield image taken at around 5:00 am ACDST, Infinity to infinity focusing, Canon IXUS through a 20 mm eyepiece on a 4" unguided Newtonian (click to embiggen any image) . | Close-upimage taken at around 5:26 am ACDST, Infinity to infinity focusing, Canon IXUS through a 20 mm eyepiece on a 4" unguided Newtonian. As Spica came close to the Moon, I changed the zoom factor on the IXUS to 3x get a close-up view. |
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| Overlay of 10 widefield images using ImageJ, because the scope was unguided, the images don't register very well | Overlay of 9 close-up images using ImageJ, because the scope was unguided, the images don't register very well. Bumped the scope at the last minute, so I missed Spica going behind the Moon. |
Animation made from the 10 wide-field frames, stacked and registered in ImageJ
Animation made from the 9 close-up frames, stacked and registered in ImageJ
Labels: animation, imageJ, Moon, Occultation, star, telescope
Thursday, June 21, 2012
Globular Cluster M13 in Hercules
Luminance images were stacked in ImageJ then the red, green, blue and stacked luminance images assembled using the Merge Channels tool. Click to embiggen.
It's official, I suck at colour astrophotography. :-(
Labels: astrophotography, cluster, imageJ, iTelescope
Sunday, June 17, 2012
Still More NEO 2012 LZ1
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| NEO 2012 LZ1 at 7:53 UT, nearly 9 hours after closest approach. 5x120 second Images taken with iTelescope T5. The images were stretched in FITSliberator, then stacked in ImageJ and a Max intensity Z project made, then despeckeled. | NEO 2012 LZ1 two hours later, zipping through star clouds. Processing as for the earlier image. |
These look to be my final images of the NEO 2012 LZ1, taken with the New Mexico T5 instrument nearly 9 and 11 hours after the asteroids closest approach.This is a much narrower FOV instrument that T14 and T16. A big thank you to Jeff Woods of iTelescope who adjusted the travel of T5 so we could take earlier images.
I'll now do some astrometry on these images to help refine the asteroids orbit.
There is a nice article at Universe Today which features one of my images, and here's a nice animation by Peter Lake using iTelescope T11. My other shots and animations of this asteroid are here, here and here.
My animation here
Labels: animation, asteroids, FITSLiberator, imageJ, iTelescope
Saturday, June 16, 2012
Near Earth Asteroid 2012 LZ1 10:10 UT, 15 June 2012
2012 LZ1 imaged with iTelescope T14 on June 15, 2012 10:10 UT. The image is a stack of 7x120 second exposures, stretched in FITS Liberator and stacked with ImageJ. Click to embiggen (it's not as big as my previous image, but worth it)NEO 2012 LZ1 was imaged here at 10:10 UT, nearly 11 hours after its closest approach of 13-14 lunar-distances (that's the distance between the Earth and the Moon, 0.036 AU) on June 14 23:10 UT. The asteroid is just zipping past the faint globular cluster PAL 11 when this series of images were taken.
I was trying for a longer series of images to make a really cool animation, but the oncoming twilight put paid to that.
Here's my animation.
Labels: animation, asteroids, FITSLiberator, imageJ, iTelescope, NEO
Friday, June 15, 2012
Near Earth Asteroid 2012 LZ1 1:45 UT, 15 June 2012
2012 LZ1 was imaged at 1:45 UT after its closest approach of 13-14 lunar-distances (that's the distance between the Earth and the Moon, 0.036 AU) on June 14 23:10 UT. The asteroid had just zipped past Barnard's Galaxy and the Little Gem Nebula when this series of images were taken.
Here's my animation.
Labels: asteroids, astrophotography, FITSLiberator, imageJ, iTelescope, NEO
Monday, June 11, 2012
Farewell Beautiful Comet C/2009 P1 Garradd
Comet Garradd, after delighting us for months with it's beautiful double tails, is now sinking towards the horizon and is below the range of the iTelescopes travel. This image was taken before astronomical twilight, but soon it will be too low even for that.
While never getting brighter than magnitude 6, Comet C/2009 P1 Garradd went through some beautiful regions, and its ever changing aspect was really delightful.
The comet will return in October at magnitude 12.4, but if you wish to remember this delightful little comet, you can browse the images I have here.
Labels: astrophotography, C/2009 P1 Garradd, comet, comets, FITSLiberator, imageJ, iTelescope
Sunday, June 10, 2012
Images from My Transit of Venus, June 6 2012
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| My first image of Venus at 10:26 am ACST when the clouds had broken. | Near mid transit at 11:04 am. The varying colours are due to the cameras auto exposure function, and its lag when clouds come over. |
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| After a cloud interlude, Venus approaches the Sun's limb | Just before 3rd contact at 1:52 pm ACST |
I had great plans for the Transit of Venus on June 6 2012, the last until 2117. I had made a binocular projection system, I had my 4" Newtonian telescope with a glass aperture solar filter, a home-made Baader filter for my 8" Newtonian telescope and a mini Baader filter for my Olympus camera.Wednesday dawned cloudy. Actually, when I first woke up the sky was mostly clear, but huge slabs of cloud moved over where the Sun would be shortly before Sunrise, ending any hope I had of seeing first and second contact.
This was the pattern for the day, large parts of the sky would be sparkly blue, except where the Sun was. Due to the weather I made a decision to only use the binocular projection system and my 4" Newtonian scope, as these systems could be moved around a lot more quickly than the homogeneously heavy 8". Also, although I have a time drive on the 8", it drifts slowly. With brief patches of blue coming over the Sun at short, widely spaced intervals, the time to realign the scope would be too long to catch the breaks. So I stuck with the simpler systems.
An added complication was that SmallestOne was sick and had to stay home too. He wasn't THAT sick, well enough to watch TV and play computer games, but I still had to keep an eye on him and give him his medications at the prescribed times. So I divided my time between moaning at the clouds, looking after SmallestOne, watching the live webcasts and rushing out when gaps in the cloud came up.
I had a great Transit. I took heaps of shots through the 4" scope. Most were useless, with cloud coming over just as I was imaging, or the scope shaking with the wind. Getting the focus right was a pain too. But I could watch the progress of the transit with the binocular projection system easily while I fiddled with the camera.Some people came over and I showed them the transit with the projection system (I had to move quickly to stop one person trying to look through the eyepiece rather than at the card the image was projected on. Even SmallestOne came out and had a look (he wasn't impressed). Compare this transit with my Transit experience in 2004.
Even though I thought I had carefully placed my scope, just as third contact was coming up, the Sun went behind a tree. So I rapidly moved the scope and binoculars, and hurriedly realigned and refocused in time to see Venus approach the Sun's limb.
And the clouds came over again.
Nonetheless, I was able to get sufficient shots to see third contact and just before fouth contact (I though I had 4th contact but I was fooled by the low magnification image). I have made the final series of images into the animation below. It's a bit jerky as at lot of frames were unusable due to cloud. The weird tiny black speckles are due to the GIF to AVI translation. Images taken using infinity to infinity imaging a Canon IXUS and a 4" reflector with aperture filter and 25 mm eye piece, the camera was held in place by a commercial adapter (see image of the scope above).
Animation of third and fourth contact. Images were imported into GIMP as layers, aligned using the difference function and manual alignment, the cropped, exported as an animated GIF, then converted to AVI with ImageJ.
Reflecting after it was all over, what was really good was the degree to which the astronomical community, both amateur and professional, put a lot of time into making sure the general public got to experience the transit, either by making their won projection systems, public outreach events or webcast. As well as thoroughly enjoying my own experience, I'm glad I could help in some small way to let others experience it.
Labels: animation, astrophotography, gimp, imageJ, transit, Venus
Wednesday, March 02, 2011
Using Iridium Flares for Parallax Measurements (part 2)
Overlay of two separate flares simultaneously at a) Largs North, SA and b) Blackwood SA, images overlaid using The GIMP. My image was taken with a Canon IXUS, 400 ASA, 15 second exposure. You may need to click on the image to embiggen and see the reference stars. Back in October I posted about an Iridium flare captured by Dean Male and myself. From those images I tried to calculate the height of the Iridium satellite using parallax. The figure came out too high, but not too bad for measurements done with pencil marks on a bit of paper.
So we decided to try again. After a couple of false starts (curse you weather) Dean and I finally got another good shot of an iridium flare last night (March 1).It helped that from my vantage point, it was a -8 magnitude flare, which was stunning, the brightest flare I've even seen (Dean only saw magnitude -3, to put this in perspective, Venus is magnitude -4)
As for last time, I measured the distance between the two flares and reference stars (6, 9 and 12 Hydrae respectively). I measured the distances using ImageJ (and calibrating the scale of the images against the known angular separations of 6, 9 and 12 Hydrae). This is a bit more accurate than the pencil mark on paper. As before, I used the formula used for Lunar parallax:
Knowing that Dean and I were 12.5 Km apart, I calculated a distance of 961 Km, it should be 801 Km (Iridium 65 was 791 km vertically above the earth, but as it was offset from us, the actual path length is longer).
So, better than the first attempt, but still well outside the 3% error achieved for measuring the distance of the Moon using simple photography. I've been racking my brains as to why I'm not getting better accuracy. The only things I can think of are:
1) Dean and I aren't really 12.5 Km apart but are something more like 10.5 due to triangulation effects (but, I can't make the maths work with the Cal Sky data)
2) The fact that we are measuring the flares a substantial distance below the zenith, which might mess up the assumptions for the equation but I still think the effect would be small.
3) Altitude, I'm at sea level, Dean is up higher (nah, that night compensate for being below the Zenith).
I'm stumped at the moment. Any ideas?
UPDATE: Having thought about the geometry for a while, I realised I was measuring the distance angle perpendicular to the flare, instead of North-South (or East -West), so the measured angle didn't correspond to the geometry of the viewing.
When I did this, I got 787 Km, which is within 1.8% of the actual distance (801 Km).
So YAAYYYY!!! I spent a lot of time trying to work out how to visualise the angles to draw a diagram of the situation, and this made me realise I was using the wrong measurements.
Labels: gimp, imageJ, iridium flares, Satellite
Saturday, October 16, 2010
Comet 103P/Hartley near NGC 1528
Comet 103P Hartley mosaic showing the nebula NGC 1491 , open cluster King 7, and open clusters NGC 1528 , 1513 and 1545 . This was shot from Global Rent a Scope GRAS 14 (stack of 5 black and white images at 60 seconds each for top image and one 60 second image for the bottom image with the comet). You, really, really need to click to embiggen (it's worth it).Yes, I deliberately made this mosaic, really I did. I didn't mess up my imaging co-ordinates and take 6 images of a completely comet free area before realizing my mistake, no siree.
If you want to see how it is really done, this stunning mosaic from Rolando Ligustri is the way to go.
Chart showing area where images were taken, the field of view of the G14 imager is shown as the large rectangle at the bottom.The individual FIT images were stacked in Image J using Max Z projection, saved as half scale png's then assembled in the Gimp using layers and difference features.
Labels: astrophotography, comets, gimp, imageJ
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