Improving drastically

Collimated fairly well, but fighting a foggy aperture

  I randomly woke up in the middle of the night to a bright moon shining in through crystal clear skies during a predicted overcast night.  I gave myself a pep talk and dragged my telescope out in to the brisk, humid night at three in the morning.  I worked once again to fine tune the collimation of the scope and was amazed by the difference in my focus star.  The sky was still waving and shimmering, but I could actually see a broken airy disk around the focused star.  Turning my attention to Jupiter high in the sky above Orion, I saw the break in the northern band for the first time ever.  I could also make out a fourth band to the south and soon I had hooked up my camera and was taking high definition video.  I got three one minute shots before realizing that the whole time my front glass was completely fogged over.  I was amazed by how good the view still was for shining through tiny beads of water.  Right then I promised myself to always fine tune my scope when going out for a session.

  In the picture above you can just make out three of Jupiter's moons, one below at seven o'clock, and two further above and to the right.

  My stacking skills still leave something to be desired, but I need a PC in order to properly run the latest software.  My boot camped MacBook Pro is fickle with the Windows XP installation and only runs an oft crashing version of Registax 5.

  Hopefully this weekend continues to defy the weathermen and I can have another go at it without the damp humidity fogging up the view.

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I moved a previous post from 9/16/2012 in so the optical improvements could be viewed easily in a film strip.  I am also extremely happy that I once again found a blogger template that allows images to be viewed full screen and then left and right on the keyboard cycles through them in a slideshow.  I really like the possibilities of the new dynamic templates, but they have some unacceptable shortcomings.

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And Back to the Big Guy

Jupiter on the 8" Celestron SCT

  The seeing wasn't very good, and there are definitely some alignment issues that still need worked on, but hands down the best view of Jupiter I've ever had!  I'm excited for this fall and winter to get some extended time on the gas giant and a new crack at the Orion Nebula which is just getting high in the sky before dawn.  See below for a comparison of my previous telescope...

Jupiter on the 4" Meade SCT

Focused and Collimated? (updated 9/27/12)

  Much, MUCH better.  A single shot at full resolution.

A movie stacked to take out the shimmer of Earth's atmosphere.  

A close up of Tycho Crater

Tycho Crater pointed out

Messier Object Hunt Begins

   After three long months I've finally got my new telescope mounted and the tripod placement aligned for astrophotography.  Gorgeous clear skies and a new moon aligned for this weekend and with the scope aligned I was flying through deep sky objects for the first time with my new 8" Celestron SCT.  I was even able to make a small run at image stacking on two planetary nebulas for the first time.

M27 - Dumbbell Nebula

M13 - Globular Cluster

M57 - Ring Nebula

Milky Buffalo Pass

The Milky Way

  I went on a hike around Buffalo Mountain just west of Silverthorne, Colorado.  The first night we pitched camp on the trail to Red Buffalo Pass and I set my camera at 11,424 feet photographing the Milky Way throughout the night.  Smoke from forest fires burning in California and Montana created a thick red haze throughout the day and a green shimmer at night.  With clearing skies throughout sunset and in to the next day, stars blazed throughout the night above the New Moon's pitch black Rocky Mountains.

  I time-lapsed the subsequent images in to a video below.  Help preserve our dark skies...

Camp at 11,400".  Buffalo Mountain to the left.

My trusty Hubba Hubba with Red Peak in the background.  

JetBoil Coffee...  Yes

Red Buffalo Pass, the major trail from Silverthorne to Vail. 

Red Peak and Alpine Lake

High Alpine Wildflowers still hanging on at the end of this parched and hot summer.

Milky Way over Colorado

Perseids

Moonlit Landscape

A couple of practice shots with the moon lighting up the front range.  I'm getting ready for a few night sky projects coming up and wanted to get my gear back in working order after taking a month off from time-lapse photography.

Green Mountain and NCAR - Boulder, CO

The recently burned peak of Bear Mountain - Boulder, CO

   Right when I went outside I was presented with the beautiful triangular formation of two planets and a bright star setting behind the front range.  Saturn sits atop the trio with red-orange Mars clockwise, followed by the binary star Spica.  This picture was taken 74 hours before the Curiosity Rover is set to touch down on the red planet in a thrilling Entry, Descent, and Landing.

Saturn, Mars, and Spica form a triangle above Bear Mountain, Boulder, CO

What if Jupiter was our Moon?

  I thought this was a good video demonstrating just how enormous Jupiter is and actually, just how tiny Mars is.