Tag: Planet

Jupiter

October 19, 2022
Solar system
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This year was a special occasion to observe or photograph Jupiter. The biggest planet in our Solar system got very close to Earth. In fact, it was the closest in several decades. Such events force me to take an action. I had to wait for a cloudless night and took my biggest telescope out. Well, I must admit that the opportunity of Jupiter’s opposition is great but more important than the distance between the Earth and the observed planet is the quality of seeing. The light started the journey on Sun, then traveled 778 million km to Jupiter, got reflected and traveled 367 million km back to Earth, and got spoiled in the last 100 km when passing through the thick Erth’s atmosphere.

On 19.10.2022 I was extremely lucky because Jupiter’s moon Io was transiting and creating the eclipse. Moreover, the giant red spot was visible simultaneously. I captured a few shots and got the idea to capture more of them and compose a video. In total, I was photographing the event for nearly one hour and made 15 frames out of it. You can see how quickly Jupiter spins. One day on Jupiter takes only 9 hours and 55 minutes.

And here is a static picture:

Telescope:Celestron EdgeHD C14
Aperture:354 mm
Focal length:3910 mm
MountGemini G53f
Autoguidingno
Camera:ZWO ASI485MC
Corrector:no
Filters:no
Exposure:4000xRGB (25% used) 18 ms gain 93
Date:2022-10-19

Saturn

May 28, 2022
Solar system
1 Comment

I have been chasing this planet for a very long time. Saturn is the most beautiful planet in the Solar System and yet I haven’t been able to photograph it properly. This is mainly caused by the fact that in the last years this planet had very low southern declination (it has been quite close to the horizon). Therefore, I was not able to capture it from home, and during my travels, to southern places, I never had a suitable telescope with me. Finally, I got an opportunity. I was in the southern hemisphere, specifically in Namibia, and I rented Meade 10″ Schmidt-Cassegrain telescope. The first night I photographed Centarus A Galaxy. Early in the morning around 4 a.m. I came to park to scope, but before that, I removed the ASI071 camera. Focal length 3130 mm I prolonged by TeleVue 2.5 Barlow lens to nearly 8 m, attached ZWO ASI485, and captured 2000 frames. Then I selected 25% best frames and here we go:

TelescopeMeade 10"
Aperture254 mm
Focal length7825 mm
MountMK 100K
Autoguidingnon
CameraZWO ASI485MC
CorrectorTeleVue Barlow 2.5x
Filtersnon
Exposure2000x180ms, Gain 222, 25% selected,
Date2022-05-28

Mars

October 25, 2020
Solar system
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I have been waiting for this planet very long. It doesn’t mean that Mars hasn’t been visible, it was, but not from my backyard. I live in central Europe, specifically on the 47 parallel. This means that all planets should be 43° above the horizon during the conjunction (when Sun, planet, and observed planet are in one line). Well, this would be true, if the Earth would be spinning perfectly perpendicular to the plane of the Solar System. In reality, the Earth has a tilt, which causes that some years are much better than the others. A better year for a certain planet means that the planet raises a lot above the horizon, a bad year means that it stays close to the horizon.

This year was one of the best years for the planet Mars. The next opportunity will occur in 15 years.

The picture is a stack of 750 best frames, each 7.3 ms long. The focal length of the Celestron C14 telescope was extended from 4000 mm to 6400 mm by the Siebert Barlow lens.

Telescope:Celestron EdgeHD C14
Aperture:354 mm
Focal length:6400 mm
MountGemini G53f
Autoguiding-
Camera:ZWO ASI228MC
Corrector:Barlow 1.6
Filters:UV IR cut
Exposure:3000xRGB (25% used), 7.3 ms, Gain 219
Date:2020-10-25

Neptune

November 9, 2017
Solar system
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Since Pluto is no longer a planet, the privilege to be the last planet of the Solar System belongs to Neptune. Neptune is after Jupiter and Saturn the third most-massive planet. It has approximately 17 times more mass than Earth. One year on Neptune takes 164.8 years, because the distance between Sun and Neptune is 30 times longer than between Earth and Sun. The planet got its name from Roman mythology, specifically after the god of the sea – the mighty Neptune.

Neptune cannot be spotted by a naked eye, therefore one needs telescope. Even if you have one and you manage to find it, you will not see any details on Neptune’s surface. You will see just boring small spot.

The picture was taken by my biggest telescope Celestron C14. The focal length 4000 mm was increased by 1.6 Barlow lens to 6400 mm. The seeing was, as usual, very bad, therefore there are no details visible and the picture looks not perfectly focused and unsharp. I just wanted to try to capture it and here is the outcome:

Technical details

Telescope:Celestron EdgeHD C14
Aperture:354 mm
Focal length:6256 mm
MountGemini G53f
Autoguiding-
Camera:ZWO ASI228MC
Corrector:Barlow 1.6
Filters:-
Exposure:1000xL (35% used), 610 ms, Gain 353
Date:2017-10-12

Jupiter

May 1, 2017
Solar system
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Jupiter is the biggest planet in Solar System, therefore it’s called giant – gas giant. It has 2.5 times mass of all the other planets in the Solar System combined. It has more than 60 moons and one of them (Io) I managed to capture. The picture also shows Great Red Spot, which is a storm larger than the Earth.

Few days later I tried to compose an animation, this time without Great Red Spot and the moon is Ganymede:

Venus

January 29, 2017
Solar system
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Venus our neighboring planed in the Solar System. It has smaller orbit compared to Earth, therefore it is visible only in the evening or in the morning, but never during the night. This makes it quite difficult to photograph, because the telescope must look through the thick atmosphere. In my case it’s even more difficult, because the seeing is in my place all the time horrible. The picture looks like it’s not sharp, but this is what I was able to get from my backyard.

Technical details:

Telescope:Celestron EdgeHD C14
Aperture:354 mm
Focal length:5850 mm
MountGemini G53f
Autoguiding-
Camera:ZWO ASI228MC
Corrector:SiebertOptics Barlow 1.4
Filters:-
Exposure:3000xL (40% used), 1.542 ms, Gain 0
Date:2017-01-29

Jupiter

April 13, 2016
Solar system
2 Comments

Jupiter is the largest planet in solar system; however the weight of this gas giant is only 1/1000 of the Sun. It has more than 60 moons, which were very important for formulation of modern way how we understand the universe. Four biggest moons Io, Europa, Ganymede and Callisto are visible even by small telescope. Galileo was the first who saw them and noticed that next night they are on different position, thus they must be orbiting the Jupiter. This led to the confirmation of Copernicus heliocentric theory. Obviously this was not accepted very well at that time and Galileo had to face the problems with the inquisition.

Planetary photography is completely different to deep space imagining. Since the planets are bright, the exposure time doesn’t have to be long, however the planets are small, therefore the seeing (turbulences in the atmosphere) is the biggest enemy. One needs: long focal length, short exposure times (aperture, aperture, and aperture) and as many pictures as possible.

This picture is a stack of 2000 pictures together. It’s one year old, because this year the seeing hasn’t allow me to do better pictures with my latest equipment. The red spot is visible as well as the eclipse cause by the moon Io.

jup5m_1_80s_g956_0019 23-39-31-2AP-74per_res

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Moon – closer encounter

April 4, 2016
Solar system
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Well, as I wrote before, I hate Moon. It is a big bright monster, polluting the skies by the light. However it has its beauties. For instance the terminator – the transition between bright and dark side of the Moon can show some interesting shadows of the craters. The Moon is relatively easy to photograph, one just have to have a long focal length and any camera. The pictures were taken by my new scope Celestron EdgeHD C14 with “guiding” camera ZWO 174 MM. Each picture is a stack of approximately 1000 frames, done in AutoStakkert and sharpened further in RegiStax.conv_Moon_180316_Gain=180_Exposure=1_regi02_FS conv_Moon_180316_Gain=180_Exposure=2_1ms_regi_FS conv_Moon_180316_Gain196_Exposure2_7ms_regi_fs conv_Moon_Gain196_Ex2_FS conv_MoonGain188_Exposure2_2ms_regi_FS

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