ISS and Moon (19.3.2012)

Yesterday I got another alarm from CalSky -service, this time also ISS crossing the Moon disk. It happened at 19th March 2012, little bit before 8am - in Finnish local time. Not even a chance to observe, sleet was falling from the sky. Waiting for the next passing then...

ISS and Moon (18.3.2012)

Approximately one week ago, I got email alert from the CalSky service. It predicted that the ISS would pass across the Moon disk at southern Finland, on Sunday morning 18th March 2012. The time for the crossing was 07:13:02 local time, re-checked yesterday - schedule was 07:12:57.

I tried to prepare equiment for taking image sequence of the ISS, with Nikon D200 and C8 OTA. Also found out that memory buffer at D200, fills is pretty quickly - max 5s sequence at 6fps. It would have needed at least 10...15s of buffer, because the passing of ISS would propably (?) change some seconds of the predicted time.

Another problem would been carrying the C8 scope to suitable place, since I do not have a car. On top of the building - there would be high place, but metal fence blocks the visibility. So then, waiting for the next passing of the ISS over moon or sun disk...

Moon imaging

Image from the archives.... Soon after midnight at 4th September 2009, full moon was near enough for composing it with urban landscape (tower of local church).Clouds passed by occasionally, totally blocking visibility. I had to move my tripod to new position after few minutes. Attached frame was the best composition I got. Image was taken at Espoo, southern Finland.

Full moon imaging

Yesterday was not a successful day, clouds blocked visibility at southern Finland. So no photographs then... Next possibility for full moon is on 6th August 2009.

Here's my last image of full moon at 9th May 2009. Moon is distorted by mirage effect (different temperatures at air layers). This I consider my best image of full moon.

In couple of weeks I should get some detailed explanation of this mirage effect, and some comments what I heard - it was not so typical to see distorted moon at relatively high altitudes like in this case. When I have feedback, I'll get back to this...

I made also a composite image, to clear out how moon shape was distorted. It was interesting to follow...

Saturn imaging (12th April 2009)

One image from the archives... I shot Saturn -at Vesanto in central Finland- with my C8 OTA & 2x Barlow lens. Used camera type was Philips SPC900NC. I had a lot of interference lines visible in stacked image. Periodic noise was needed to be removed with IRIS, postprocessing was done at Photoshop CS2.

Unsuccessfull moon imaging

This time I did not had a good luck... According to yellow almanac, full moon today was rising at 23:23 (in Helsinki region). I checked skies, but too much clouds on distant horizon to see the moon. I am going to attempt photography of "low moon" again, at 7th July 2009.

Venus imaging

On second of February 2009 I had my C8 OTA collimated and ready for planet imaging. Venus was already too low on the sky, but I still was able to take an acceptable image. Below is one captured frame from video, showing clearly disturbances in the image.
Below is result of 219 stacked frames. Next time I need to do imaging, when Venus is higher on the sky. Focusing must be done more carefully, Bahtinov mask could help...
Additional information:
Date: 2.2.2009
Time: 20:17 (GMT+2)
Location: Karakallio, Espoo, Finland
Telescope: Celestron C8
Web camera: Philips SPC 900NC
Barlow: TeleVue 3x

Partial solar eclipse

This time the observation I had to visually only. No possibilities to photograph it due to busy daily work, unfortunately. It still was a beatiful sight. Sky was partially cloudy. I observed it in southerh Finland (Espoo to be precise), around 12:40 local time (GMT +3h). Approximately 40% of the sun disk area was blocked by the moon.

These following pages contains solar images around the world:
Spaceweather.com
NASA solar eclipse page

Saturn imaging at Nuuksio

After a long time waiting, finally skies cleared. Thanks to my work colleague for the car ride... Expectations were high, but I was disappointed with the results. Seeing was very bad, it caused lot of disturbance in the atmosphere. After stacking I also noticed some "stripes" in the image. Got to find out where they are coming from...

C8 image details:
Location: Nuuksio (Espoo, Finland)
Date: 15th February 2008
Time: 23:43 UTC
Telescope: C8 XLT (2032mm f/10)
Mount: Skywatcher HEQ-5
Barlow: TeleVue 3x
Webcam: Philips SPC900NC
Stacking: Registax v4, 952 frames

It was approximately one year (!) after my last Saturn imaging session (too long time to speak). I made a comparison image pair about Saturn rings. They look more and more narrow each time. Within one or two year, the rings should "disappear", since the plane is pointing towards earth.

Mars 2007 opposition, second image

My second attempt for Mars imaging was near to 2007 opposition at 22nd December. Last time I did not succeed on imaging with my Barlow lens. Now I was able to get decent sized planet on the webcam sensor. There were not so many details on the side of Mars I have photographed, so more attempts are needed. I tried to focus as cafully as I could, with WO SCT focuser. There was no sharp focus point present. This may have been due to seeing effects. I had to battle a lot during imaging, to avaoid frost formation on the corrector lens. Good point to continue for next imaging round. Equiment used: Celestron C8 XLT, Televue 3x Barlow, SPC900NC. Image capturing and processing: VirtualDub, Registax v4 and Photoshop CS2.

Mars 2007 opposition, first light

Long time (over two weeks :-) after I got my C8 package, skies were finally clearing at Espoo. On the early morning hours of 13th December 2007, I carried my (damn heavy) equipment to near hill. First I did some visual tests of my scope, then finally pointed C8 to Mars. I got couple of raw video sequences. The planet size on the webcam sensor was way too small. Still some small details were revealed. I tried also to attach 3x Barlow lens, but I did not got video captured because of focusing problems (WO SCT focuser worked OK).

Sun without spots

My first decent attempt to photograph the sun... This time it did not have any visible spots, image was taken at 20th October 2007. Used equipment were: Baader solar filter foil, Nikon 300/4,5 tele lens and Samsung SHC-721A surveillance camera. This final image was stacked from separate frames with Registax, approximately 250 frames were used.
After taking the original AVI clips, some problems were really visible. Below is one frame captured from the clip. Below and above the sun, the brighter area is visible. This may be due to blooming affect on the camera. Also narrow darker vertical "stripes" are visible. This particular camera has menu, but I have not found any blooming related adjustments there. Looks like this type of camera is not very suitable for high contrast targets...