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Saturday, July 26, 2008
Neptune and More Stuff!!
Jupiter is still big (and bad) but the next planet on the scene is Neptune (the most distant planet from the Sun - ouch).
The picture on the home page is from west Texas. I tried again last night but was foiled by a combination of clouds
and ineptness. Neptune is hard to find but I was hampered by the atmosphere too (that's my story). I'll try
to star-hop if I have trouble next time which shouldn't be too hard because Deneb Algiedi, a bright star, is
nearby. But since Neptune is so far away, the picture probably won't be much better.
I also uploaded a some more Moon pictures and labeled the existing ones. They are pretty fascinating.
In addition there is a new page under Milky Way called "open clusters".
Sunday, July 20, 2008
Planetary Nebulae
I added a new planetary nebula page under the Milky Way page. PNs are dying stars that have lost some of its gases
but hasn't cooled off enough to be a white dwarf yet. They are interesting objects to look at and figure out.
These shots were taken out in west Texas.
Saturday, July 19, 2008
More of the King
I've added a couple of new pictures of Jupiter to the "Jupiter" page. It looks like the Little Red Spot isn't doing
very well. Maybe it's just the detail I'm able to see from my pics. The red image shows something of the LRS but
the others don't show much...
Wednesday, July 16, 2008
Jupiter and Dark Skies
There has been more talk about the Little Red Spot on Jupiter. It looks like it is still going but may be sliding
back towards the GRS for round 2. Stay tuned!
We stayed at the Double M Ranch outside of Fort Davis TX and I added some pics from that trip. So far, on the Universe
page, I've added the Whirlpool and Starburst galaxies. On the Milky Way page, I've added the Swan Nebula. Still
lots of processing to do but I was slowed down my interest in the Jupiter activity.
Thursday, July 10, 2008
Jupiter at Opposition
Jupiter passed closest to Earth for this year on July 9th. Here's a pic from that night. Interestingly, it
was right after the Little Red Spot got squished by the Great Red Spot and another oval storm beneath the GRS. My pictures
lack the clarity that you can see at Spaceweather.com (ref 7/9 archive) but if you look closely the right of the GRS,
you can see the LRS intact. So it survived it's big brother's assault!
Later I'll upload some pictures from the 4th of July Fort Davis trip. We were in viewing distance of the McDonald
observatory. Very nice!
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You can submit comments below. Let me know if you want to see more. Thanks.
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| WIS, Europa, Ganymede, RGB f29 08/01/09 |
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| The Wesley Impact Site has elongated, two moons and the GRS near the limb |
| Jupiter with Wesley Impact Site, RGB, f29 |
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| The southern pole region shows a black impact mark discovered by Austrailian Anthony Wesley. 072309 |
| Neptune and Triton, RGB, 09/06/09, near opposition |
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| Combined two images. Neptune taken at f29 and Triton, its largest moon, at f10 (then enlarged). |
| It's getting farther, week from closest pass, f/29 |
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| RGB image of Saturn on 3/16, good seeing but fog was rolling in, storms visible |
| It's getting closer, Venus URGB, f10, 3/5/09 |
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| Can see crescent with binos easily, try with naked eye to test your vision |
| Mercury is always around - RGB 200% f/29 10/21/08 |
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| But usually is too close to Sun - it was about 15 deg from horizon in morning (east) - poor seeing |
| It's getting farther, Uranus RGB 9/6/08, 200% f29 |
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| Same image scale as Neptune. A lot of green when imaging, less blue but boosted blue. 6th from Sun |
| Near Mars' closest distance to Earth for 2007 |
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| (It's getting farther too) |
This is an LRGB photo of Mars made on 12/21/07 05:52 GMT. It's centered near Eden but Syrtis Major is still
visible. I have an 11" SCT and used a monochrome Imaging Source USB 60 fps camera at f/25. I used Registax,
Photoshop and Maxim DL during processing. Thanks for visiting!
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