Category Archives: Planets

The Solar Eclipse of Oct 14, 2023

Maximum Eclipse – South Louisiana
Tele Vue Optics’ TV-85 at F/5.6, Thousand Oaks polymer solar filter, QHY183c astro camera at 1C, 6.8ms, Gain 11, Offset 0. There are 14 frames total in this animation.

I got up early and setup, polar aligned, etc.   Started taking images just before it started and got a few during the eclipse.   After the eclipse, I got a few more images of the sun and its spots.

Tele Vue Optics’ TV-85 at F/5.6, Thousand Oaks polymer solar filter, QHY183c astro camera at 1C, 6.8ms, Gain 11, Offset 0.
Sunspot Closeup – Televue TV-85 at F/5.6, Thousand Oaks polymer solar filter, QHY183c astro camera at 1C, 6.8ms, Gain 11, Offset 0.

Bonus!

Tele Vue Optics, Inc., put a link and screenshot to the animation I posted on Instagram in an article on their blog.  Click here to see the story:  “Tele Vue Optics’ Blog – Rings of Fire: 14 October 2023 Annular Eclipse Photos” 

Moon and Mars Conjunction/Occultation of Dec 7th, 2022

Moon and Mars. 37 x 1/1000 sec, Gain 11, Offset 17, Astronomik L-3 UV/IR filter, QHY183c at -20C, TPO (Askar) 40mm, F/4.5, Atlas EQ-G.

Tiny Mars right below the full moon of Dec 2022.  Here in Cajun Country, we saw a near miss of Mars being occulted.  Further north and west was where you could see it go behind the Moon.

I used the smallest scope I have to take this (only 180mm of focal length) because it was ready to go and I didn’t have much time to prep.  Sure wish I would have had my old C-8  for this instead.  Oh, well…

This crop is at 100% of the camera’s native resolution.

Oct 2nd, 2020 – Mars and Moon Conjunction

Moonrise!
The Moon and Mars on Oct 2, 2020. TV-85 at F/5.6, QHY183c at -15C, L-eNhance Filter.

A beautiful evening for the Moon and Mars conjunction on October 2, 2020.  Condition were so good that I was able to capture the moon rising behind a tree.   Usually the muck is so thick at that altitude that I would not be able to get a good image, but this night it was extremely transparent.

The moonrise shot was a single frame.  I had to do a composite for the still image of the Moon and Mars together.   10 frames were stacked in AutoStakkert of just the moon and 2 Mars frames were combined for the disk of Mars.

The MP4 video file is the first time I have tried including one in a astrophoto post.  It is small enough in size to download in a reasonable amount of time.  Video editing software I used was rudimentary and I really couldn’t get the background color corrected very well.   I’ll have to find something that can do that job for future projects like this.

Jupiter – Mar 23, 2018

Jupiter on March 23, 2018. 25 best frames out of 291. RT Sony IMX224, Orion 6in, F/8 with a Televue 2X Barlow.

An image of Jupiter, finally!   Its been ages since I shot it with a high-res setup.   The 6 inch, F/8 Newt I used was barely up to the task, but it did produce a usable image.   Seeing was poor, but otherwise it was a beautiful morning with beautiful and very transparent skies.

Moon, Venus and Mars Conjunction, Jan 31, 2017

Moon, Venus and Mars on Jan 31, 2017. Canon T3 and a Canon 200mmm telephoto lens set at F/4. Exposure was 1/100th sec @ ISO 3200.

A beautiful conjunction of the moon and two planets made the last evening of Jan 2017 quite nice.  The Moon joined Venus and Mars on this evening and I just had to get some shots.

Moon, Venus and Mars on Jan 31, 2017. Canon T3 and a Canon 200mmm telephoto lens set at F/2.8. Exposure was 1/40th sec @ ISO 3200.

I could have used a tripod for these, but I took the images by propping the camera on the top of a car.   Consequently, I had lots of rejected images due to motion blur.    But, luckily, I got a three steady ones that were good enough to post.   The forth image below was a repair job, but it came out OK after correcting it for my unsteady hands.  🙂

Moon, Venus and Mars on Jan 31, 2017. Canon T3 and a Sigma 28-70 Zoom, 70mm at F/4. Exposure was 1/60th sec @ ISO 3200.
Moon, Venus and Mars on Jan 31, 2017. Canon T3 and a Sigma 28-70 Zoom, 70mm at F/4. Exposure was 1/4th sec @ ISO 3200.

These last two are actually composites.   The one right above had motion blur and as mentioned previously, I was able to fix it.  But, fixing it messed up the trees.  So, I had to composite the good trees back in from the original.  In the second image above, the moon was replaced with a better version from the 200mm lens.

 

Comet Siding Spring Meets Mars

C/2013 A1/Mars Encounter, Oct 19, 2014. 10 x 180 sec @ ISO 1600, 20 x 60 sec @ ISO 6400, TV-85 at F/5.6, IDAS-LPS, Modified Canon T3.
C/2013 A1/Mars Encounter, Oct 19, 2014. 10 x 180 sec @ ISO 1600, 20 x 60 sec @ ISO 6400, TV-85 at F/5.6, IDAS-LPS, Modified Canon T3.

Update October 20, 2014:  The above image is an update with more time added.  Compare it to the image below which was made with only 20 minutes of data shot at ISO 6400 (20×60 sec sub-images.)  I took an additional 30 minutes of 3 minute sub-images at ISO 1600 and added it in, so the combined total is 50 minutes.

siding_spring-20x60-6400-85f5_6
Comet Siding Spring and Mars. 20×60 sec @ ISO 1600, TV-85 at F/5.6, IDAS-LPS, Modified Canon T3.

Well, the big comet encounter of the year took place tonight, Oct 19, 2014 and Mars and Comet Siding Spring (C/2013 A1) both survived.  LoL.   Seriously, it was a very close encounter if you had darkness when it was closest.  Here in southern Louisiana, it took place during daylight, so I had to catch it after closest approach as C/2013 A1 was bidding Mars farewell.

I had a strange night with some issues, but I managed to get some decent data and also lucked out with some good weather for this event.  This image is from the first set of images I took and it is a composite of comet-only processed and star background processed image stacks.  The comet moved a good distance in the twenty-five minutes it took to get the sub-frames, so I had to isolate it with different alignment and stacking techniques than I use for normal deep-sky images.