Weasner's Meade ETX Guest Gallery

GUEST PLANETARY ASTROPHOTOGRAPHY

Last updated: 31 December 2005

Some ETX users have sent me examples of their astrophotography. If you have some examples you would like included here please send me a description of how you made the astrophotos and a copy of the images as GIF or JPEG files (due to internet email gateway issues, please send only one image file per message). Send to etx@me.com. Alternatively, if you have created your own web page with your examples please let me know and I'll include a link to your site. You will also find astrophotography examples on the Helpful Information - Astrophotography page.

Submitted by: chasiotis elias (elias_chasiotis@stendor.coo.gr) [31 Dec 05]
Mercury is nearly full now. Minor processing only.

A thin Venus crescent from today. The phase is now 6 per cent.

Submitted by: Job Geheniau (geheniau@xs4all.nl) [31 Dec 05]
Troubles with work and bad weather = not much astrophotography. But yesterday I tried Venus. Pretty result. Happy New Year and let the ETX images flow around!

Submitted by: chasiotis elias (elias_chasiotis@stendor.coo.gr) [27 Dec 05]
I had problem with my Atik' s cable since December 13 and i haven' t done many things since then. (I did some unsuccesfull tries with the LPI). Finally, i borrowed the ToUcam of a friend and start captures again. I send you two photos of Venus. It' s now huge and glorious.

Submitted by: Miles (miles.d@virgin.net) [21 Dec 05]
Seasons greetings ETXers! This was taken on the 11th of december, at about 3.00 pm in Oxford England. It is about 100 frames of an A.V.I.

Submitted by: Chris Warburton (C.A.Warburton@lboro.ac.uk) [21 Dec 05]
Thought I'd send you a couple of images of Mars taken last week end. They were both taken with my ETX-90 ec in polar mode using my home made polar wedge from my back garden in Derbyshire U.K.. I used a 2x Apo Barlow and a Vesta pro webcam set at 320x240 and then resized about x4. The avi's were processed in Registax and additional processing gone with Arcsoft. The first image is a stack of 1496 frames from an avi of 1519.

The second was taken with a Blue filter and is a stack of 1251 frames from a total of 1511. Many thanks Mike for providing us with such an information rich site.

Submitted by: James Jefferson-Wilson James (james.jefferson@bbc.co.uk) [21 Dec 05]
Excellent Weekend here at the UK, especially Sat night, seeing very good and STILL managed to top my Saturn image again ! ... also got my best Venus image as well. All Details on the image as usual :-)

Submitted by: Kaustav Bhattacharya (info@kaustav.uk.com) [21 Dec 05]
Here are some images of Saturn I captured last night on my ETX105. Seeing was quite poor. Focusing was difficult. Registax decided it didn't like the I420 codec which the Philip ToUcam Pro II 840K software uses by default so I had to use Virtual Dub to convert the AVIs to IYUV AVI files which Registax digested with much glee :-) http://astrolondon.blogspot.com/2005/12/glorious-saturn-rises-in-east.html
Submitted by: James Jefferson-Wilson James (james.jefferson@bbc.co.uk) [17 Dec 05]
Please find image of the example of how much Mars has shrunk in just 3 days !

Submitted by: chasiotis elias (elias_chasiotis@stendor.coo.gr) [13 Dec 05]

Submitted by: Paul Campbell (iamzoup@yahoo.com) [13 Dec 05]
here are two Saturns from last night. Both are avi's. They were taken using a etx 125 and a sac 7 ccd. processed in handy avi and then registax 3 cleaned up in adobe 6.0.

Submitted by: Dieter.Wolf@DNSint.com [9 Dec 05]
Thank you Mars... ...and thank you Mike.

Submitted by: James Jefferson-Wilson James (james.jefferson@bbc.co.uk) [9 Dec 05]
Please find image of Saturn taken on the 7th of December on a very good cold clear night. My best to date and its not even January ! :-) All details on image.

Submitted by: chasiotis elias (elias_chasiotis@stendor.coo.gr) [5 Dec 05]
Venus is now changing phase and size rapidly! These two photos were captured 5 days apart. Venus is placed very South so it' s difficult to avoid atmospheric diffraction and turbulence.

Submitted by: James Jefferson-Wilson James (james.jefferson@bbc.co.uk) [5 Dec 05]
Please find 2 images taken on the 29th/30th November. Taken 3.5 hrs apart to show its Rotation. All other details on the image ! Very bad weather here at the moment, no sign of letting up.

Submitted by: Paul Campbell (iamzoup@yahoo.com) [5 Dec 05]
here is a photo of Saturn that I took over the thanksgiving holiday down in hockings hills state park in lower Ohio. Its a 120 sec. avi at 1/10 of a sec. Taken with a etx 125 a apo 2xtele and a sac 7 ccd. Pre processing was done using Handy avi. The final processing was done using Registax 3, and the final photo was cleaned up using adobe photoshop 6.0.

Submitted by: Dieter.Wolf@DNSint.com [5 Dec 05]
I can't remember having seen ANY reasonable photo of Mars with an ETX-70 that showed surface details. Well, Mars isn't an object for the ETX-70 one may think, but MEADE states on its website that 'prominent features' on Mars can we viewed and I read some observation reports - yours too, Mike - of people who saw the polar cap (in 2003 opposition) and 'some dark areas'. So I tried to make a photograph with surface details of Mars in my ETX-70AT. You have to consider that, even with a 2x barlow, you reach only 700 mm of focal length. Compared to an ETX-90 / ETX-105 / ETX-125 with 2x / 3x barlow this is only 1/4 to 1/8 of disc size - and that is tiny. I roughly estimated the Marsian disc to be of 10 pixel size! 40 frames of 1200 manually selected and resized by 4 during processing, the final image cropped by 2. If you compare the image with the preview on the right side you can really see some major surface details. I was surprised. 2005-11-27, 18:30 CET, MEADE ETX-70AT with 2x barlow and PHILIPS ToUCam pro at prime focus.

Compared with Mars, Venus is much easier. First of all you don't see surface details at all...and on the other hand the disc is nearly twice big in size. 35% of Venus is illuminated and the planet is deep down in the southern ecliptic at -25 and thus only about 10 above the horizont in my location. 2005-11-27, 18:00 CET, MEADE ETX-70AT with 2x barlow and PHILIPS ToUCam at prime focus, 300 out of 700 frames 1/100s each.

Submitted by: chasiotis elias (elias_chasiotis@stendor.coo.gr) [30 Nov 05]
I send you some Mars images that are of some interest. In these photos the irregularities on the limb are the first shadows of the morning terminator.

And two images that were captured a week before closest approach.

Submitted by: James Jefferson-Wilson James (james.jefferson@bbc.co.uk) [30 Nov 05]
Please find my latest image of MARS - 30th November 00:30am and Moon Craters

Submitted by: James Jefferson-Wilson James (james.jefferson@bbc.co.uk) [26 Nov 05]
It was blowing a gale last night til about 10:30pm when it got abit calmer. Fortunately I have a porch covering the back patio area which managed to shelter me from the wind quite well. It was a very dark sky last night for Ruislip and if it wasn't so windy (did I mention it was "freezing"!!) I would have stayed out all night. The seeing changed throughout the 2 hr period, the best time around midnight.

Submitted by: Miles [22 Nov 05]
Mars is moving away fast - but I am sure the pictures keep coming! This was taken with an ETX-105, using a Canon A620, with a 6.7mm eyepiece for projection. It is about 50 frames from an AVI, and was taken in Oxford, England on the 17th of November.

Submitted by: Stewart Long (Stewart.Long@bcm-ltd.co.uk) [22 Nov 05]
Please find attached an image of Mars for consideration to be included in the gallery. Details: ETX125, 2x apo barlow, lpi. 180 frames stacked in Autostar Envisage. Some post processing in Registax3 and levels in Photoshop CS. Taken from Oakham, U.K. on night of 12th Nov. Seeing reasonable, steady but some thin high cloud. This is my first serious attempt at astrophotography and I am quite pleased with the result!

Submitted by: Tom Mordasky (mordaskyt@mac.com) [22 Nov 05]
These are from the past week, taken with my ETX-90 and the Meade LPI attached to my iBook g4. The sonix driver settings on the mac as follows: Gain 100%, Exposure 100%, Brightness 35%, Contrast 100%, Sharpness 85%. The frames are stacked in Keith's Image Stacker and processed in Adobe Photoshop CS.

Submitted by: James Jefferson-Wilson James (james.jefferson@bbc.co.uk) [22 Nov 05]
Please find images of Mars from 18th and Last night and Venus from Friday 18th November.

Submitted by: James Jefferson-Wilson James (james.jefferson@bbc.co.uk) [18 Nov 05]
Having some nice cold clear nights here..... please find image of Mars take last night :-)

Submitted by: C.A.Warburton (C.A.Warburton@lboro.ac.uk) [15 Nov 05]
Please find attached an image of Mars from some video I captured last week from my back garden in Derbyshire U.K. Seeing was not too good and this is only my second attempt at capturing and stacking AVIs of Mars. I'm quite pleased with the results. My scope is an ETX-90 and my camera a fairly old Philips Vesta pro CCD webcam. I took 295 usable frames and the resulting stack contained 225 frames at 320 x 240 pixels.The Stacking and processing was done in Registax. I then resized the image by about x 3 and cropped alot of the black background off. I hope that you can post it on your next update.

Submitted by: Paul Campbell (iamzoup@yahoo.com) [15 Nov 05]
here is a photo of Mars taken 11 7 05. Its an avi of 140sec. at 1/15 of a sec. 30 frames a sec. 4,700 frames used, in this photo. It was pre processed in handy avi and the final processing was done in registax 3. The final photo was cleaned up in adobe 6.0. the photo was taken using a etx 125 a 2x tele and sac 7 ccd. The scope alignment was done using Polar finder, and the alignment stars were picked out with best pair 2

Submitted by: David Holmes (hip_hop@usa.net) [15 Nov 05]
Thanks for all your help. I finally had a clear sky last night so I gave it another shot. Here is my best pick of mars yet. I still need work on the focus, but once I get the tracking down it should get better. Any tips on methods of getting a good focus..... beside patience of course? Image was taken with etx 125 and LPI. Mike here: Focusing is always a challenge. Especially at small image scales. A Hartmann Mask can sometimes help; see articles on the Helpful Information: Astrophotography page.

Submitted by: chasiotis elias (elias_chasiotis@stendor.coo.gr) [15 Nov 05]
These are two images of Mars that show the duststorm over Chryse region. In Europe we couldn't have a clear view of the storm because the rotation of the planet didn't allow us to. In the US amateur astronomers could observe the storm when it crossed the Central Meridian. In these images the storm appears close to the planets limb. The second image was captured 24 hours later and shows a small expansion of the storm to both Hemispheres.

Submitted by: Mauro Rizzi (mauror@microsoft.com) [15 Nov 05]
here is a picture of Mars taken from my home a little north of Milano Italy. The picture was taken on Nov 10th just after midnight (local time). I used an ETX-90 AT UHTC with a ToU cam and 2x barlow lens. May I ask you why I get an bright annular ring within the planet? I tried to play with the wavelet setting in registax but was unable to reduce it. Mike here: This is typically seen on digital images. It can be due to a lack of sharpness (which the stacking compounds).

Submitted by: Dieter.Wolf@DNSint.com [11 Nov 05]
we ALL love Mars and - although I've seen plenty of beautiful pictures - can't keep from sending one of mines too... As Elias, James and others already stated, Olympus Mons is very attractive. I can't remember having seen this gigantic volcano (abt. 500 km in diameter, abt. 25 km height) so beautiful during 2003 opposition. 2005-11-08 23:40 CET; MEADE ETX-125AT with 2x barlow lense and Philips ToUCam pro at prime focus; 1000 of 2400 frames

Submitted by: James Jefferson-Wilson James (james.jefferson@bbc.co.uk) [11 Nov 05]
Please find attached images from Mars taken last night. All details on the image.

Submitted by: Paul King (Kingy97@o2.co.uk) [8 Nov 05]
Mars - 4th Nov 05. ETX105, LPI Imager, Stacked 15 of 32 in LPI software. Observing from Rusthall, Kent, England. (51.1330N, 0.2370E).

Submitted by: chasiotis elias (elias_chasiotis@stendor.coo.gr) [8 Nov 05]
Fifteen hours after opposition, Mars was a stunning object! Some strange effects are visible in the photo. Note the large bright area in the center of the disk that gives a three dimentional impression. (This is due to the full illumination of the planet at opposition) Also, Olympus Mons appear extremely bright and prominent. And finally i am very happy to send you a link of the first two ETX's that have appeared in the ALPO Japan website: http://www.kk-system.co.jp/Alpo/kk05/m051107z.htm These images can stand together with those of much bigger appertures!

Submitted by: James Jefferson-Wilson James (james.jefferson@bbc.co.uk) [8 Nov 05]
I managed to sit down last night and process an earlier AVI I took on the wee hrs of the 7th. It turned out to be the best I have managed. Hope you can display in your ETX Gallery as usual.
Click for full size image
Submitted by: Tom Mordasky (mordaskyt@mac.com) [8 Nov 05]
So I am getting better with the LPI camera, this shot is not as "processed" looking as the last one (10/31), which I feel I pushed too far. Here I captured the North Polar Hood quite nicely. Mars passed Perihelion at the end of August and the northern winter is busy freezing out the atmosphere at the boreal pole. The cloud should clear up by January revealing the newly formed north polar cap. Meanwhile the intense southern perihelion summer has sublimated the south polar cap to the point where it is no longer visible in my ETX 90.

Submitted by: Michael F. Vasseur (michael.vasseur@oaog.ca) [4 Nov 05]
Please find attached an animated GIF of Mars taken when at its closest between 03h00 and 09h30 UTC on October 30. The whole process included 6 hours of taking a 1 minute video every 30 minutes of Mars, then processing using Registax3, then combining into one animated GIF. Acquisition of the AVI files was done using Colin Bownes' Vega program. It shows a wealth of details, including the rotation of Mars over a period of 6 hours. The dust storm is clearly visible on the last few frames of the animation. You can also tell that the seeing deteriorated during the night. North is at the upper left. The equipment used included: Meade ETX-125 (5" Maksutov), Meade #140 Apochromatic 2X Barlow, Baader Planetarium Minus-IR filter, and a Philips ToUcam PCVC740K. All this was mounted on my Meade LXD55 mount.

Submitted by: Bruno Scagliarini (bruno.scagliarini@libero.it) [4 Nov 05]
30 oct 2005 00.05 from St.Aygulf (France) ETX 105 Barlow 2x Toucam Pro II avi 120 " 5 fps VideoImpression, Registax + Iris

30 oct 2005 02.20 from St.Aygulf (France) ETX 105 Toucam Pro , no guiding, motor off (no battery !) from inside house window closed, no barlow, avi 3" , 5 fps VideoImpression, Registax + Photobase 3 (better photo to follow)

Submitted by: James Jefferson-Wilson James (james.jefferson@bbc.co.uk) [4 Nov 05]
The weather in the UK has just about been the worse ever ..... this is the only decent image I have done since my last one back in September. All details are on the image.