Repurposing

This past spring I finally took the plunge and purchased a video camera designed for planetary imaging. I had tried a security camera over ten years ago with mixed results - the set up (eyepiece projection holding the camera in position with an adapter) was tedious to be kind. The result was predictable - I rarely had the enthusiasm to do the set up.

My initial experimentation this summer with the ImagingSource's DFK 21AU04S camera have been encouraging and I am excited to open this new chapter in my amateur astronomy. While I may end up coding a web page in our family web site for displaying my images I think I want to leverage the blog here as an easy way to publish some of these results.

Jupiter With GRS (Sep 20 2012)

Towson, MD [Location: N 39° 23' W 76° 36']
Transparency: 3/5
Seeing: 3/10
RV-6 Newtonian (150cm f/8) with TeleVue PowerMate 2.5x
Camera: DFK 21AU04S 1/76 sec exposure, 30 fps Registax6: 35 frames from 1925
CM I: 7.5°
CM II: 175.5°

The Great Red Spot is obvious albeit anemic, but the image seems a little 'mushy', a little concerned that perhaps the focus was not perfect. Other photos of Jupiter around this time show that the 'little red spot' is in the SSTB almost directly above the Great Red Spot, so a little disappointed that I could not capture that.

Jupiter (Sep 17 2012)

Towson, MD [Location: N 39° 23' W 76° 36']
Transparency: 4/5
Seeing: 6/10
RV-6 Newtonian (150cm f/8) with TeleVue PowerMate 2.5x
Camera: DFK 21AU04S 1/91 sec exposure, 30 fps Registax6: 75 frames from 1931
CM I: 209.8°
CM II: 41.1°

A nice image this morning amid pretty steady skies. A couple of blue "Olivarez" festoons noted as well as several striations in the south polar area. The NEB is clearly back and active after almost disappearing last apparition.

Diary of a TOV Chaser

Jun 4th - 4 p.m.: A few months before the 2012 transit of Venus I promised myself that I'd make every effort to catch this rare alignment. I begin checking various weather sites and Clear Sky Clock pages, and prospects for viewing the transit appear iffy at best for the mid-Atlantic region. North and south don't appear encouraging either, but Kentucky and westward looks like a winning strategy. It seems as though a road trip is in order!

Jun 5th - 5:00 a.m.: Plans are to make it somewhere between Lexington KY and Evansville IN, roughly an eight to ten hour drive. Scope and my newest asset, an ImagingSource video camera, are packed in high hopes of getting some footage of the historic transit.

2:00 p.m.: Pulling into Lexington for lunch the skies look pretty reasonable, lots of puffy cumulus scattered about. Using my cell I check live camera shots and CSC pages for Louisville and Evansville (a distinct advantage over the intrepid ToV astronomers of old trying to navigate to a clear venue). With only incrementally better skies farther west within a few hours' drive I elect to throw in my lot with the local astronomy club that is holding a transit viewing at the University of Kentucky's arboretum.

3:00 p.m.: As I pull up to the arboretum I immediately spy a couple of scopes set up on the front lawn. I park and go over to introduce myself to the other amateur with the scopes, assuming he's the advance guard for the club's ToV event. Turns out Steve is actually from Newport News in Virginia, and like me had headed west in search of blue skies. While I set up the scope we chat, trading stories of our various astronomical experiences and our hopes to add yet another that afternoon.

4:00 p.m.: WKYT, the local TV station, shows up to get a 'teaser' about the event at the arboretum. We protest that neither of us can officially speak for the club - but fortunately most questions involve the transit which we are able to answer. Two hours to go - are we over-eager or are the club members very relaxed about getting in place for the viewing?

4:30 p.m.: The person in charge at the arboretum pays us a visit. "We are getting a lot of calls about this, it's generating a lot of interest. Be careful where the rest of your group sets up because the lawn serves as overflow parking." Our group? We nod and assure her it'll be fine. Looks like the club has done a solid job getting the word out for the public to come witness the transit.

5:00 p.m.: The first few club members arrive, along with a gradual influx of Lexingtonians. We ask them who is bringing scopes since they did not. The answer is vague. The sky is also beginning to slip with the cumulus giving way to a more ominous altostratus blanket. Noooooo!

5:30 p.m.: Now I'm worried - we have three scopes on the field (Steve's two and mine) and an ever growing inquisitive crowd. I begin to strategize that if I can manage to carve out the ingress event for my own video efforts then afterwards I'll jump in and do outreach. I get the laptop on and begin to try to get the equipment ready. The Sun spends increasingly longer times obscured by the clouds, but hope springs eternal.

5:50 p.m.: WKYT is back with a different crew and they want more footage for their news at 11. My ToV tee-shirt seems to strike a chord with them, along with the fact that Steve and I have traveled hundreds of miles to get here. "Why would you do that?" is the first question I field as the camera rolls. I do my best to channel Carl Sagan, but the whole time I'm thinking "get this over, I have a transit starting momentarily and it won't wait!"

6:03 p.m.: The interview is over but the transit is eminent as the Sun pokes through a break in the clouds. The laptop has decided to hibernate while I was interviewed and the rough polar alignment has lost the Sun. Firing up the laptop serves as a magnet, drawing the crowd - which by now is probably 100+ people - to watch over my shoulder as I struggle to recover. First contact has passed and I am still trying to get things in place when I suddenly get it. I'm here for a reason. I had thought it was to come back with artifacts of a once in a lifetime event, but actually it's to relax and share it with scores of people whose curiosity has brought them out to this field. I grab my 7x50 binoculars, ensure that the filters are secure, and grab a quick look at a fantastic image - Venus has just cleared the limb at about the 1 o'clock position, a tiny paper punch hole in the solar disk.

7:45 p.m.: I'm hoarse and my lips slightly chapped from all the talking, fielding questions from how the telescope works to whether we'll be back tomorrow night. The crowd has thinned as we have not seen the Sun since about an hour ago. But we had a good run, and in those 40 minutes I helped everyone from grandmothers to preschoolers get a chance to see this rare event. The binoculars worked incredibly well as people had an instinctive sense of how to use them, and the Orion filters provided a naturally orange look to the Sun. Steve had also abandoned most of his efforts and turned to showing people the view through his H-alpha scope and projection device which he fashioned from an S&T article. I bid safe journey to my new friend and head back towards Baltimore.

 

11:20 p.m.: From my hotel room in eastern Kentucky I stay up to catch the 11 o'clock news on WKYT. Sure enough, there's a segment on the event at the arboretum with the crazy folks who traveled hundreds of miles for a glimpse of Venus crossing the Sun. And there I am, trying to explain it, my 15 seconds of fame. I smile as I turn off the set and climb into bed. I wanted a memorable ToV and I sure got it. As it is written, "Man proposes, but God disposes"!

Date & Time: April 23, 2009 20:45 EDT
Location: Tuckahoe State Park, MD
Sky: Clear, light wind
Seeing: Bad (1/5) Transparency: Excellent
Equipment: 25cm Newtonian f/6 with 9.7mm Plossl

Notes: Springtime is always the best time to get a look at Mercury during an evening appearance. About an hour after sunset while waiting for the sky to darken at Star Gaze XV the messenger planet was easy to spot about 10 degrees above the horizon. As usual there was little more than a phase to be discerned in the eyepiece, the combination of turbulent seeing (Saturn barely showed any global detail when viewed) and low altitude wrecking havoc with the image. At the moments of semi-steady seeing it appeared to be at just past dichotomy, a very fat crescent.

Saturn Apr 17 2009

Date & Time: April 17, 2009 21:45 EDT

Location: Towson, MD

Sky: Clear, little wind

Seeing: Steady, 7/10 Transparency: Good

Equipment: 25cm Newtonian f/6 with 9.7mm Plossl

Notes: Saturn's "ears" have returned, the ring system closed up sufficiently to make it look like a knitting needle is spiked through the planet - I can barely detect space between the rings and the limb. Riding reasonably high in Leo's hind quarters the seeing is pretty good and I can definitely make out a southern equatorial belt as a subtle but distinct feature. The northern counterpart is less well defined and offers a fuzzier border with the equatorial zone which is clearly the lightest part of the orb.

Titan is the brightest moon preceding the planet by multiple radii; to the north of it is a fainter star that is probably Iapetus. Another moon (Dione?) precedes the planet as well but is much closer to the rings while a fourth moon (Rhea) hangs just north of the trailing ansa.

A Regal Eclipse

The prospects for this lunar eclipse did not seem too promising with a "winter advisary" in effect this afternoon. The Alberta Clipper came through and hit us with a dusting of snow, making the commute a little longer but prettier. The Clear Sky Clock was boldly predicting that the fast moving storm would move off and not impact viewing, and it was right.

At 10 p.m. I made my way to the side porch, snow crunching underfoot, and found the Moon a gorgeous coppery hue set amid Saturn and Regulus. The north side of the Moon was clearly deeper into the umbra and was fairly dark, probably midway in the Danjon ranking of a 2. Of course the heavy concentration of the dark maria regions in that hemisphere probably increased the effect on that northern limb. It's an odd sight and yet somehow familiar after 40 years of amateur astronomy, a ruddy Mars-Moon orb hanging in the freezing February sky, making me wonder if the view would be similar if I resided on Phobos. It definitely is an oddity than strikes your senses.

Lunar eclipses are big photographic opportunities and challenges. The coloration is beautiful and the wide range of brightness from the limb closest to the Earth's shadow to that farthest is often easy for the eye to appreciate but hard for the photographic medium. In choosing my plan of attack I at first thought of trying to use the "yard sale scope" as a 60mm telephoto lens or at least afocally with my 35mm camera. Manipulating equipment when it's cold out is always a bit challenging, but I soon figured out that the attachment device was not long enough to get the camera to the focal point. Next I tried the digital movie camera to see if I could position it hand-held at the eyepiece to record the event, but the camera's autofocus would have none of that. I then tried holding the 35mm at the low power eyepiece, and while I could see the shadowed Moon the stray light from the neighbor's yard interfered too much. While I'm sure I could have perservered with any of those issues to get some sort of through-the-scope imagery it seemed against the spirit. Lunar eclipses are events of a large scale that you're meant to appreciate in a casual context, and removing my gloves to work with cold metal in 30 degree weather to possibly have a keepsake seemed a bit too anal.

I fell back to simply taking the cam-corder and seeing what it could do. At first the autofocus acted as though it was bewildered, but then after a few moments it conceded and began to bring the Moon in and out of focus. With the telephoto mode our eclipsed satellite actually had a fair size, and at wider field it would pick up Saturn and sometimes Regulus as well. The challenge, of course, is trying to hold the recorder still, each shiver magnified as well as my subject. After about thirty minute of admiring nature's spectacle I retreated inside to see what the tale of the tape would be.

It has been a while since I've done any astrovideography - so much so that my current desktop did not have a copy of Registax on it. But first things first, reviewing the raw footage. While most of it has the Moon scooting all over the field I have fleeting moments of Gibraltar like stability from which I can make an AVI file. From there the miracle of Registax took over to fashion the image here (actually two miracles, the second being that I could work the software enough without reading the manual to produce the result - I can't wait to see what I get when I know what I'm doing!).

While I know that it's no prize winner I also can't help but be pleased with the result given the effort put in, allowing me to both enjoy the event as well as catalog it. And after all, isn't that what amateur astronomy is all about?