Uranus with Titania and Oberon

[Mike]

I went out last night to try out the Astrotortilla program (thanks Duncan) and thought it would be great for taking a test shot of Uranus and Neptune as I would know for definite that it was the planet in the centre of the screen (Whereas with the slew/sync method you can never be 100% sure).

I took a 30 second shot of Uranus and was surprised when I zoomed in on the final shot (not calibrated, full of dust bunnies, etc.) that I could see what looked like 2 moons.

So, after checking with Cart Du Ceil and the UCAC4 catalog which goes down to Mag 16 I was able to confirm that they were the moon Titania and Oberon at Mags 13.9 and 14.1 respectively. The other moons are either too dim or too close to Uranus and lost in the glare.

Nikon D7000 on a 6" RC, 30 second exposure at ISO 6400.

4 images below are 1) Full frame 2) Zoomed frame 3) zoomed frame with magnitudes 4) Cart Du Ceil with UCAC4 of the same area.

[The Thing]

That's fantastic Mike! I thought capturing those moons needed a huge scope in a dark place. I'll have to have a go.


BTW there is a way of getting AT to produce an annotated solved image like the online Astrometry.net (same solver code). The instructions on the AT website.

[Mike]

I tried Astrometery.net and it gives names of identified stars only, no magnitudes.

[JohnP]

Excellent mike must be a first for OAS....

[Carole]

Cool.  Well done.

Carole

[Tony G]

Mike,

Great shot and good to see the planets again. 

Tony G

[MarkS]

Well done Mike.

That's quite impressive!

[doug]

Fantastic image, Mike. Very well done.

Doug.