To Image or Not to Image

[Fay]

Does anyone have a good idea of the weather tonight please?

[mickw]

There's a 99% chance of weather tonight 

[Fay]

Not sounding good then, Mick

[JohnP]

I give it a miss if I was you unless you plan on starting at about 1am.....

[Fay]

I think you are right, John. With all these showers it could be a terrible panic if a shower starts.

[Daniel]

Just checked met office and it looks like we may be in business at about 10:30-11-00, at 10 the last of the small showers seems to be passing, think i'll give it a shot if all is well, maybe i can get my first elusive fully guided set of subs!

[Fay]

Too late for me to set up now, Daniel & a bit muddy. Good luck

[Daniel]

Have to admit, it's definetly a tough one to call, might just take the tripod out soon-ish as getting that level takes the longest for me, then if the weather is ok, I'll take the rest out a little later on

[MarkS]

Once the sky cleared (around 11pm) it wasn't a bad night.  The seeing was not too bad either (predicted by www.meteoblue.com - that's why I stayed up).  The moon's craters at high magnification (300x) just had a slight wave.  Saturn's Cassini division was pretty obvious visually. 

The moon came out OK (though slightly soft on the left hand side of the picture):



I just hope Saturn comes out well ...

[RobertM]

Nearly stayed up myself but there was a fair amount of skyglow (from the Sidcup direction) and conditions didn't look conducive to faint fuzzies.  Look forward to seeing your Saturn Mark, the shot of the Moon looks great.

[Fay]

Well done, Mark, you are a trooper!!!!!!

[Daniel]

Yes indeed, lovely shot, Have to confess I didn't get out in the end, I set up the tripod, saw some clouds rolling in and decided i was too tired to wait for them to pass, packed everything away, 20 mins later, it was perfectly clear, this image really makes me wish I'd stayed up, definetly good seeing!

[MarkS]

I made one of the most basic errors with Saturn - I've over-exposed it!!    Also there was much higher than usual electronic noise on the frames - interference from dew heater controller maybe? 

I might try again tonight - the seeing may be reasonable-ish before the clouds roll in.

Memo to self:
Aim
Focus
Exposure

[MarkS]

I've re-processed the moon image (it's a bit sharper now because I selected only the best 25 frames) and put in in the gallery at 2/3 scale.  Canon EOS300D on a Celestron C11.  25 frames at 1/1200s with ISO 1600 (to overcome shutter induced vibrations). 

http://gallery.orpington-astronomy.org.uk/displayimage.php?pid=444&fullsize=1

[Fay]

Mark, that is so beautiful, you could keep looking at it, there is so much detail to take in.

Fay