Observations 1/31/2025

Richard P. Hill 

Present: Dr. Kerry Kuehn

1/31/2025

 I am finally back to school after winter break. I hoped to get many more images over this lengthy break, but Michigan weather did not want to play ball. Thus, my first post ended up happening after the start of the semester and back in Milwaukee. This night, Dr. Kuehn and I set up the large Celestron C11 scope with the Advanced VX mount. I was using my laptop with Sony Imagine Edge to control my camera for the planetary imaging and Celestron CPWI for mount control; then, later in the night, I tried to get a picture of the Christmas Tree Cluster using NINA and Astap, but that didn't work out very well; thus I'll be focusing on the planetary images here.

Sadly, the night ended up being plagued with spots of clouds. To get this image, I used AutoStakkert to process the images. I do not know why there is a green line; I thought I should mention that. I collected JPG and Raws, but I ended up only using the JPG as the Raws would need to be converted before putting into the stacker. This image turned out alright, but hopefully, on a more clear night, this will turn out better.

These pictures of Mars suffered from the same issues as the ones of Jupiter. One thing that was quite annoying but very solvable - guiding. Astap and plate solving are very useful for deep space objects but can't help at all when it comes to planets. This is when a guide camera and scope come in useful as they can be attached to the top or the side of the main scope and then continue to keep the subject in the center of the frame. This all runs through a piece of software called PHD2. I will write more on this when I get the proper equipment.