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AstroBlog 2019.008.2 – Jupiter with a Celestron NexStar 4SE and an iPhone

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As mentioned in my previous post (AstroBlog 2019.008.1 – Saturn with a Celestron NexStar 4SE and an iPhone), I went out on July 12 with my son’s Celestron NexStar 4SE, stock alt-az mount and tripod, iPhone XS Max, 25mm plossl, and the Celestron NexYZ phone adapter.

As with the shots of Saturn, I started with single frames of Jupiter. Settings were f/1.8 (set by iPhone hardware), ISO 24 to avoid blowing out the planet’s details, and a simple 1/10th of a second duration:

Cropped, you can see some details:

I doubled the ISO to 50, same duration:

And cropped again:

There seems to be a bit more detail in the top half, but less detail in the bottom. Then again, on a 4″ scope wiht my iPhone, I’ll take it! 🙂

For the second part of my processing, I worked with a 3 minute video, ~1900 frames:

Initially, I tried working with PIPP and then Autostakkert but it is REALLY hard to process the image when it wants you to place little place markers on the image — in fact, it tells you NOT to try it for planetary items. I told it to find its own, the auto option, but it only found 7 (it wants a minimum of 24):

I manually added another 14 to get to 21. In the end, not sure it was worth it:

I tried again, this time with some quality control built in, and with only keeping the best 40% of images, and again with 7 placemarkers:

Cropped, still not sure there’s much else there:

I tried it again with 40% of the best images plus 29 separate place marks, and got this:

Cropped, I get this:

More work, but it seems fainter to me, less detailed.

Finally, I tried processing it in Nebulosity, which is almost a sucker’s game for planets. First, it won’t take videos, so I processed it in PIPP first (noise filter, stabilised for planetary images, object detection, centred the object, rotated it 90 degrees counterclockwise, quality estimation and reordering by quality, output as individual TIFF files) and then opened them in Nebulosity. Second, Nebulosity is NOT designed for planetary stuff at this resolution as it wants me to identify and click on features that are all blurred most of the time. Plus, I’d have to manually process EVERY frame of the ~1900+ frames. I tried that in auto mode but it just blurred everything out. I tried a second time, focusing on the best 50 or so images of the first 400 based on a quality estimate by PIPP, then let it stack them, cropped it down to something usable, and finally ended up with this:

While they’re all interesting, I feel like I barely improved in a couple of them beyond what I had in the single frame shot! But I’m learning at least…I think.

An online friend took a stab at processing my videos and got this:

Which looked like one of my early results too.

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AstroBlog 2019.008.1 – Saturn with a Celestron NexStar 4SE and an iPhone

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My son recently acquired a Celestron NexStar 4SE in June, and on July 12th, the night was looking a bit clear. He was heading to bed but gave me permission to play with his scope. Alignment worked perfectly, I tried for a few things to see, etc. And that was my intent — solely to test the alignment and take a peek at the moon and planets.

Except I was curious how it would fare with my iPhone for simple astrophotography. I captured the images and video, but then I let them sit in my folders for a bit. So much so that when I finally did start playing with them, I totally forgot they were taken on the 4SE, not my standard 8SE. I was a bit disappointed with my processing, but when I realized earlier today they were all on the 4SE, my expectations changed!

So the equipment was a Celestron NexStar 4SE, with stock alt-az mount and tripod not set in wedge mode, iPhone XS Max, 25mm plossl, and the Celestron NexYZ phone adapter. By the time I started imaging, the moon had set behind the neighbour’s house, so I was focused on planets.

First up is the first single image. Camera settings were f/1.8 (hardset in the phone), ISO24 so it isn’t overblown, and duration of 1/9s. I took a series of them with a remote shutter release to prevent shaking. The result is a little faint, but something there that is clearly Saturn.

Cropping it makes the image a little clearer:

The best one of the set of 55 images is this one:

Cropped and flipped, it looks like this:

I tried stacking the photos using Affinity, with noise reduction, keeping 75% of the images, and this is what I got:

I took a video file too that night:

If I take that video, and run it through the astro programs PIPP and Autostakkert, with stacking, cropping, brightening, etc., I end up with this:

A different set of settings, without the brightening, game me this:

If I push that through Registax and play with basic wavelets and brightening, I get this:

The video file has 1200 images/frames, so it should be showing me way more data, but I’m not that great at processing yet.

I wanted to go back and try a stack in Nebulosity 4 (which an online friend uses with great success for DSOs), even though it is not able to handle videos plus it isn’t necessarily the best option for processing planets. Nevertheless, I force-fed it the 55 images, normalized them, culled for quality, and then stacked the final 45 images. This is the result:

Which an online friend took, downloaded, and re-colorized to be a bit more “normal” for Saturn, to give me this:

And another friend did this off the original video:

The stacking options of PIPP/Autostakkert with 1200 frames gave me almost the same outcome as Nebulosity with 45 images. Overall, I’ll settle for either one for an early effort, whether it was with a 4SE or the 8SE. Auspicious progress.

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AstroBlog 2019.007.1 – Trying for Mercury and Mars with a Celestron NexStar 4SE

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My son’s grandparents have a cottage up in the Kawarthas, and it is relatively dark skies. From the dock area, you have a pretty good view of the sky to the South and West, whereas North and East are blocked by trees. We took our son up for a week, and just took his scope rather than his and mine (mostly due to space limitations in the car). He didn’t want to keep the scope to try on his own through the week, so we were leaving him but bringing the scope back with us. Which meant only one night to try viewing, July 6th.

The Clear Sky Chart was showing great clear skies, but the clouds didn’t get the memo. We set up around 8:00 p.m., and by the time we were set up, the moon was completely covered as was most of the Western sky with dark clouds. It opened up about 10 degrees above the horizon, and we got a great sunset, but that wasn’t my goal. I had updates from the sky trackers that Mercury and Mars were trailing the sun, and it was possible to see them as the sun dipped below the horizon. Maybe they were there, I have no idea. There was soup on the horizon even though the clouds had a break in them.

We tried scanning the horizon anyway, but no luck. Eventually we saw the moon through some clouds, a few gaps here and there, but heavily clouded over 90% of the time. We gave up after about 90 minutes, and it never did clear in the end.

A bit disappointing for the cub and his cousin, but alas, thems the breaks.

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AstroBlog 2019.006.1 – Testing a Celestron NexStar 4SE

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My son enjoys looking through my telescope, and has been wanting his own scope for awhile. So we went through a number of designs to see what he would like, with me trying VERY hard not to lead him to any specific conclusions about his own preferences in design. He has a few extra mobility challenges over me, and he ended up going for the smaller version of my Celestron NexStar 8SE — he chose the 4SE.

It comes with a couple of advantages and one disadvantage over mine. For the disadvantage first, it’s simply smaller. A smaller light bucket gathers less light, so things won’t be as bright for distant objects. On the advantage side, the 4SE is a slightly different design (Maksutov-Cassegrain design) which will make for crisper images; it comes with a built-in wedge (if he wants to try equatorial tracking for astro-photography); it is smaller and much more portable; it has a sturdier tripod vis-a-vis the overall weight (his scope is light for his tripod, as it is also designed to hold the 5SE model which is heavier whereas my 8SE is on the high-end of the load options for the tripod it comes with); and his alignment worked perfectly right out of the box. No slippage at all.

The unit comes with a 25mm plossl, as most of them do, and a red-dot finder. I supplemented it with a Rigel Finder as the TelRad was a tad too long to fit (very disappointing).

We picked the scope up on June 15th during the annual Celestron sale, and I swear it was just coincidence that it was the day my wife left for Italy for a week. And we stayed up late on the 16th, a Sunday night, so we could try it out. Jacob was so tired the next day, but it was worth it.

It didn’t seem like it at first. Jacob wanted to focus just on his scope, not a comparison, so we ONLY set up his scope. And I showed him how to get the Rigel finder to set, not as easy as a TelRad (actually, I am quite disappointed with that, but whatever, it works). For a later outing, I installed the red-dot finder too, and between them, it makes for a compelling initial alignment and tracking. But seeing was terrible, and it’s June. So it doesn’t get dark in my suburban sky until closer to 10:00. And finding three stars to do a good alignment was way harder than it should have been. It said it aligned, but later when I went to do a view of Antares, it was way off. We saw some stuff for about 30 minutes and we were about to pack it in, a bit disappointing overall.

Then Jacob wandered over to the side of the deck where I said you might be able to see Jupiter coming up over the nearby houses and he said, “Umm, Dad? Is that Jupiter up there that’s so bright?”. Absolutely. So of COURSE we had to wait until it was visible. Then we played with some eye-pieces, bumped up the power a bit, and just tracked Jupiter manually.

And BAM!

Jacob could easily see the bands. You could hear the excitement and awe in his voice as he declared, perhaps somewhat biased, that it was “Best view he’s ever had of Jupiter”, and definitely stretching a bit, he thought he might have seen a bit of the Great Red Spot. I didn’t challenge that, although it was doubtful at the angle and power we were using. But regardless, he ended on a WOW note. Nicely done.

Then I put him to bed, and left the clean-up to myself. I was tempted to wait for Saturn or play with alignment a bit more, but it was a bit late, and I still had lunches to make, etc.

But my son found Jupiter in the sky himself, resolved the bands, and stayed up later than he should to see an astro target. I think he’s inducted into the cult that is astronomy.

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AstroBlog 2019.005.3 – Imaging the stars

The Writing Life of a Tadpole Posted on by  

After capturing Jupiter and the moon on June 11th, I tried for a couple of stars. I seem to need to boost my ISO and turn down duration. For all photos, I’m using:

  • Celestron NexStar 8SE
  • 25mm plossl
  • iPhone XS Max, f/1.8 lens
  • Night Cap software

For Antares, I used ISO 5000 and 1/3s for duration. Not great, but a start:

For the second star, I have a note that says it was Polaris as a double-star with one in behind, but I’m not positive that was what I ended up imaging. ISO 8000, 1/4s for duration.

And since my wife loved Antares twinkling and shifting, I tried a short video of it. Not the best, will definitely need some work.

But at least the moon and Jupiter are coming along.

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AstroBlog 2019.005.2 – Imaging the Moon

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Continuing my imaging attempts on June 11th, I did some more of the moon from my backyard. All of the images are single frames with the iPhone, only flipped horizontally (I have a diagonal so have to flip the image to get it “right” looking). For all photos, I’m using:

  • Celestron NexStar 8SE
  • 25mm plossl
  • iPhone XS Max, f/1.8 lens
  • Night Cap software

Settings of ISO 24 and 1/250s were the sweet spot for me for the night given the brightness of the moon. I did a series of single frames, and this was the best:

Then, because I had a series, I tried stacking them in various software packages. This was the best one I got, but way too pale, will need to work on that if I want to get true 3D depth in some of the images.

For fun, I used the zoom feature on the iPhone just to see what I would get, and I took three shots, capturing the craters Plato, Copernicus and Tycho. From the original, I even played with creating a map and then the three breakout images (note that in the map, the three images are not crops but actual full images that follow):

Plato, left of centre:

Copernicus in bottom right:

And Tycho in the top centre (with the small round mountain in the centre):

My workflow seems to be working well for the moon shots at least, so I should be able to do some documenting of various features for different days of the lunar cycle. Might take a few months I suppose, but should be fun.

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AstroBlog 2019.005.1 – Imaging Jupiter

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Back on June 11th, I did some more testing of my imaging capabilities in my backyard, going for Jupiter initially. All of the images are single frames with the iPhone, only lightly tweaked in various edit photos and flipped horizontally (I have a diagonal so have to flip the image to get it “right” looking). For all photos, I’m using:

  • Celestron NexStar 8SE
  • 25mm plossl
  • iPhone XS Max, f/1.8 lens
  • Night Cap software

The first image is okay, and I’d love to know what the settings were, but for some reason, the EXIF data didn’t save it. I have no idea why, I didn’t change anything and all the others record it. Some banding, plus a visible moon.

If I crop it, not much different but the black doesn’t overwhelm it as much.

For the next batch, I set my ISO to 24 and then I played with duration a bit.

Starting at 4s (remember it stacks a series of images for anything over 1/2s):

With cropping:

When I dropped to 1/50s (i.e. .02s), here’s what I got:

I then took a series of three at 1/125s:

I’m pretty happy with those as basic intro to the workflow, early days for trying, and single frames. Most people having a lot of success with the iPhone (or Android for that matter) on imaging planets are doing videos and then ripping and stacking them. All things considered, I’m pretty happy. The low ISO keeps the planet from washing out, although I lose the moons of course.

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AstroBlog 2019.004.9 Imaging Nebulae – Scope, iPhone and 25mm plossl

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When I bought my new iPhone, I chose one that would allow me to do astrophotography with my telescope. If you’ve been seeing my last few posts, you see some of the results. The moon was easy. Planets? Not so much, but I’ll get there, even if I have to use filters or stack some images or shoot video. Stars are not as easy as I hoped, still getting a lot of blurry results on the bright ones. But as per my last post, I was able to get globular clusters. I had high hopes for that, as I got something previously with my wife’s iPhone 6 plus and the default software; with my new iPhone and Night Cap software, I knew I would “get there” eventually, just was pleasantly surprised to get there on the first real go at it. I still need to hone my technique, but it’s good enough for me for now. I took a shot at Ceres to try an asteroid, but well, I’m not likely to do much on that in the short or even long-term.

Which leaves me two outstanding targets, and the ones that the astrophotographers who use webcams and DSLRs manage to accomplish daily — a galaxy and a nebula. Galaxies only ever look like faint fuzzies to me, particularly in my light polluted skies of a suburb in the city, and I’ve never really done a true dark sky location. But nebulae? I’ve seen them. Orion was easy, the Veil popped when I used a filter. So I know I *CAN* see nebula, but I wasn’t optimistic I would get much easily with my phone setup. But I gave it a go. I’ll share it in numerical order in the Messier catalog.

First to share is one of the ones that I am most proud about, and super excited. M8 aka the Lagoon Nebula has some amazing colour in it when you do some long-exposure shots with high-end setups. But you know what? A 10s exposure at ISO 9216 also gave me a bit of colour (top centre, a bit of red to the right):

Holy doodles! I did it! Still need to work on my technique, and it would be better without the suburban light pollution or the moon overlighting the sky, but I got it! I’d like to thank the academy for this honour…hehehe. Mostly I should thank my friend Loren who inspired me with his shots and advice on an active FB group. But I’m not done! Here is M8 again, with even MORE colour, although a bit fuzzy too. Remember this is a single frame exposure, not complicated stacking or retouching in any software:

M16, the Eagle Nebula, shows only a bit of a faint glow, so maybe I shouldn’t get completely cocky yet:

M17, the Swan Nebula, looks like a smudge:

Here it is again, but ooh, I managed to centre the smudge (hey, I’ll take what I can get for success):

I confess that I saw these in reverse order i.e. the smudges before the Lagoon ones with colour, so it was more of a build-up for me. I was like, “Okay, well, there’s something there, and if I stare long enough, I can imagine a bit of colour. It’s promising at least.” M20, the Trifid Nebula showed up as only a faint glow/fuzziness:

And because I was still a bit cocky, I also tried for an open cluster nebula, NGC6572. Nada.

But did I mention the first one had some colour? 🙂

All in all, I’m ecstatic about the night. My first real night going hard-core on everything, and I was doing a huge star tour all at once, not taking my time with specific objects or fine tuning. About a minute an object at most. I tossed about 40% of the images I took, too rushed, too many star trails, etc. But considering I was trying for nebula and clusters, losing 40% is pretty amazing, normally you’d lose about 90% or more with the first shots. I’m not going to be featured on the Astronomy Picture of the Day anytime soon, or well, ever, but I’m accomplishing what I wanted. Souvenir shots of my observing. I’ll definitely accept these as “mission accomplished!” any night of the week.

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AstroBlog 2019.004.8 Imaging Globular Clusters – Scope, iPhone and 25mm plossl

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I love viewing globular clusters — big giant collections of stars all together. Although they tend to be bright, when I tried to image them on my old Android phone, it couldn’t even DETECT any light coming in from them. I did get one image from my wife’s old iPhone 6 Plus a year ago (ISO 7200, 10s, f/2.2):

So I knew it was possible. And with my new iPhone, these globulars were high on my imaging list, but I honestly didn’t know what to expect. For Messier 4, I tried ISO 9200 and a 10s burst, which didn’t turn out too shabby:

M5 with the same settings was much more compact and bright:

For Messier 9, I bumped ISO to 10K, still 10s, and it is easily found, albeit a bit faint:

For Messier 10, I continued at ISO 10K, 10s burst, but I did it twice about 90 minutes apart:

A little better contrast in the second, but not a huge difference. I did the same with M12, although the second image wasn’t quite as bright:

M13 showed up really bright, but also a bit fuzzy (ignore the red circle, it’s a flashlight remnant):

M14 was really faint:

M19 was small and compact:

I liked M22 as well, even if I was getting some red light from my flashlight intruding on the image:

M56 seemed super faint, but it was still recognizable:

M80 is REALLY compact and tight, almost looks like a ball:

M107 was faint and a bit fuzzy:

Moving into the NGC catalog, there are five in the list…6293:

6304, including the red flashlight problem again:

6316, so small and faint:

And 6356, again with it being small and faint, and some red flashlight intrusion:

6712 is one I liked because it is so faint yet I still managed to capture something:

Finally, I have one of an open spiral cluster, and even though I normally don’t find open clusters that interesting, you can see the lines that make up the arms of the spirals:

So a bunch of globular clusters in there, and most of them turned out. I wasn’t being particularly meticulous, just trying them out to get going, but I’m really happy with the outcomes.

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AstroBlog 2019.004.7 Imaging Stars and Asteroids – Scope, iPhone and 25mm plossl

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I tried imaging some stars, and I thought it would be relatively straight-forward. People online basically tell you to use a magnifying glass to look at your phone screen, zoom in, make sure they are pinpoints, and BAM! You’re good to go.

I’ve always loved looking at Antares, and the way it twinkles red, gold, and blue at times. It was putting on a show on Saturday the 8th, and my wife loved it. I tried imaging it later at ISO 2304 (why?) and a duration of 10s (a setting a friend online has had a lot of success with). Anyway, it did NOT turn out like my wife was used to seeing it:

I tried to grab Polaris too with a 10s duration, but for some idiotic reason, I forgot to put the ISO back down to normal and instead it went at 9000+:

And finally, just for fun, I tried for Ceres. You know, the asteroid. My friend online has a well-honed process and a much clearer scope and skies, and he does tons of asteroids, so I thought I would try it for 10s at ISO 8000:

There are a few dots just above the one in the centre at the bottom, likely too faint unless you zoom in, and according to Stellarium, that’s about where Ceres should be for the time of the picture. Maybe, maybe not.

Certainly none of them stellar examples…

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