Mars on the 9th and 10th of October 2020

127mm Meade Apo- refractor, x3 Barlow lens and QHY5-11 planetary camera. 15% stack of a 3minute video clip. Credit: Reggie Stax our astro-student at the Jodrell Plank Observatory.

The night of the 9th and the early hours of the 10th October were clear and cold. The 'seeing' was not good as the jet stream was causing atmospheric turbulence over Lowestoft. When we watched the live feed from the telescope on the laptop screen we could see the image of Mars wobble. When Reggie analysed the data the following day, he noted that the red and green channels were surprisingly sharp but the blue channel was a turbulent blur. Reggie has made a good job of processing the data and we look to him producing even better images on calmer nights in the future. -  Kurt Thrust current Director of the Jodrell Plank Observatory.

The last of Summer

 

The summer constellation Cygnus, like Frodo, is disappearing in the west earlier each night, as autumn fades into winter. This image is a crop from a wider stack of frames taken earlier in the summer using the Canon 600d DSLR with an EF -S 18-55 lens at f=18mm all on the Star Adventurer equatorial mount. Credit: Kurt Thrust, Pip Stakkert. and Reginald Stax (astro-student at the JPO)

" Since the night of the 20th of September, the weather in Lowestoft has been exceptionally inclement! Between broken cloud and rain showers, we managed to glimpse the Harvest Moon close to the very bright and 'pink' planet Mars. . We are hoping that the weather will improve in order that we may capture some more images of Mars using the Observatory's large refractor. 

To keep the team busy Joel Cairo has been encouraging our sponsors Anita and George Roberts to provide the cash to purchase Topaz Denoise AI a software package capable of improving 'the signal to noise ratio' in the Observatory's images.  Pip and Reggie have been helping me to evaluate the software using a trial download. The above image was processed using Topaz Denoise AI (the AI stands for Artificial Intelligence - we can do with a bit of that around here). The stars Deneb, Sadr , Delta Cygni and Epsilon Cygni are well displayed. The North America Nebula NGC7000 is clearly visible. We also tried Denoise AI on a planetary image of Saturn. We are quite impressed with this software and hope the JPO budget can stretch to purchasing it!" - Kurt Thrust  current Director of the Jodrell Plank Observatory

Mars September 2020

 

The Planet Mars  on the 19th September 2020. 127mm Mede Apo Refractor with x3 Barlow lens and QHY5-11 colour planetary camera 3 mins of AVI video - best 500 frames stacked. Credit: Pip Stakkert and Kurt Thrust.

" We decided to spend some time in the Jodrell Plank Imaging suite processing the video clips a number of different ways using a range of processing software packages. These two images, stacked from two separate videos, were considered to be the best from the night".- Joel Cairo CEO of the Jodrell Plank Observatory.

A Night of Three Planets

The red planet Mars -two images taken with the QHY5-11 planetary camera and a Televue 3x Barlow lens attached to the 127mm Meade Apo Refractor. Credit: Kurt Thrust.

" The team at the Jodrell Plank Observatory was mobilized last night to capture some images of the planet Mars which is approaching opposition and its nearest point to Earth. Mars and the Earth line up in their respective orbits approximately every two years but actual planet to planet distance varies from opposition to opposition. This year Mars is quite close and so looks bigger and brighter in our night sky. The planetary disc is currently in excess of 20 arc secs and will not appear as large in our skies again until 2033. Mars is also quite high in our northern hemisphere sky making photography much easier. The reddish areas in the above images roughly correspond to sandy desert terrain and the darker areas are thought to be representative of exposed rock. Mars' southern polar cap is pointed towards us and can be seen as a  small white oval disc.  The Southern hemisphere of Mars is experiencing 'summer'  and therefore much of the polar cap has sublimated into the atmosphere and is therefore much smaller than usual. At the northern pole you can just make out a white carbon dioxide cloud cover. The right image shows a small patch of cloud towards and below the northern cloud cap which is probably associated with the shield volcano Olympus Mons. Olympus Mons is thought to be the largest volcano in the Solar System.                

 Prior to imaging Mars we captured some video clips of Saturn as it skimmed across the Observatory's southern horizon. To finish the evening we turned the telescope towards the distant ice giant Uranus which, although much much larger than Mars, appeared tiny in the dark reaches of space". - Kurt Thrust current Director of the Jodrell Plank Observatory

Saturn and four of it's Moons composite image taken with QHY5-11 colour planetary camera Televue 3x Barlow lens attached to 127mm Meade Apo Refractor. Credit: Kurt Thrust

The tiny blue dot that is Uranus in its orbit beyond Saturn. Captured with the QHY5-11 colour planetary camera, Televue 3x Barlow lens attached to 127mm Meade Apo Refractor. Credit : Kurt Thrust

Mars Moon Conjunction September 2020

The planet Mars shining brightly and apparently close to the waning gibbous Moon. -  Tripod mounted Canon 600d DSLR with zoom lens at f=300mm. A stack of 4 x 1/640sec exposures at F5.6, and ISO800. Credit: Pip Stakkert.

" The team was not scheduled to be imaging on the night of the 5th of September but Pip could not resist taking a few images of the planet Mars shining brightly next to the waning Moon. We hope to capture some images of the planet later in the month using the 127mm refractor. Mars and the Earth in their respective orbits come close in or around opposition approximately every 2 years. Mars will be closest this time in October and thankfully a little higher in the sky than either Jupiter or Saturn" - Kurt Thrust current Director of the Jodrell Plank Observatory.

The Summer Milky Way and Gas Giants with Moons

The Milky Way over the Jodrell Plank Observatory -the 600d Canon DSLR with EOS 18-55mm lens at f=18mm 'piggyback' on the Meade 127mm Refractor. A stack of 30x60 sec lights at ISO1600. Credit: Kurt Thrust

Jupiter showing the Great Red Spot and just visible the newly formed white spot below it. Two of the four Galilean Moons, Io and Ganymede, are also clearly visible. 127mm Meade Telescope with 2.5x Barlow lens and QHY5-11 colour planetary video camera. Three minutes of video were used to create the still image. Credit: Pip Stakkert

Saturn and three Moons, Dione, Enceladus and Tethys. 127mm Meade Telescope with 2.5x Barlow lens and both the QHY5-11 colour and mono planetary cameras. Six minutes of video were used to create the still image. Credit: Pip Stakkert.

" In contradiction of the usually accurate weather forecasts, the night of the 19th of August 2020 was clear and transparent. The absence of the Moon was also advantageous for astro-imaging.

Pip Stakkert and I made an early start using the planetary video cameras and the 127mm Meade Apo-refractor to image the gas giant planets Jupiter and Saturn, which remain low on the Jodrell Plank Observatory's southern horizon. Our thanks go to Anita Roberts, friend and sponsor of the Jodrell Plank Observatory, for cutting back the planting on the adjoining hedge.

The planet Mars remains too low during sensible working hours for us to use the Meade telescope to image it. We shall however try to capture the 'red planet' in September.

We completed our early morning imaging session by 'piggy backing' the Canon 600D dslr camera on the Meade telescope and captured the Summer Milky Way in all its glory as it streamed down over the Observatory buildings. The dark dust clouds in the Milky Way never fail to impress the Jodrell Plank team!". - Kurt Thrust current Director of the Jodrell Plank Observatory

Perseids August 2020

Meteor shooting between Vega and Deneb at 1:00 BST on the 11th August 2020.
Canon 600d DSLR with EOS 18-55mm lens at f=18mm - all on a Star Adventurer equatorial mount.  50 x 1 minute RAW exposures stacked using DeepSkyStacker and the frame containing the meteor aligned and combined with the stacked image using Registar. The final image was cropped and enhanced. Credit: Joel Cairo

" Having recently joined the team at the Jodrell Plank Observatory, I was pleased that I was able to take a short summer holiday before taking up my full duties as CEO. During my stay by the sea in Bamburgh Northumberland, I managed to do a bit of astro-imaging between the clouds which seemed to materialize each evening as night fell. I was very lucky to have captured a Perseid meteor against the stars of the summer Milky Way two days before the predicted shower maximum". - Joel Cairo CEO of the Jodrell Plank Observatory