Here I post some of my astro shots for this month.
An ISS transit under poor conditions. 115mm refractor, Canon 6D, Herschel Wedge.
Saturn and six of its moons, on August 9:
A gigantic prominence appeared on the Sun in the last few days, and still goes strong today. It looks rather like a horse with a ghost rider 🙂
August 16, 2021
150 mm Refractor and Quark Chromosphere filter, with ASI174MM. Fair seeing.
Jupiter in IR on August 16-17.
Jupiter in RGB and IR on August 16:
Saturn on August 16, 2021:
Sun features on August 24, 2021:
Jupiter ans Saturn on August 24, 2021:
Jupiter in CH4 with 355 mm Newtonian and ASI290MM. CH4 filter courtesy of Constantin Sprianu. Filter: ZWO Methane band (CH4) filter 20 nm band pass, centered at 889nm:
Jupiter in IR with 355 mm Newtonian and ASI290MM. Filter: Astronomik ProPlanet IR 742.
And a lunar shot, showing Petavius in fair seeing:
Solar activity for one hour: Sunspot group 2860 on August 27.
150 mm refractor and Quark Chromosphere with ASI174MM in poor seeing conditions.
Solar activity on August 30, with 150mm achro and Quark Chromosphere, Herschel wedge and ASI174MM in poor to fair seeing:
Sunspot AR2860 on August 31, in poor seeing, lots of wind, and two refractors: 228mm and 150mm. Both with Herschel wedge, H-alpha 35nm filter, Powermate 2.5x and ASI174MM.
A very fresh sunspot group, September 2. Left WL image with 228mm refractor, Right H-alpha image with 150mm refractor. Both in poor/fair seeing.
High solar activity on September 6. Good seeing for both white light and H-alpha imaging.
Lots of Ellerman bombs…
150mm, Quark H alpha, ASI174MM.
Sunspots 2866 and 2868 on September 7 with the 228 mm refractor in fair seeing. H-alpha 35nm filter, ASI174MM, Baader 2″ Herschel prism.
Jupiter and Io with its shadow on September 6, 2021. 355 mm Newton with IR pass filter and ASI290MM in poor to fair seeing. The animation spans around 30 minutes.
Sunspots of September 9:
Sunspots of September 9. Acquired with the 228 mm refractor at my work place. Good seeing, but not excellent for such a large refractor…
And with the 150 mm refractor:
Sunspots on September 10 with the 228 mm refractor, in poor to fair seeing.:
An animation showing sunspot group AR2866 evolve during one day (Sept 9-Sept10):
Jupiter in Methane on September 12. A 12 minute imaging run using a CH4 filter, 355 mm Newtonian and ASI290MM in poor to fair seeing. Io is at right, while Europa at left.
Sunspots AR2866 and AR2868 towards the solar limb. 228mm refarctor, Quark Chromosphere, ASI174MM. Seeing 5-6/10.
Jupiter on September 13 with the 355 mm Newtonian in very good seeing. Red filter images here, showing both Io and its shadow.
Two very different views of Jupiter: one in the UV and one in the red part of the visible spectrum. Note the very dark appearance of the GRS. Also, the shadow of Io is dark in both cases, but so is Io itself in the UV…
Io and its shadow on September 13-14:
Planet Jupiter on September 15. First result using the ADC (Atmospheric Dispersion Corrector). Poor to fair seeing mostly.
Jupiter in infrared light on September 16. Note the way the GRS is pulling matter inside it, with a spiral detectable inside it. 355 mm Newtonian, 742 nm IR filter, ASI462MC. Poor seeing.
Jupiter on September 16 under very poor and poor seeing conditions. The GRS is seen. Ganymede also shows some details despite the seeing conditions.
Solar shots on September 19: What a sight!! A giant prominence evolving in just minutes and new/old sunspot 2871/2860 on the limb. This is perhaps my last solar image for a while since a bad weather front is about to come, so I ad to take a quick look before the clouds roll in. 150 mm refractor, Quark Chromosphere, ASI174MM. Fair seeing.
A 30-minutes worth of solar activity in just a couple of seconds. Today’s large prominence images with a 150 mm refractor and Quark Chromosphere.
Four IR images of the planet Jupiter acquired in September. Note the dark outer ring of the GRS: on Sept 16 it was open, while on Sept 18 it was closed again.
355mm Newtonian, 742nm filter, 290MM and 462MC.
Solar flare on September 25. 150 mm ref and Quark filter. Poor seeing.
Jupiter on September 26 in fair to good seeing:
Saturn on September 25 under a few moments of very good seeing for the altitude.
Jupiter with the Great Red Spot on September 25, in fair seeing.
Saturn and Jupiter on September 25 in fair to good seeing:
Two sunspots on September 30. Some good seeing at the start of the session, degrading to fair towards the end. 150 and 228 mm refractors were used.
Prominence of October 1:
Reprocessed image of Copernicus crater from October 21, 2019. 355 mm Newton, ASI174MM, Green filter. Excellent seeing.
Jupiter on October 1 in poor seeing. Oval BA and other ovals are seen.
Jupiter on October 2 in fair to good seeing for the altitude:
Saturn on October 2 in fair seeing:
The two evening planets:
Jupiter on October 3, in good seeing:
Despite some very poor seeing on October 5th, I had a quick view of the large sunspot 2882 in both visible and hydrogen wavelengths. 150 mm refractor, Quark Chromosphere/Herschel wedge, ASI174MM. Seeing 3/10.
Jupiter with Ganymede and the shadows of Callisto and Ganymede. Imaged in very very poor seeing conditions on Ocotober 4. Only IR (742 nm) imaging was possible.
A new active sunspot has appeared over the limb on October 22, and it looks to be a moderate sized one.
Poor seeing, 150mm refractor, ASI174MM, Herschel wedge and Quark H alpha filter.
Sunspot 2886 on October 22. A two-image animation showing the differences between White Light and H-alpha details.
AR 2887 on October 25. Poor seeing but the complexity of this sunspot group (groups?) is easily visible.
150 mm refractor, Quark H alpha filter, Herschel wedge, ASI174MM.
Full disc Sun showing the sunspot groups of October 25. Note the little bluish ball at lower left: that is the Earth at the same scale.
Big solar activity on October 26:
Some lunar images from October 28, under fair seeing most of the time. 355 mm Newtonian, APM 2.7X Barlow, ASI290MM, Green and Red filters.
Drygalski, a 164 km wide crater located in the extreme Southern regions and thus only visible during favorable libration.
Solar activity on October 29: two medium-sized sunspot groups, both releasing a number of flares in the last few days.
150 mm Refractor, Quark chromosphere, ASI174MM. Fair seeing.
3D Copernicus: a red-cyan glasses 3d image of the lunar crater Copernicus made up from two images from October 21, 2019 and October 28, 2021. Both images acquired using a 355 mm Newtonian, Green filter, and ASI174MM and ASI290MM cameras. Seeing very good to excellent. An animation of the two frames below.
Full disc solar image of November 10, 2021. This was acquired during testing of a new setup: 150 mm F/6 TS Achromat and ASI183MM with Herschel wedge and Solar Continuum filter. 300 frames out of 3000 in poor seeing.
Sunspots of November 11. A brief spell of fair seeing allowed for some nice views of these sunspots and of the solar granulation, despite the low altitude of the Sun. 150 F/5.9 Achromat, Herschel wedge, Baader Continuum filter, ASI183MM.
Jupiter from the night of November 11 under good seeing for the altitude. The GRS and Oval BA are seen. This animation shows about 1.5 hours of the planet’s rotation. 355 mm Newtonian, ASI462MC with ZWO ADC.
Jupiter from 2021, a collection of six images showing almost all of the planet, on different dates, so with some differences in details (spots positions, bands, etc). This year the planet was hanging low at about 30 degrees above the horizon. Next year we’ll have a plus 15 degrees in altitude for this planet, which I hope it will translate in far better shots, more suitable for a 14 inch scope 😉
A few lunar shots from November 21, under fair seeing. Testing also for the first time the ZWO ASI183MM on the Moon.
355 mm Newtonian, ASI 183MM and 290MM cameras with Red and Green filters.
Lunar images from the morning of November 25 in fair seeing. 355 mm Newtonian, ASI183MM, 290MM with Red/Green filters.
Comet Leonard (C/2021 A1) on December 2 at around 03 20 U.T.
65 mm APO F/6.5, ASI183MM in Bin2x2. 96×15 sec for star trails, 40×15 sec for fixed stars image.
Not much to do from suburban skies…
Comet Leonard on December 2, closing in on the globular cluster M3. 65mm APO, F/6.5, Canon 6D, UV-IR cut filter, 24×30 sec exposures at ISO 2000 from a heavily light polluted location.
Moon- December 2:
Comet Leonard on December 11, 2021 at sunrise. Canon 6D with Canon 70-200 f/4, on EQ 3-2. Somewhere in Dobrogea.
And a comparison with comet Neowise from 2020 (July 17), using the same equipment, almost same exposures and sky conditions:
Sun on December 19, 2021. A lot of sunspot groups, with a few yet to be numbered.
150 mm F/6 refractor, Herschel wedge, Continuum and ND filters. ASI183MM. Very poor seeing.
Comet C/2021 A1 (Leonard) on the evening of December 19, 2021. From a very light polluted location, suburban sky, with the Full Moon also rising in the North-East. Comet position marked by two black lines. Planet Venus is the bright star at upper left.
Canon 6D, Canon 70-200 L at 100mm and F/4, ISO 400, exposure 8 sec, on CEM 60 mount.
Comet Leonard imaged while very low towards the horizon, on the evening of December 19 at 15:47 U.T.
Larson-Sekanina algorithm used to bring out some structure in the coma. Very difficult to image this comet from my location.
Details on the image.
Venus on December 19. Very very poor seeing, but the planet’s phase is easily detectable with small instruments or binoculars.
115mm APO, f/7, ASI183MM, Bin 1×1, 300 frames out of 3000. UV/IR cut filter.
Comet Leonard on December 21, from suburban skies and with the comet going from approx 3 to about 1 degrees above the horizon. Using a multitude of frames (125×2 sec at gain 250, 200×2 sec gain 350, 65×10 sec at gain 250) and applying the Larson Sekanina algorithm, some details in the inner coma are visible, lie a bow-shock just in front of the nucleus and some inner jets pointing towards the tail.
maximus photography 