Aristarchus Redux

A better view of Aristarchus and Vallis Schröteri. Better seeing, but I'm still not satisfied. I've got a couple of more processing tricks to try.

Aristarchus & Gassendi

I wasn't going to make any pictures last night, but I went out on the driveway about 10:30 and saw a clear, steady sky. I pulled out the little dob, looked at the moon and said, "I ought to shoot this."

Turns out the sky wasn't as steady as the small scope led me to believe--I'm guessing 3/5--so I'm a little disappointed in these.


Gassendi.



Aristarchus.

Aristarchus and Mars Redux

I drove to Houston yesterday afternoon for David's 40th birthday yesterday, and instead of driving back to Austin, I headed out to Brenham to my sister's place. (These guys really need to update their blogs, don't you think?)

I made the right choice--the weather was pleasant, and both transparency and seeing were above average. I took both of these around 3:00 this morning.



North is right in this image of Aristarchus. Maybe this wasn't the best month to shoot this. The sun was a little low on Friday, and little high on Saturday. I don't know quite how I got the weird colors, but I'm not complaining.



Best Mars yet. This is from a 150 second stream, 2 1/2 minutes. I'm reluctant to go any longer, both because of field rotation and planetary rotation. I'm pleased with the shadow details. This is probably as good as I'm going to get, unless I learn some new processing techniques.

Dam Pictures

I didn't stay up late enough Friday night at Mansfield Dam, so my Mars isn't as good as I would have hoped under average-to-worsening seeing.


On the other hand, I'm not too disappointed in this two-image mosaic of Aristarchus and Copernicus. Didn't matter what I tried, but the sunlit side of Aristarchus crater would be overexposed.


Missed most of the regulars at the dam, but met a nice couple who had just purchased a new LX200GPS 10", the new version of my scope. Between JB & myself, we were able to get them up and running. Showed the moon in the big 30mm eyepiece to several visitors while waiting for Mars to get high enough to view.

Aristarchus

OK, so the view in the telescope doesn't look quite like this picture from Apollo 15, but I'm really enjoying this lunar feature. The rilles have caught my attention--they look just like dry river beds in the 6" Deep Space Hunter. They're much easier to spot than those up North in Alpine Valley.

This was one of the first places on the moon I ever really looked hard at, thanks to Richard. It was one night at the dam while I was using the C6-N, and the terminator was between Aristarchus and Herodotus.* Now, I know the moon is rotating, but it's awfully slow. So I was amazed to watch the terminator move up the crater wall of Herodotus over the course of the evening. Cool. That was the same night I discovered that a 5" APO blows a 6" Chinese newt out of the water. I'm not down on the small newt--heck, I bought another one--but it didn't take me long to discover its limits.


Day 3 of school, and you'd be amazed at the difference in the boy. We're out waiting for the bus this morning, and he's all happy and babbling. Bus pulls up, and he's off across the street, pulling Trudy along behind him. The steps on the bus are as high as little three-year-old legs can navigate, but he didn't slow down until he hit his seat. I went out and tapped on his window, and he gave me a huge grin.

Trudy & I had to drop his supplies off with his teacher, so we beat him to school. As we're leaving, he comes trucking around the corner at the far end of the hall, pulling his Nemo backpack behind--a boy on a mission. We ducked into the corner and hid, sort of, amazed at our happy child. Looks like this school thing isn't so bad after all.

*I don't really know all these names--I look them up. I'm not a total loonie, yet.

Aristarchus

One of my favorite lunar features, but I still haven't made a decent picture of it.

Return to the Moon

I went back and reprocessed some Moon shots from October with nice results. Here's a two-night series of Gassendi. Interesting how the changing angle of sunlight makes the features look different.




Then there's this shot of Aristarchus. I knew I'd eventually get it processed better. I may have pushed it too far though.



Last up is a shot of Schiller that I hadn't processed. More info on Schiller is at the Lunar Picture of the Day.

Lynkeos or Keith's Image Stacker?

Lynkeos or Keith's Image Stacker? Flip a coin. KIS is a bear to use well, but sometimes it's worth it. Aristarchus from Friday, 14 October 2005 at the dam.

Lynkeos:



Keith's Image Stacker:



I wonder if I can realign the stack in Lynkeos and sharpen it up some more.

Dawn Patrol

Have I mentioned that the boy's bus comes way too early in the morning?

It's OK, because I'm getting to see some early morning sights that I'd otherwise miss. Mars was still nearly overhead at 6:30, and very crisp in the 6" dob. Here's a simulated view:



No polar cap at all.

And apparently I've been looking at the moon at the wrong time of the month, because holy crap! that's an amazing view of Aristarchus. I know, I've talked about it before, but wow--it looked almost as good as the picture. The weird part was the blue shadows, since the sky was so light.

I gotta start getting up earlier.