Planet and other Solar System Images 2004 to 2008

1999 - 2003

3-D Jupiter! At last I've moved to my new home in Northumberland, with open dark skies over farmland and woodland to the South, and moderate light pollution to the North, looking over the town of Hexham from 450 feet above it! This Southerly view was taken the morning after the snowfall of 28th. January 2004. South is about 1/3 from the left. The night of 25th. January 2004 was still, with patchy mist, but good seeing, so I finally unpacked my LX90 and started imaging around 0200 UST. I'm particularly pleased with the right hand image of Jupiter - I haven't had such good definition on a planet for about three years now, and I believe this is not only due to the favourable weather conditions, but also the fact that I am no longer viewing across Supermarket and Multiplex Cinema buildings and car parks, a trunk road and a 24 hour car factory (Nissan) only two miles away, with all the attendant thermal activity! These images were taken 6 minutes apart, and the rotation is just enough to give a 3-D effect using the 'crossed eye' technique. Click on the thumbnail for a full size image, and here for one sized to give relatively easy stereo viewing on average monitor settings. You may need to resize for the best effect.

Although seeing had been terrible most of the year in the North of England, the occasional better night attempts at planetary imaging with my modded Vesta Pro webcam were spoilt by the dreaded diagonal banding. So I eventually took the plunge and purchased a Toucam Pro. With reasonable results on a night of moderate seeing on 12/13th. May 2005 This is probably my only Jupiter image for the season, but shows some interesting features. Europa just visible as a splodge of colour, the position of Io is really just an approximation based on the Skymap chart but it's just possible to see a lightening at the point indicated. Time 2232 UST.

On 15th. May 2004, Comet 2001Q4 NEAT passed across M44. Although this comet did not quite live up to expectations regarding brightness, nevertheless it was an easy 'fuzzy blob' binocular object, and sported a tail visible in long exposure images. The actual passage of the tail across M44 took place in mid afternoon at my Longitude, but in the late evening I was able to capture this image. MX716 with 135 mm camera lens, stack of 5 x 1 minute images. Taken at Hexham just before midnight (1100 UST) in Astronomical twilight and slight mist. Piggybacked on my LX90 (unfortunately the drive system on my G41 had developed a fault which prevented long exposure imaging, and the replacement had not arrived in time.)

While preparing to image Messier 14 on the night of 7th June 2005, and looking at the Skymap display for Serpens, almost directly 'below' M14 I realised that Pluto was culminating around 0030 UST, just toward the end of Astronomical twilight. so here is an image probably showing the planet. A further one needs to be taken in a day or so time to confirm movement. 15 x 30 second frames, Art 285, Mirage 8 at f6.3.

Well, for once the weather smiled on me and the following night of 8/9th June was also clear although hazy. But again good enough to obtain a second image of Pluto, confirming movement. Animated gif here The movement is over 23 1/2 hours, and Skymap gives it as around 96 arc-secs. Clyde Tombaugh must have had the patience of a saint when originally looking for Pluto!

Mars pops its head up every two years. The apparition of 2003 was the closest for around 60,000 years, but disappointing from the UK because of its low altitude. 2005 saw it return, smaller (20 as opposed to 25 arc-seconds) although still a very good size and much higher in the sky at around 50 degrees altitude. Unfortunately the Autumn weather was most unfavourable with most nights extremely turbulent. But I managed to capture a few images, some of which came out reasonably well. If you can do cross-eyed stereo, these images were taken approximately 24 hours apart, and the slight rotation gives a stereo effect

A few days of unpleasant cloudy conditions then an excellent clear night made up for it. December 6th. 2005 saw me staying up all night to make the most of the good conditions, and imaging a number of deep sky objects. Finally, I was on the verge of packing up when I had a look at Saturn. The sky was pretty steady, and I had a peek through the eyepiece. Definitely decent seeing. So despite the late hour (6.25 am!) on with the Toucam! And not too bad!

On 4th. April 2006, during a deep sky imaging session I had a look at the fragmented comet 73P Schwassmann-Wachmann which was brightening nicely, although at the 1280 mm focal length I was using I couldn't pick up more than one fragment. This is the 'C' fragment. I processed 10 x 1 minute frames centred on the comet, hence the blurry stars. Late April/early May will be the best time for England. Art285 with Mirage at f6.3

At around 4 am on 8th May 2006, the 'C' fragment of Comet 73P Schwassmann-Wachmann passed very close to Messier 57, the Ring Nebula. This was always going to be marginal for me, because of the early lightening sky at my latitude. But unfortunately the weather played dirty on me, and clouds obscured the entire event. The weather continued poor for a few days, but before the comet passed out of my view as it approached the Sun, I had a final opportunity to visit the 'C' fragment again in the early hours of 11th. May. The head was bright enough to guide on, and I secured a long sequence of 45 second frames to compose an interesting video. The sequence covers almost 2 1/2 hours, as shown in the start and finish frames mosaic. Artemis with TMB 105, binned 2x2. Much compressed GIF animation here. (194KB) DivX codec avi here. (1381 KB) If you don't have a DivX codec, it can be downloaded here

I also captured some images in the early hours of May 2nd. The combined frames were centred on the comet heads, so the stars are trailed substantially. I processed the frames to give similar background levels. Fragment 'B' is the fainter, 'C' the brighter of the two. Artemis with Mirage at f 6.3, 1 minute frames. Again I made animations. GIFS (approx. 200KB) B, C AVI's (Indeo codec only), B (354 KB), C (263KB)

In mid June 2006 my Artemis 285 'died'. It had for some time exhibited an occasional fault, but this time it did not return to life. I was going on Holiday to Norfolk, and Asteroid 2004XP14 was due to make a relatively close and fast pass (around Moon orbit distance). I brought my Canon 350 D into service and with it mounted on my AT1010 refractor and EQ3-2 mount was successful in obtaining numerous frames in the early hours of 4th. July 2006. 90 second frames were chosen to show up the background stars clearly, but this means that the fast moving asteroid appears as a streak. A suitable area of the originals was cropped out for the final result.A single frame is shown opposite, with the asteroid streak in the centre, but a DivX video is available here. Note the size is 399 KB. Daylight approached towards the end of the sequence, this is clearly seen in the lightening of the frames. 50 frames in total over a time span of 80 minutes.

The turn of the year from 2006 to 2007 proved to be one of the warmest and wettest on record, with gales and rain lasting for weeks. And typically it coincided with the apparition of one of the brightest recorded comets, 2006 P1 McNaught. It approached the Sun above the plane of the ecliptic, but never very high, brightened hugely as it rounded the Sun inside the orbit of Mercury, then shot away South at right angles to the ecliptic. It was bright enough to be naked eye visible in the Northern hemisphere twilight skies, estimated at magnitude -4 or brighter. Alas the weather in my part of theUK was very unkind. But 10th. January cleared up nicely in the early evening, and I set up my Canon 350D camera on my William Optics ZS66 refractor, and aligned it on the comet which was visible in my finder 'scope after sunset This first picture was taken before it became naked eye visible and at that time everything looked very promising, but see that patch of cloud in the lower corner......
Then everything started to go pear shaped. As the comet dipped lower, two banks of dense cloud formed near the horizon, and hid it for fully 20 minutes or more. Indeed I removed my camera from the telescope and took this wide field shot. X marks the location of the comet - well and truly hidden!
Eventually it reappeared sandwiched in the narrow gap between the two cloud banks. The head occasionally popped into view, and was clearly visible to the naked eye. But I never got to see the full tail, indeed this photo was the only half decent one. Larger photo. This image appeared in the April-June 2007 issue of the SPA magazine  The comet rounded the Sun over the next few days, always clouded in for me, and with the extra heating as it rounded the Sun, the apparition in the Southern Hemisphere was amazing, with a long curved tail and associated streamers.
Alas the full apparition was not for me, but here is a stunning picture taken by the discoverer. And at least one man from North East England got to see it in its full glory. Jack Newton emigrated from Sunderland to New Zealand in the Autumn of 2006, and he had a superb view. This is his photograph, taken on 22nd. January. Canon 350D and 28 mm Nikon lens. Larger version here

I don't do much planetary imaging - my seeing at the high magnifications required is rarely good enough. But the evening of April 14th. 2007 was pretty steady for me, so I first visited Venus an hour or so after sunset and obtained a reasonably steady image. Toucam and 3x Barlow with Mirage 8.
Saturn was still fairly close to it's nearest approach of this apparition (which occurred on 11th. February), and again the reasonably steady sky allowed me to capture a fair sequence of frames with this result. Toucam and 3x Barlow with Mirage 8.

Comet C/2006 VZ13 LINEAR zipped across the Northern skies during July 2007, and in its passage almost clipped the globular cluster M3 in Canes Venatici around 0000 UT on 23rd. At the time I realised this, I had packed my TMB 105 to take on holiday the following day, and the field of view required was too large for my LX200. So on with the diminutive William Optics ZS66 refractor and SBIG camera to capture what I could before the comet dipped below the trees. Using Maxim DL to capture, I interspersed colour frames with the monochrome ones, but I didn't specify as many colour, and also took them binned 2x2, so rather than overlay as LRGB, I have kept them separate. Here is a full size monochrome, stacked on the stars, with the movement of the comet over 30 minutes seen as the fuzzy streak at 8-o-clock. 20 x 30 second subframes. Full Size
This is a crop from a single 30 second monochrome frame
And here is the colour image, stacked on the comet head. RGB 10 each x 15 seconds binned 2x2

The night of August 12th. 2007 was forecast to see the peak of the annual Perseid Meteor shower. And as luck would have it I was blessed with a reasonably clear sky. Not crystal, and occasional clouds moving over, but a decent show with some quite brilliant meteors spanning up to 30 degrees of sky. I had my Canon 350D set up on my EQ3 tracking mount, centred on Cygnus. Of course that meant that the best meteors were anywhere BUT Cygnus, and out of 104 x 1 minute frames there were only 3 captures, 2 of which were just a touch on the edge of the frame! But one particularly brilliant one favoured me around 23:44 UT on the 12th. And to add to the interest there was a satellite trail which continued in the following frame. Identified almost certainly as Lacrosse 5, a US Military Reconnaissance satellite. Median stacking 5 frames improved the Milky Way background and then pasting back the meteor and satellite trails at full brightness gave this decent image. Mouse over the medium size image for constellation and star names. Large Size

Comet 8P/Tuttle is a regular visitor to the Inner Solar system. First discovered in 1790 by Pierre Méchain, it was not then recognised as a short period comet. But it was rediscovered and studied in greater depth by Horace Tuttle in 1858, when he confirmed its identity. It's orbital frequency is 13.6 years, and it is recognised as being the source of the debris for the December Ursid meteor shower. This was the closest approach of the comet since its discovery in 1790. It was expected to attain a maximum brightness of around 5 during its pass by the Earth on 1 January 2008 at a distance of 0.25AU. Then on 26 January 2008 the comet was closest to the Sun at a distance of 1.03AU. On 30th December 2007 it was due to pass close by the 'Pinwheel' galaxy Messier 33. Unfortunately the weather that evening in the UK was totally clouded out, but I was able to capture a wide field shot on the previous evening. 7 x 2 minutes RAW frames at ISO800, stacked using Deep Sky Stacker with the special comet processing feature - works very well! Large Size

The same session I obtained an image of 17P/Holmes (on my Holmes page). Here it is superimposed on the Tuttle shot at the same scale. Holmes was 3.5 million miles across the coma at this stage in its extraordinary outburst. 'Mouseover' the medium size image (click on the thumbnail). Both images taken with my Canon 350D and William Optics ZS66 telescope with Astrophysics 0.7 reducer.

In its two and a bit year cycle, Mars was closest to Earth around midnight on December 18th 2007 at which point it was 15.9 arc-seconds in apparent diameter. My seeing is rarely good for planets because of my location in rolling countryside in the lee of the Pennines, never mind the jet stream! But a run of bad weather and worse seeing prevented me obtaining an even half decent image until midnight on 7/8th January 2008, when despite blustery showers the seeing was better than for some time, and I was able to capture a few minutes of reasonable video in between the gusts. With this result. Apparent diameter 14.8 arc-seconds. Toucam and 3x Barlow on 12" LX200R, approximately 800 frames stacked in Registax and finished in Photoshop.

The evening of 10th January 2008 started out with a stiff breeze and the occasional cloud scudding over. I first went for images of Comet 17P/Holmes and 8P/Tuttle. The Holmes image is of course on that page, here is Tuttle. With dire weather forecast for the near future this was almost certainly my last opportunity. In an attempt to capture the tail without too much blurring of the fast moving head I used the Canon 350D on the WO ZS66 with AP reducer and took 7 x 3 minute frames at ISO 1600. Just a hint of a tail! Stacked with Deep Sky Stacker using the special comet/star processing feature. Pure wizardry!

The seeing was again pretty good, so once the clouds broke for a while, Mars was next on the list. Around 1000 frames with the Toucam, 3x Televue Barlow and 12" LX200R. Stacked in Registax and finished in Photoshop.

 

After some more terrible weather (with severe flooding in the South of England) a brief clear spell in the early evening of 16th January 2008 gave me an opportunity to image comet 17P/Holmes again as it neared the star Algol in Perseus. See Holmes page. Then although Mars was still relatively low in the East (46 deg altitude) and the seeing was poor, I knew that Syrtis Major would be on the face, so as no Mars sequence would be complete without it, I fitted the Toucam to the LX200 with a 3x Barlow with this result. Rather blurry and lacking in detail, but Syrtis Major without a doubt! Taken around 7 pm (1900 UST)

I then had to go out for a few hours, and when I got back home nearing 10 pm (2200 UST) the sky was starting to mist over, but the seeing had stabilised considerably and Mars was at its maximum altitude of 62 degrees. So before the clouds thickened I was able to capture another sequence with this more pleasing result. Mars was now around four weeks past opposition, and the diameter was just under 14 arc-secs. A far cry from the 25 arc-secs maximum of August 2003, but then the maximum altitude for me was around 20 degrees. I think on balance altitude wins!

 

On 6th May 2008 there was a close conjunction of a young (approximately 30 hour old) Moon and Mercury. I was out in the early evening, but on my journey home saw the beautiful fine crescent Moon lowering in the West. I had forgotten about the conjunction, but determined to photograph the Moon anyway, and there of course was Mercury in the frame as well! This shot was only a 1 second exposure with the Canon 350D at ISO 400 and camera lens at 200 mm zoom. Larger image.

As the sky darkened I tried a 5 second exposure, hoping to improve the Earthshine. But as can be seen the Moon was sinking into a murky western sky, and there was no real improvement. The camera was tripod mounted, not tracking the sky, and in the larger versions the trailing of Mercury over the 5 seconds can be clearly seen. Larger image.

Noctilucent clouds are a Summer phenomenon in the more Northern latitudes, caused by sunlight from below the northern horizon illuminating high ice crystal clouds. A relatively rare and beautiful phenomenon. This example was captured at 0049 British Summer Time (1149 UST) on 20th June 2008, looking North over Hexham. A 15 second exposure at ISO 100 ('Starry Sky' setting) with my recently acquired Panasonic Lumix TZ5 compact camera - a nicely specified and capable miniature digicam. The solitary star upper right is Capella. Larger Size

The early evening of 1st December 2008 promised an occultation of Venus by a crescent Moon, commencing just on Sunset (15:43), and clearing at 17:12 A further attraction was the close proximity of Jupiter, only 2 degrees away above Venus. The previous evening was reasonably clear, and I took a preview photograph . But sadly after a clear morning the following day, the skies clouded over and I only obtained the faintest glimpse of a clouded Moon and red Venus just as they set - no photo although I was all set. Then of course Sod's law struck with a vengeance and the following night was clear again! So before and after, but nowt in between. Both photos single frames, Canon 350D with zoom lens, 1/10th second at f5, ISO200.

2009 - 2013