Starship Asterisk*

Spring skiing weather! I-phone panoramas can make some pretty good images.

Fred the Cat wrote: ↑Sat Mar 30, 2019 12:47 am Bogus Basin Panorama (2).jpg
Spring skiing weather! I-phone panoramas can make some pretty good images.

Where was this photo taken? Were you there on a skiing vacation?

I can't figure out what I'm seeing beyond that very dark mountain range. Is that more mountains in the distance?

Fascinating photo.

Ann

I just saw a meteor streak past the Pleiades, from the area ajacent to Orion's bow toward the southwest. Not bright enough for any colors, but pretty non the less.

Bruce

Ann wrote: ↑Sat Mar 30, 2019 3:42 am

Fred the Cat wrote: ↑Sat Mar 30, 2019 12:47 am Bogus Basin Panorama (2).jpg
Spring skiing weather! I-phone panoramas can make some pretty good images.

Where was this photo taken? Were you there on a skiing vacation?

I can't figure out what I'm seeing beyond that very dark mountain range. Is that more mountains in the distance?

Fascinating photo.

Ann

We were skiing Friday and this line of dark clouds had formed. I only had my cell phone but it captured the scene on panorama mode fairly well. I was little lower on the mountain but looking west with Boise just over the closest ridge. The Owyhee mountains are in the background.

Something we'll not be seeing "in the sky tonight" so often is kind of sad.

Fred the Cat wrote: ↑Sun Mar 31, 2019 4:27 pm

Ann wrote: ↑Sat Mar 30, 2019 3:42 am

Fred the Cat wrote: ↑Sat Mar 30, 2019 12:47 am Bogus Basin Panorama (2).jpg
Spring skiing weather! I-phone panoramas can make some pretty good images.

Where was this photo taken? Were you there on a skiing vacation?

I can't figure out what I'm seeing beyond that very dark mountain range. Is that more mountains in the distance?

Fascinating photo.

Ann

We were skiing Friday and this line of dark clouds had formed. I only had my cell phone but it captured the scene on panorama mode fairly well. I was little lower on the mountain but looking west with Boise just over the closest ridge. The Owyhee mountains are in the background.

Something we'll not be seeing "in the sky tonight" so often is kind of sad.

Thanks, Fred! The Owyhee mountains are beautiful.

As for the iridium flares... I couldn't care less.

Ann

Got up very early this Sunday morning, for an early season peek at Saturn, about three months prior to its opposition and just a few days prior to its western quadrature with us. (Had there been less clouds, and had I been more awake, I might have captured Jupiter, Venus and Mercury, too.) Saturn is seen here with an angular disc diameter of 16.5", about 90% of its expected size at opposition this year, and shining with about two thirds of its expected brightness. Not yet sure I got everything I could out of the video data recorded for this image, as it was a fairly cursory processing job ... the sun came up and I started to fade.

And here is an improved version from the same 90 second video, created after a full night's sleep: I think the colour balance is a little more accurate in this version, and it is slightly sharper, especially at the north pole.

A pretty moonrise, one night before full.
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Chris Peterson wrote: ↑Fri Apr 19, 2019 5:42 am A pretty moonrise, one night before full.
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Amazing looking cloud. I can almost hear Captain Kirk say, "Raise shields and activate the cloud illusion!"

And the Moon looks like a balloon, very tenuous and diaphanous.

Ann

There was a fine display of noctilucent clouds over Malmö very early this morning.

I didn't dare to edit my post above, but I want to add that this is the first time ever since I joined Starship Asterisk* that I have taken a picture myself and uploaded it myself to this forum.

Drum roll, I guess.

Ann

Ann wrote: ↑Tue Jun 18, 2019 8:47 pm I didn't dare to edit my post above, but I want to add that this is the first time ever since I joined Starship Asterisk* that I have taken a picture myself and uploaded it myself to this forum.

Drum roll, I guess.

Ann

Way to go Ann. Well done.

BDanielMayfield wrote: ↑Wed Jun 19, 2019 5:25 am

Ann wrote: ↑Tue Jun 18, 2019 8:47 pm I didn't dare to edit my post above, but I want to add that this is the first time ever since I joined Starship Asterisk* that I have taken a picture myself and uploaded it myself to this forum.

Drum roll, I guess.

Ann

Way to go Ann. Well done.

Thanks, Bruce!

There were some bright clouds on the solstice night of June 21, but I don't think they were true noctilucent clouds. They were not located due north, and they gradually faded towards midnight. But they were nice enough while they lasted.

A pretty moonrise off my deck, with the Moon somewhat reddened by wildfire smoke.
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During the last full harvest moon I took some photos with my new Canon SX70 HS. On one photo I noticed a little black dot. First I thought it might be an insect, like a moth. But when I enhanced the details the "wings" look quite narrow. Could it be a satellite? cut-out of the full picture

And it must have moved fast. I took a series and it is only visible in this frame. Which doesn't help much. As a near moth would be seem to be fast as a satellite in low orbit would be.

I checked some pages for flightpaths but I could only find those "visible". Does anyone know more detailed ones? This object was dark all the time, so I didn't noticed it until I reviewed the photos.

I was out doing some imaging, and took a quick series of asteroid 162082_1998_HL1, a potentially hazardous object now passing quite close to the Earth. This is a stack of 20 60-second shots with a 10-second gap between each. The image is 21.3 arcmin on a side, the trail is 8.8 arcmin long. That means the asteroid was moving across the sky at 21 arcsec/min, fast enough to cross the face of the Moon in about 90 minutes. Imaged with a QSI660 camera on a C11 at f/5.8.
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Moonrise Over America's Mountain

98% Moon, one day before full, rising behind Pikes Peak.
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Of course, after days of perfect weather, and days of perfect weather in the forecast, we had a crazy winter storm blow through Colorado overnight, dropping the temperature into the single digits and filling the sky with freezing fog and gently falling snow... starting a little before sunrise. The Mercury transit began here a bit before sunrise, and finished at about 11am local. I gave up on using the small telescope to make a video of the entire event, but it did start to clear up in mid-morning, so I got lots of images through the big scope of the last third or so of the transit. Lots of processing to do with what I have, but a preliminary image just a couple of minutes before the end is here.
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Hope a photo of what was "seen" in the sky qualifies in this thread but, when you can share a nice image, it should be shown. Friends visiting Maui captured the Moon/Venus conjunction yesterday.

The other night I saw a conjuntion of the Crescent Moon
and the planet Venus. Beautiful.

The conjuction over Boise tonight

Perigee full Moon rising just past sunset, behind Pikes Peak.
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First Light.

I've been upgrading my observatory since last summer. First the mount (to a Paramount MYT), then the camera (to a QSI660), to a better filter set (LRGB, Ha, S2, O3), and lastly a new scope (250mm TPO RC-10). The scope is a little smaller aperture than the previous, but the RC optics are fantastic. Here's the first test, shot through the narrow Ha filter since it was a nearly full Moon. A stack of ten 10-minute exposures (100 minutes of total exposure time). Target is IC 405, the central Flaming Star nebula. Seeing was about 2.5 arcsec.
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It looks great!

geckzilla wrote: ↑Tue Mar 17, 2020 3:12 pm It looks great!

I'm setting up scripting to add it to the network of fast responders to transient events. But it's fully robotic, so in the long gaps between those, I'll probably let it collect photons from interesting objects.