January 22nd 2014 Jupiter.

January 20th 2014 Jupiter.

January 19th Jupiter.

Plato Sketch 09/01/14 .

Early morning Jupiter & Daylight Astronomy.

The skies were cloud free at 5.00 am , I decided to grab the C8 and does some observing, with perhaps a bit of astrophotography.

Jupiter was a splendid object, very bright in the 20mm erfle eyepiece.

All four Galilean moon were easily spotted.

With the 9mm eyepiece in place the planet's North and South Equatorial belts stood out easily.

The North and South Temperate belts were not that noticeable, the seeing wasn't as good as I had expected.

The North and South Polar Regions were visible, the South was noticeably the brighter of the two.

Here is this morning's quick sketch:

As the night turned to day I tried a bit of daylight Jupiter observing.

The image detail of the planet in broad daylight was slightly better - I took a few shots.

Mare Nectaris in a cloudy Sky.

 

Early this evening the clouds cleared long enough for me to capture a few images of Selene.

I'm still working my way around using my C8 Celestron as an imaging platform. 

The above lunar picture is my first attempt at astro imaging with a Schmidt Cassegrain telescope.

Poor seeing and naked eye Faculae - Tal2 Vs Tal1.

This morning's solar image taken with the Tal2 reflector.

Not much photographic detail I'm afraid.

The atmosphere wasn't in a cooperative mood, although the naked eye view did reveal the presence of faculae detail around active regions 1820 & 1830.

There was also faculae detail to be found some 180 degrees further around the solar limb.

Considering today's poor seeing, I was pleasantly surprised at how well the faculae stood out.

Tal2 6 inch f8 Newtonian

 Solar imaging - Tal2 verses Tal1.


These past few months most of my solar images have been taken with the Tal2 Newtonian. 

But is the Tal2 the best scope for solar imaging?

Tal2 is delivering some lovely views of the night sky, but I'm not sure its up to scratch for day sky imaging. 

Often I blame the seeing for the lack of solar detail, but maybe my choice of scope is not helping.

My 4.5 inch Tal1 reflector over the past two years, has consistently returned some lovely solar images.

I'll very soon have to wheel out Tal1 to make some comparisons.



Below is an image taken with Tal1-  just over a year ago:

Taken with: Tal1 4.5 inch f7.3 reflector

The Faculae can clearly be seen in this photograph.

Maybe Tal1 is better, compared to Tal2 for solar imaging, or maybe it's just simply down to the atmospheric conditions.

I'll have to keep experimenting.