The almost Sun

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H-Alpha
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The almost Sun

Post by H-Alpha »

Hi all,

Although this is irrelevant to solar photography, I wanted so much to share the following with you. ;-)

Since this is the only forum I participate so far, I thought it will do no harm and if the moderators feel so they can delete the post or just move it to an appropriate sector.

As you may remember, while trying to photograph the Sun in WL with my 30 years old C8 I had the impression that something is wrong with the scope (I still have not succeeded to make any nice WL solar photo with it...), but as many of you had said, it should be only the seeing that was never so far good enough for this scope.

I have started trying to capture Jupiter with the ASI290 and my old C8, since mid September. Once more, while comparing with photos of Jupiter made with a C8 in the internet I was disappointed, so I was mainly making animations of the Jupiter's satellites. However, little by little, improving the post capture process I was seeing improvement in quality, although not what I was expecting. Until the night of the 3rd November!

First time I could see Jupiter almost steady in my screen! The seeing was not perfect, but it was a very good seeing. I felt that I had captured something good! I was continuously improving the process of the captured images until yesterday night, when I was soooo happy with the final result! So many details on the photo! :-) :-) :-)

I could never expect to see Jupiter from my balcony like this with a C8, not even in my deepest dreams. As I also didn't expect to see the sun like I see it since I dove in solar photography and met all of you. :-) So happy that I had and still have these experiences in my life and can share them with other people that also have and enjoy them.

This is it:
C8, ASI290 monochrome, Celestron Barlow 2x, R, G, B, filters
2021-11-03, Jupiter, 17_47_54 UTC.jpg
2021-11-03, Jupiter, 17_47_54 UTC.jpg (142.47 KiB) Viewed 1428 times
Hope can make also a nice solar photo with the C8 one day.

Best wishes and clear skies,
Alexandros


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Re: The almost Sun

Post by DeepSolar64 »

That's an awesome picture of Jupiter! It's big for a planet but would have to be several times as massive to be even a brown dwarf. I would be curious to what it would have looked like if say it would have been 5-10 times as massive. How would it have changed or affected the solar system environment. As it is it contains most of the solar system's mass outside of the Sun.

James


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Re: The almost Sun

Post by Montana »

Wow!! that is amazing detail!!!! so there is nothing wrong with the C8 then, just your seeing :) :bow :bow
I'll move this to the Sunlit Earth section in a day or two as this is where all the reflected sunlight posts are held :)

Alexandra


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Re: The almost Sun

Post by EricF »

That's a great shot. And I like the colour too. If I could see Jupiter like that every night, I might forget about looking at the sun!


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Re: The almost Sun

Post by EGRAY_OBSERVATORY »

Amazing C8 image with the excellent colouring and fine detail too.

thanks for sharing Alexandros.

Terry


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Re: The almost Sun

Post by H-Alpha »

Thank you all James, Alexandra, Eric Terry!
A good day or night seeing (which seems to me that are not correlated...) is once every couple of months. I wish there would be a formula that can predict seeing. So far, I have observed that the best seeing is when all atmosphere layers move in the same direction and as low is there speed, the best is.

I don't think that the Jetstream alone is the main factor.It happened that days of relatively intense Jetstream I had good seeing, and day with no Jetstream, I had poor seeing. I am know following all the layers (wind speed at different height) in windy, in order to gather data and understand better.

Anyway, the night of 3rd November when I captured this Jupiter the winds were as in the following Windy composite. There was no wind at all at surface.
2021-11-3, Best ever seeing conditions.jpg
2021-11-3, Best ever seeing conditions.jpg (1.27 MiB) Viewed 1366 times
Thanks Alexandra for keeping the post a couple of days!

Best wishes,
Alexandros


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Re: The almost Sun

Post by ffellah »

What a great image of Jupiter you have there Alexandros ! Good for you that you stuck with your old C8 and refined your imaging until, with good conditions, you arrived at this excellent result. Patience and perseverance are great qualities to have in both astronomy and astrophotography.

Franco


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Re: The almost Sun

Post by Jordan Konisky »

Fabulous image, Alexandros. Thanks to the censor patrol for letting Jupiter pass through the gate.

Jordan


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Re: The almost Sun

Post by DeepSolar64 »

Windy is a nice app. Along with MyRadar I use it a lot.

Now all we need is billions of monoliths reproducing like viruses to increase the mass of Jupiter to make it burst into thermonuclear hydrogen fusion. ;-)

Then we would have two suns to observe. Now what would that be like? Jupiter as a low mass red dwarf. The problem with the sun having a red dwarf companion is that many are violent flare stars!! It may be safer as a brown dwarf fusing only deuterium as it's thermonuclear power source. Hmm...

James


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Re: The almost Sun

Post by Carbon60 »

That’s a cracking image of Jupiter. Very nice indeed.

Stu.


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