Comet Tuttle is displaying a lawn-sprinkler shape as our vantage point is just right to see it face on, much like a spiral galaxy. It is difficult to see in normal images. The image on the right was derived by taking the difference of two images that were taken a couple of hours apart.

Although I'm not sure, this was possibly picked up in four telescopes; two in Huntsville Al, one in Georgia and this one located in Maryland.

NASA - Lunar Impact Monitoring

December 18, 2007

00:38:31 Animated GIF 852Kb

00:38:31 2 frames, 3 fields, bright

Confirmed! 01:08:41 1 1 frame, 2 fields, very dim Image

02:13:47 1 1 frame, 2 fields, suspect cosmic ray due to antialiasing of even video field

December 15, 2007 00:45:52UT

I was shooting sucker holes and LunarScan coughed up this event. Both Odd and Even video fields are about the same brightness. It looks sketchy at best and the conditions were really awful. Worth reporting though...

This image was made using a StellaCam II with a 8" f/5 Celestron reflector and focal reducer and is comprised of 20 8.53 second images (< 3 minutes total) compiled using Registax.

This Image is comprised of 94 x 8.53 second images. There appears to be brightening in PA 315 through PA 0

Reprogramming the Celestron CG-5 mount requires a piece of hardware. Celestron will sell me the Auxiliary Port Accessory Kit (item no. 93965) for $314.00! Happy Happy Joy Joy! Fortunately, the unit can be found at Telescopes.Com for $68.00.

PHD Guiding is very easy to use and allows for arbitrary camera orientation. I can now maximize the shadowed portion of the moon across the ccd as to work it correctly and track with good precision. I can also do the same for comets, orienting the camera however I please, to optimize how its tail falls across the horizontal plane of the chip. So I really have no need to get that piece o hardware because PHD Guiding also corrects the periodic e-w error.

If you have a balky mount and can use ASCOM drivers, try to use PHD Guiding! Maybe it will help you as well as it is helping me! So, I'll save the $68 or $314 and maybe start thinking of getting a new mount. I need built in PEC and a way to fix it when its fried without additional expenses. Craig Stark, thank you for writing PHD Guiding and for making it available to us who need it!

My mount's sickness has been corrected using PHD Guiding, a piece of free-ware written by Graig Stark of Stark Labs.

Image of PHD Guiding Tests

This image was made using a StellaCam II with a 8" f/5 Celestron reflector and focal reducer and is comprised of 86 8.53 second images compiled using Registax.

This image was made using a StellaCam II with a 8" f/5 Celestron reflector and focal reducer and is comprised of 96 8.53 second images compiled using Registax.

This image was made using a StellaCam II at prime focus of an 8" f/5 Celestron reflector and is comprised of 223 4 second images compiled using Registax.

This image was made using a StellaCam II and 25mm c-mount lens and is comprised of six 2 second images compiled using Registax.

Holy crap! Comet Holmes' coma is at least the size of the moon's disk as seen in this overlaid image of the two...

Embossed image showing plasma tail-like structure.

28.5 minute exposure
200 images @ 8.55 seconds each; Dark subtracted; Stacked using Registax

November 4, 2007 (00:30UT)

Larger Image - The jet activity seems significant making for some interesting shots. The jury is still out as to what may have caused this explosion. Comet Holmes is turning out to be quite spectacular.

The image above was obtained using a Celestron 8" F/5 with Stellacam II at prime focus, and color filter wheel and is comprised of:

L 50 4.2 second Broadband filtered images;
R 50 4.2 second red filtered images;
G 50 8.55 second red filtered images;
B 50 2 second blue filtered images;
L 50 2 second Visible light unfiltered images...

All images dark subtracted then stacked in Registax and LRGB'd using Adobe. Color levels were tweaked so that the result closely matched what I visually observed using a 8" F/6 @ 48X

This image is a combination of a few hundred dark subtracted half and one second images, shot with a StellaCam II at prime focus of a Celestron 8" f/5 reflector.

Orionid impact candidates:

Orionids - 10/20/2007
23:17:03UT #a21 - duration = 4 video fields Image Animated GIF 694Kb
23:23:48UT #b4  duration = 2 video fields, very dim Image
23:43:14UT #d3  duration = 3 video fields Image Animated GIF 708Kb

Orionids - 10/21/2007
00:47:53UT #e58 duration = 4 video fields Image Animated GIF 855Kb
01:03:05UT #f37 duration = 2 video fields Image
02:52:46UT #h(2) duration = 2 video fields Image
03:41:23UT #i(2) one video field only
03:48:12UT #i3 duration = 2 video fields Image

The data looks good. Unfortunately, nobody else was imaging the moon.

Shooting the Orionids proved to be difficult due to a polar alignment problem that I could not resolve. The scope kept slewing to the south and required declination adjustments about every 30 seconds or minute. I realigned the scope 4 times to no avail but this could have been because I was tracking at a lunar rate and the calculations made by the mount may have caused the problem. I did not test tracking a star. My polar finder scope might need to be aligned.

There was severe dew. I ran a small 155 watt heater below a shroud which kept the mirrors warm and dew free. Dew has presented problems in the past that this little heater will solve.

I also recently got a Prius. I tested laying down inside it with the seats down and it happens that the rear window is perfectly situated for looking up at the night sky! It also has a wide field back-up camera that I'll at some point hook an image intensifier up to, just to see...

I'm interested in some of the Prius hacks that will come out...

1.2 Mb MPG video

This meteor was tracked across the zenith until it passed out of the wide field camera's FOV.

20 Aurigid meteors (video 8.8Mb Mpg) - This video contains some 20 Aurigids imaged between 10:53 and 11:45 UT. Notice how the light from several meteors gets reflected by the airplane wing in the lower right corner of the field of view.

Some preliminary 10 minute counts from the wide field camera starting 10:53 UTC ending 11:53 UTC. FOV=50 degrees wide by 25 degrees high. Times are possibly inaccurate and need to be shifted slightly ahead or back.

20 Aurigid meteors (video 8.8Mb Mpg)

The Aurigid outburst; What an adventure and a confirmation of the meteor stream model and predicted accurately by Dr. Jeremie Vaubaillon of Caltech and Dr. Peter Jenniskens (PI Aurigid MAC campaign)! (Predicted Aurigid outburst)

More to come...

Thursday afternoon, August 30, after flying in to San Jose airport from Baltimore Maryland and arriving at the SETI institute, I unwrapped the meteor tracker instrument and video gear that I had shipped via FedEx. Everything arrived intact except the clear plastic bin that held the video gear. The tub was shattered but fortunately, the equipment survived in tact. All was well. I mounted the mirrors, checked the alignment and started mating the spectrograph to the tracker mount. we then attended a general meeting about the flight, took a look at sky maps, flight paths, and got an idea as to the details of the mission.

Seeing the various experiments people were preparing was very interesting and it was great to see people I'd met before, and also those that I hadn't. The English and French traded various jokes about each other, they are quite clever and amusing!

Later in the afternoon, we headed to AMES Research Center flight line to set up instruments in the airplanes which were both Gulfstream G5s. We later received a safety inspection of sorts and then the plane I was on, went on a two hour test flight to ensure things were indeed up and running with no power issues, glitches or unforeseen anomalies. During the flight, there were several small thunderstorms below which were impressive in the image intensified screens. Fortunately we didn't roast anything. Shortly after landing we all headed to the hotel to sleep for the rest of the night.

Friday waking up, came really late for me. I was up by 7:00 am California time (10 AM EST) and shattered long duration record or something. I met with a few others that were up early but we were all not really able to (or supposed to) do anything until 7:00 pm at which time we headed back out to the airplanes at AMES, for the event! The agenda was to rest up of the day.

We arrived at the AMES flight line just before 7:00 pm and Geoff calibrated his spectrograph with his helper outside the airplane standing on a ladder holding some calibration lights. It was difficult to do this because of all the millions of lights in the background field of view.

We took off and shortly after crossing 10,00 ft, started setting up. All gear had to be stowed for takeoff and landing, not only the seat backs. To stow and unpack, we formed somewhat of a human chain to pass the gear forward from the aft storage compartment. It worked well and saved time.

After setup and some initial calibrations and tweaking, we took a couple of hours of data surrounding the expected time of the peak. The meteor tracker tracked several meteors with four bright events in one little specific area of the sky in a short period of time. It was exciting to see it on the screen as I never really monitor it in real time; the meteor tracker is automatic and hands off. I do not know if Geoff was able to obtain spectra though. I was unfamiliar with it so had little clue as to what I was seeing in his video screen.

I have not yet completed a timed count of the wide field video but hope to do so soon. Basically, the AMI-IT meteor tracker was used for data that I did not record. I did record only my wide field camera. I certainly hope all came out well and do not know how long it will take for the results of Geoff's experiment.

I thank the American Meteor Society for helping me to participate in this event.