Tractor Thread

[The Dirt]

Wayne, I'm assuming you have a motorized equatorial mount for the camera? And was the camera mounted on a telescope, by chance? That detail on Jupiter is impossible through a camera alone, especially with 10x optical zoom.

It's a beautiful image, but in the original picture posted, (that view being toward the Western horizon), Jupiter's 'stripes' are at the wrong angle, though the correct (tilted) angle shows in your last post. And though Jupiter is a gas-giant, it's disc is still way too big, being almost on the entirely far side of the solar system, closing in on superior conjunction, while Venus is approaching inferior conjunction, and thus is on the near side of the solar system, one huge difference in distance. Lastly, Jupiter's sphere is especially out of proportion to the width of the moon's disc. Like WAY WAY out.

IMHO.

Sure you didn't take the picture in Roswell?

[webenda]

My set-up is camera on tripod. Stars at the image plane don't move very far in 60 seconds when the lens focal length is 4.5 mm--no tracking needed. Jupiter is 33 arc seconds diameter tonight. The moon is two days from apogee, making it very small--29 arc minutes. So, as you point out, both Jupiter and Venus are extremely bloated in my image. In the image Jupiter appears 3 times smaller (1/3) than the moon when it should appear 52 times smaller.

Here is the image tonight.

[rogruth]

That looks fantastic using the term in a broad sense.
Three strange lights in the sky with a long streak of light from a passing UFO.
Under that it looks as if the ground is on fire or something is exploding.
Wow! Cool! Interesting!

[Mitch]

And even though I passed Earth & Space Science in high school, I have no idea what they're talkin' about.

[rogruth]

Mitch,

See my post just above and it should be obvious that I don't either.

[Rufus T. Firefly]

And even though I passed Earth & Space Science in high school, I have no idea what they're talkin' about.

About 40 years ago I did understand it, but that's all faded........

[sarge]

About three years ago I understood all that (or at least knew where to look to get that understanding), then I retired. It fades faster than you think.

The references (Marks and the CRC the starting points of all quests) from my office have a well earned layer of dust settled upon them now, so I'll take the coward's way out, support Wayne as "Boffin in Residence", and expect the upcoming treatise on the relationships of atmospheric lensing and angular positioning to be laid before me with no effort invested on my part.

[webenda]

The planet images in my photos are enlarged due to out-of-focus blur. Same with the aircraft lights in the streak. If the aircraft was in focus the line through the image would have been much narrower. There is no such thing as, "Atmospheric Lensing."

[sarge]

There is no such thing as, "Atmospheric Lensing."

Au contraire, there are both atmospheric optical diffraction and refraction effects, the former a diffusing or blurring the image especially closer to the horizon, the latter potentially stretching the image whilst "repositioning' again differing with altitude off horizon, and both optical properties of the atmosphere.

Not saying either is the greatest source of the blurriness of your images, but certainly saying the statement above is incorrect.

[healey36]

Geesh, this brings back a lot of bad memories. I remember the late fall of 1973 dragging my behind outside at 0300 to look for Comet Kohoutek which was touted/predicted to be a spectacular display...turned out to be one of the great astronomical duds of recent comet history. I hauled my reflective telescope (eight-inch mirror) outside and up the hill behind my parents house looking for that damn thing for two weeks. Nothing, although it wasn't a total waste because at that time of morning/year you do get a pretty spectacular meteor display, one of which I distinctly recall hearing as it shot past overhead. The telescope was fairly primitive, but if you could find what you were looking for it was pretty spectacular.

The patio death-march continues...mortared down section 1, laid the bricks into section 2, and section 3 (the largest) awaits:



I would have been farther along if I hadn't started drinking.

Picked up four quarts of 20W-50 this afternoon. My local NAPA store was out (unbelievable)...he sent me to Walmart. Got four quarts of Castrol there. Will try to find time to change the oil tomorrow and take a stab at starting the Sprite. If successful I might make it to the Brits by the Bay event this Saturday, but it's a long shot. (Sarge, what's your plan? Don't want you counting on me...)

Healey

[The Dirt]

LOL, hey, I'll support Wayne as "Boffin in Residence" myself. He's way smarter than I am. Than I could ever hope to be.

I just can't 'un-know' what I know. And here's the 'Roswell Factor'...

In two iterations of the same picture, Jupiter's axis of rotation has shifted... what... some 30 degrees?





Nothing against Wayne, but I smell a fish.

[The Dirt]

Healey. What a good husband.

We need a National Husband's Day. You'd win.

[healey36]

Big talk from the guy with the dirt-pile...

[The Dirt]

But... but... I'm not honoring her, like you are so sweetly honoring your wife.
I'm just keeping the redhead's homicidal @ss out of jail!

And besides, she feeds me good.

Not exactly 'Husband of the Year' material.

[healey36]

If I wasn't a gutless chicken I'd let her read this, but I'm sure there was something I commented 37 thread pages ago that she'd sniff out and I'd be on the sofa 'til Christmas. Honor her...lol...I'm freakin' scared of her!

Healey