CCD vs Film? Lots of time vs no patience? Alright, this is your place to discuss all the astrophotography what's and what's not. You can discuss about techniques, accessories, cameras, whatever....just make sure you also post some nice photos here too!
The celebrity solar object of the year is no other than Mars -- in the best opposition position for many years to come.
The night 2020-10-17 to 10-18 finally saw clear skies and I rushed to see what would show up in the 4.5" APO.
Through the eyepiece at 200x the planet did not show many details -- still too bright for visual (guess I should have brought a filter with me) except a bright spot (polar cap) and some fuzzy dark patterns. The imaging could reveal more details but far less impressive than hoped for.
Trojans in the solar system -- those small objects sharing the orbit with the big guys (planets) but (nearly) locked in safe regions either leading or trailing the big bodies.
Easily the mighty Jupiter keeps the largest collection of these Trojans -- thus called Jupiter trojans. At such distances far beyond main asteroid belt, they are not really easy to detect. But the largest of them, (624) Hektor at magnitude 14.4 these days, gives chances to even small scopes.
The image of Hektor appears to be a short trail -- which is resulted from its motion. The image is simply a combination of multi-exposures spanning 30 minutes -- during which time the wandering solar object really moved among the pixels!
Well, some very interesting objects are completely beyond the reach of my gears under Sg's bright night skies. So either I go try out in a truly dark site when the border opens next year, or go hunting them through remote telescopes available. Do both!
Skygems observatories looks a good new one with very competitive pricing.
First target: Eris. One of the most distant objects detectable in the solar system. Now it sits at 95AU from the earth. Even at over 2000km size, it could not reach anything brighter than mag18.
Two sessions nearly 2 days apart show the sizable motion at 95AU away!
The representative for another interesting collection of solar system objects: Centaurs -- those wandering bodies between outer planets.
(2060) Chiron is the brightest one for now. It also has another designation 95P/Chiron. This tells that Centaurs typically behave with characteristics of both asteroids and comets.
Two images 1 day apart show how it travels among the stars.
