Sky this Week

Comet 29P Schwassmann-Wachmann on Feb. 10 at 10:50 MST.

Equipment used Celestron Nexstar11, Meade F3.3 focal reducer, StellacamII video camera. Alligned, dark subtracted, and aligned with Registax5. Photoshop used to crop, brighten, and create animation. Sky was partly cloudy, transparency was good, not great. Turbulence between 5 and 6/10, no wind, location Louisville.

Saturn just after midnight Thursday morning.

Celestron Nexstar 11, Televue 2.5X Powermate, DMK 21AU04.AS, LRGB filters, same for saturn except no Powermate.
Sky was partly cloudy, transparency was good, not great. Turbulence slightly better than Tues, between 5 and 6/10. Temperature around 26 deg. F, 1-2 mph wind, location Louisville.

Image of mars last night just before midnight.

Usual set up for mars, Celestron Nexstar 11, Televue 2.5X Powermate, DMK 21AU04.AS, LRGB filters. Sky was partly cloudy, transparency was good, not great. Turbulence slightly better than Tues, between 5 and 6/10. Temperature around 26 deg. F, 1-2 mph wind, location Louisville.

Here are a couple images of Mars from last night just before midnight. Mars central meridian was about 40 degrees longitude. Mare Acidalium is the dark region below the northern polar cap. Solis Locus is in view to the lower left below center. Sinus Meridiani toward lower right. Disk is 13.7 arc sec across.

Clear sky, transparency was great; turbulence about 5/10, temperature 17 deg F., no wind, location my backyard – Louisville.
Equipment used: Celestron Nexstar 11 telescope, Televue 2.5X Powermate, DMK 21AU04.AS video camera, and LRGB filters. Camera set to 30 fps, 1/30 sec exposure, gain adjusted so histogram max was 90% of full scale for each filter. Aligned and stacked with Registax5, Photoshop used to align channels, enhance, and resize.