Details
- Camera: ZWO ASI662MC
- Scope: Stellalyra 150mm Classical Cassegrain
- Mount: Sky-Watcher HEQ5-Pro
- Software: Sharpcap, Autostakkert, Registax, PixInsight, GIMP
- Filters: None
- Integration time: Lucky imaging, best 25% frames from 2000 video frames (Jupiter) and 25% of 1000 (Mars).
Seeing index: 4
Transparency: 4
Jet stream: OK
Moon phase: 4%
The sky conditions were remarkably good this evening though with some patchy cloud. The jet stream was slow for once after stormy weather yesterday and the planets showed plenty of detail. I was lucky to catch the Great Red Spot on Jupiter with a simultaneous shadow transit of Europa at 22h10.
On Mars, the Syrtis Major was clearly visible and easily extracted with lucky imaging. The polar ice cap is visible but not very distinct.
This evening was also a test of a new rig allowing accurate finding of targets with the long Classical Cassegrain scope which was mounted in parallel with a short ST80 as a finder equipped with a guide camera. The CC does not pick up enough stars to plate solve whereas the ST80 does and so makes goto finding feasible. The difficulty is getting the two scopes exactly in parallel which appears to change slightly from night to night following being covered and, I assume, knocked out of alignment.
