22 replies to this topic

[Marc Delcroix]

Dears,

 

Back to Pic du Midi ten days ago after my March mission, this time with Christophe Pellier and Jean-Philippe Cazard.

  

 

Several targets: telescope handling, watching potential spots on Uranus and Neptune, and if possible some Mars and Saturn which are rather low. I'll post each session in a separate message.

We started with Neptune on first night, and fulfilled already one goal with 2 bright spots here (the North one has probably been imaged by amateurs previously).

 

 

And an derotated animation of all acquisitions :

 

Like last times, during short pauses in our long nights dedicated to acquisition, and thanks to Christophe and Jean-Philippe making turns in the lab, instead of looking at objects in smaller scopes, I did what I prefer: comfortably lying under the starry skies, I lost myself in the smoke and meanders of our Galaxy, which each time gives me a strong deep and intense emotion in front of such beauty

 

Vive le Pic!

Edited by Marc Delcroix, 18 August 2016 - 09:44 AM.

[Marc Delcroix]

Now first session on second night on Saturn, the best one - no ADC unfortunately but still small irregularities are visible in the bands in infrared:

 

... and a ghostly methane image

[Marc Delcroix]

A sea of clouds from the 1m cupola, taken from Christophe

 

And the only Uranus session (processed by Christophe), first in methane, limb is very bright in this wavelength:

 

And in infrared, 1h derotation showing the bright polar region, and two bright bands (the northern one being on the equator), but no spot on that view :

 

And an animation of the satellites by Jean-Philippe:

Edited by Marc Delcroix, 17 August 2016 - 02:18 PM.

[Marc Delcroix]

Now second night on neptune, here is the latest observation showing the maximum of a bright zone rising:
 

 

A derotated animation of this rising over almost an hour:

 

Edited by Marc Delcroix, 17 August 2016 - 02:22 PM.

[Marc Delcroix]

Last night's Saturn, with a worse seeing despite the planet being a bit higher in the sky, in infrared:

Edited by Marc Delcroix, 17 August 2016 - 02:24 PM.

[Marc Delcroix]

Mars from last night (processed by Christophe), without ADC unfortunately, which one can tell looking at the images... Still the shadowed summits of Tharsis volcanoes are rising, and the polar clouds from fall's start in Northern hemisphere. Due to polar axis inclination (12° N), South polar cap is almost not visible anymore:

[A. Viegas]

Thanks for posting, very impressive.  In particular I liked the outdoor picture of the Observatory and clouds... 

Al

[Marc Delcroix]

Last but not least, the last Neptune session results, my personal favorite...

 

With a small spot in the North hemisphere, and a huge very bright spot very spread in latitude in South hemisphere, transiting:

 

A real animation of these spots transits - real means that each image comes from different acquisitions:

Now a much finer animation, done thru derotation of the same whole set of night acquisitions (each image is from the same data, but viewed under a different angle) :

 

And a RGB, the bright spots are even visible in red:

 

And finally a neptune map over 2 days, first time for me where we see 3 major bright zones:

 

Nice results, vive le Pic!

[Sunspot]

Impressive! It furthers my feeling that we need orbiters around the two ice giants.

[MvZ]

Very nice results team!

[happylimpet]

tremendous. just wonderful! well done guys!

[DesertRat]

Fantastic!  Thanks so much for showing us this work.  Never thought Neptune could be this exciting!  Inspiring.

 

Glenn

 

PS: Marc, you might consider asking Christophe if he has considered deconvolving the non ADC images with a theoretical spread function.

Edited by DesertRat, 17 August 2016 - 04:47 PM.

[jdreh]

Love the Neptune images! Very nice!

[PiotrM]

If there is Uranus - maybe you will try catching it rings?

[Eltanin]

Nice idea from PiotrM!

Such amazing equipment, location and team!

Thanks for sharing (and making everyone of us jealous)!     

[AstroEthan]

Amazing images indeed  ! I wish I could access big toys like that from here.

 

Is the Uranus animation is inverted horizontally?

[R Botero]

Vive le Pic indeed! This is superb imagery for the gas giants.
Roberto

[Marc Delcroix]

Thanks for posting, very impressive.  In particular I liked the outdoor picture of the Observatory and clouds... 

Al

Did you notice that strange shadow on the left side of the cupola ? That's Pic du Midi's own shadow ...

[Marc Delcroix]

Fantastic!  Thanks so much for showing us this work.  Never thought Neptune could be this exciting!  Inspiring.

 

Glenn

 

PS: Marc, you might consider asking Christophe if he has considered deconvolving the non ADC images with a theoretical spread function.

Thanks Glenn for the idea, but we just used "out of the box" function of our favorite processing softwares ...

[CPellier]

Thanks all, it has been a great mission, as anyone can see Neptune is indeed a particularily active and exciting planet - each time we turned to it, there were spots!

 

 

If there is Uranus - maybe you will try catching it rings?

We did not tried but Jean-Luc Dauvergne succeeded three years ago:

 

[Kokatha man]

Thanks all, it has been a great mission, as anyone can see Neptune is indeed a particularily active and exciting planet - each time we turned to it, there were spots!

Well done fellas..!         

You stole something I was going to say when I post our latest images sometime soon Christophe...Neptune is "lighting up" for sure!

Edited by Kokatha man, 18 August 2016 - 02:49 AM.

[Marc Delcroix]

Amazing images indeed  ! I wish I could access big toys like that from here.

 

Is the Uranus animation is inverted horizontally?

Indeed Ethan, it's always tricky with the 1m telescope at Nasmyth focal point, with 3 mirror there is one inversion. And if you do image derotation and specify it, you end up with a correct oriented image, but not for video derotation ...

[Marc Delcroix]

If there is Uranus - maybe you will try catching it rings?

Hi Piotr,

 

Done already by Jean-Luc Dauvergne 3y ago:

But I will try it myself as well, I just had not enough time during that mission ...