ADASTRAgrl
Alexandria, VA

ADASTRAgrl's

Jupiter & M44

Camera Setup and Processing

camera: Canon EOS D30, prime focus
film: none, digital (equiv. ISO 800)
exposure: 1 @ 0.5sec, 10 @ 1sec, 15 @ 2sec each (26 pics)
processed with ImagesPlus 1.69

Telescope Setup

date: 27 March 2003
location: UM Observatory, College Park, MD
telescope: AP 152mm f/9 with f/6.3 focal reducer

comments: In order to get Jupiter and M44 into the same frame I had to use the focal reducer on the telescope. That just barely got the two in the frame. I then pretty much did the same processing as I did for the M35 shot (convert to tif, align, combine). I did do some digital development on the set of combined images and again, the best of the bunch is above.

I got alot of practice with the alignment process... There's a pair of stars (bottom center in image) that look like they have ghosts to the left... I thought I had done something wrong in the alignment causing those echos... after going throught the process three times and using different stars for the alignment, I decided to check SNP and sure enough, those are real stars! They don't show up in the original 'raw' frames.

Below is a single original image and below it the approximate field of view from SNP4.







M44...

...is an example of an Open Cluster. It is also called the 'Beehive' and is located in Cancer. Jupiter happens to be passing nearby (great photo op!) during March 2003. Remember, Jupiter is a planet and it is moving around the sun so it is not always in the same part of the sky! You can watch Jupiter as it 'wanders' against the background stars between April - August 2003 as Jupiter moves away from Cancer towards Regulus in Leo!

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Last Updated:  Monday January 14, 2008 by Elizabeth Warner

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