Österlen Observatory

Observations

Daytime planets – September 2010
Below is a video – a video observing report if you will – detailing an observing episode with the 14″ telescope on the 29 Sept 2010 imaging the inner planets Mercury and Venus – in broad bright daylight. Looking at a planet, other than the one under our feet, during the day may seem strange but in fact some of the best observations of Mercury and Venus have been made during the full daylight hours. The video shows the whole process from target pick-up to imaging with a DMK camera to final processing.  A word of warning: looking for planets near the Sun is dangerous and risks serious damage to your eyesight – unless you are 100% sure you know what you are doing,  don’t attempt it.  The software used in this presentation, Registax and Stellarium, are both available free on the internet – just search Google and click away!

Jupiter – September 2010
The animation shows the GRS (Great Red Spot) emerging on to Jupiter’s disk at the ten o’clock position. The GRS has been noted by observers to be unusually prominent since Jupiter emerged from behind the sun earlier this year owing to the almost totally absent SE band that the GRS is normally embedded in. To see the animation click on the image.

Jupiter shown over a four hour period (from 12:31am 21-09-2010) showing great red spot emerging on to disk

Solar viewing – June 2010
Observing the Sun at the Österlen Observatory.

The following video was recorded on 30th June 2010 (Coronado SolarMax SM40 Ha filter system fitted to a Revelation Astro 66mm APO refractor).

Binary solar telescope system to observe in white light and Ha

Safe solar observation is provided by a binary white light and Hydrogen Alpha (Ha) narrowband telescope system comprising a Williams Optics Zenithstar SD 66mm f5.9 APO and a Revelation Astro 66mm f6 APO. The Zenithstar is equipped with a Astro Engineering SolVu white light solar filter and has a non-standard shortened barrel bringing the objective lens 100mm nearer the focusor to accommodate the additional inward focus latitude required for a binocular head eyepiece holder. The Revelation 66mm is fitted with Coronado SM40 and BF10 Ha filter system. The telescopes share a Astro Engineering tandem mounting bar and the combined system is mounted on a Meade LXD75 German equatorial mount on a Berebach EQ-5 wooden tripod.

Observing the sun in white light and Ha

The above picture shows Maria and friends Jeanette and Pontus observing the sun on Saturday 31 July 2010.  In white light a single large sunspot was seen towards the centre of the solar disk. A small dark spot was observed in the penumbra. In Ha a wealth of detail was seen but the observing session was interrupted by clouds.