Jupiter, Mars & M51 from HST data.

Jupiter from 1995:-




The image of M51 is from a 1.2GB FITS file :-o

(C) Hubble Legacy Archive

More data... HST this time.

The 'Space Telescope Science Institute' has released the fourth major data release (DR4) for the Hubble Legacy Archive (HLA) and it is now available here.
I found the seperate RGB FITS files for this image of M82 here.
Beware! they are rather large files, 589MB each, so you'll need a fairly fast internet connection.
I converted the FITS files in CS4 using the FITS Liberator plugin for Photoshop provided by ESA, and then reduced their size, they're huge!
I then copied them into an RGB file and just tweaked a few settings like 'shadows and highlights' and levels to bring out the details.

Here's my feeble attempt using my equipment.

Long boulder track.

Found this boulder track today from the LROC data in a crater called Romer, which is situated in the Montes Taurus region.
It went across the entire width of the image strip M108998322LC.
They'll have to image more of the area for me to find the start and the end of it!

LROC

Strange linear cloud lines in the sky tonight.

Not quite sure what caused these, they did look odd though.
The nearest that I could find on the web was this.


The UK IR picture didn't show much detail.

Copernicus central peak - LROC data.

My image below; the above peak is on the right of the central peaks.

LROC data now on-line.

If you're a Moon nut like me, or just like like looking at rocks, go to the LROC map below. Where there is 10 Terabytes (that is 10 million Megabytes!) of camera data to sift through. The first formal release of orbiter data.
That got me thinking, I've got over 4 Terabytes of data myself from the stuff I've been doing over the years!!

The Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter Camera (LROC) map site.

Below is an extract from image: EDR: LRO-L-LROC-2-EDR-V1.0/M111661378RE CDR: LRO-L-LROC-3-CDR-V1.0/M111661378RC, (just rolls off the tongue) showing one of the slopes of Tycho's central peak.

Tips on using the image browser; Click 'Toggle Layers' (blue panel) and select 'LROC NACs' selection boxes.Select 'Lunar Orbiter Mosaic' radio button then 'Update Layers' button.

Select on right-hand pane the 'Recenter & Zoom' radio button.

When you zoom in enough, you will see red rectangle boxes. Click inside one of the boxes to select the area. An image thumbnail will appear below. Click on the thunbnail and zoom away!

Simples... apart from the fact that you need a high speed internet link, which I have - 50Mb - hehe

M81 & M82 - 7th & 15th March data combined.

Zoomed in on the main characters.

M106 and others from 15th March 2010.

Wide-field of the galaxy M106 in constellation Canes Venatici.
It's interesting to see how many other galaxies there are in this region.

Below is a CGI image taken from "THE SKY6 PRO" of the same area, minus the stars to show the galaxies. Every dot/smudge BTW is a galaxy.

Avatar

We went to see Avatar the other week, great film. If you're going, make sure you see it in 3D though. The 3D effect is not a gimmick and is really rather good.

There's a scene where they land in the jungle and explore the area, the fauna and animals are so well done. You don't know what's real and what isn't. I like the insects and flies, they seemed to be buzzing around right in front of your eyes. It's like the cinema has an infestation.

Quick... sunspot.

K-line filter, SKYnyx and Takahashi.

Lets talk about SIZE.

M31 re-processed from October.

Learning to process all the time, some people say that it's 25% imaging and 75% processing with deepsky stuff, I think that's about right. I'm learning how to do things different all the time!

This has 3Hours and 40mins worth of data.
Takahashi Sky-90, Takahashi F/4.5 Reducer, Canon EOS 50D, DSS, CS4, Noels tools and a Star removing action.

Here's the comparison.

And below is a "Starless" version (minus the stars from our own galaxy).

OT: 'nuff said! (click the 1 million dot below)

.

Amazing Mars video.

This is an animation flying over southwest Candor Chasma on Mars. It was created from NASA's HiRISE DTM and image data by Adrian Lark.

Credit: Adrian Lark

M81 & M82 7th March 2010

Widefield view taken with my Takahashi. NGC 2976 & NGC 3077 are also in the frame, bottom and top right.

Yet another version below of M81 taken the other night (prime focus C9.25), with better gradient removal.
Tip; the background black should never be 0 in ANY of the RGB channels in Phototshop or whatever you use. See below.

RGB Info box.

First Saturn of 2010

M81

Been messing with M81 tonight, here's a couple of version, 1hour 20mins worth @ ISO800 using the C9.25.


... and another version.

Regulus and Leo 1

This is a tricky one to shoot and process, Leo 1 can be seen as the light grey splodge just to the left of Regulus the middle star. You almost have to use some averted vision :-)
It needed another hour or so of data... but it was really cold last night!

Thanks to Greg Parker for the idea.

Below is a single shot that I didn't use due to the obvious. As you can see there is not a hint of Leo 1.

Mars 2nd March 2010

Mars is shrinking!
Misty tonight, not very good seeing either.
This is an IR, synth green, blue RGB, if you can figure that one out!