Technical Card
Date:	Oct. 4, 2022
Location:	Cookeville, TN
Telescopes:	Celestron C11
Focal Length:	2800 mm
Aperture:	279 mm
Additional Lens:	Celestron Barlow (x2)
Mount:	Celestron CGX-L
Camera:	ZWO ASI 224MC
Software:	ASICap, SiriL

Fall 2022 - Planetary Imaging

This semester one of the class projects was to image Jupiter, Saturn, and the Moon. Compared to most deep sky objects, planetary bodies like these are so bright that long exposures are not needed to gather enough light to see them. However, even over a few seconds, turbulence in the atmosphere can blur such images quite severely. Because of this, a different technique called 'lucky imaging' is used. This involves recording a video of what is seen through the telescope, with each short frame of the video acting as a separate image. Over the course a few minutes, many thousands of such frames can be recorded and the odds are that at least some of these will be minimally affected (hence the term 'lucky' imaging). Processing software then selects the clearest of all the recorded frames and these are then stacked together and processed to bring out the desired features

Click on the thumbnails below to see larger versions of the final images that were created from our lucky imaging session. (All students in the class collaborated in recording the videos from which these images were created. Individual attributions refer only to post-processing.)

Lunar Images

North pole area the Moon in a waxing gibbous phase. The two prominent craters to the lower right are Aristoteles and Eudoxus. Above and to the left of these is the Mare Frigoris (Sea of Cold).

North pole area of waxing gibbous Moon.
(Rachel Stratton)

A close-up of part of Mare Nubium (Sea of Clouds) in the southeast quadrant of the Moon. The large crater is Bullialdus and above that is the lava-flooded crater Lubiniezky

Craters in the Mare Nubium (Sea of Clouds)
(Emma Mitchell)

Planetary Images

Saturn, with its majestic ring system. Cloud bands in the upper atmosphere of the planet itself can be seen, as well as the Cassini Division in the ring system.

Saturn
(Rebecca Firth)

Various cloud bands in the planet's upper atmosphere can be seen. Unforunately the famous 'red spot' was not visible on the evening these images were taken.

Jupiter
(Emma Mitchell / Rebecca Firth)

Jupiter itself is so bright that it must be overexposed in order to be able to pick out its major moons, three of which are laid out nicely in a line here.

Moons of Jupiter
(HB Ford)

Technical Card

Fall 2022 - Planetary Imaging

Lunar Images

Planetary Images