Rima Hyginus (again)

Another attempt on 11/15/2018...

Best 350 out of 5000.   C11, 2.5x barlow, ASI 174 camera.

I think this shows a little more detail than my previous post of this area.  Technically, the big difference is that I'm shooting through a 2.5x barlow and stacking more frames.   Also, though you can't really tell, I shot with much more exposure time.  There are areas to the right (which have been cropped out) that are completely blown out due to overexposure.  

Alpine Valley Rille

Barely, barely caught the rille which is the faint line in the floor of the valley.   Not the best shot but this is the 4th attempt to shoot this rille.

Best 250 frames out of 5000.   Data captured on 11/15/18.   C11, 2.5x barlow, ASI 174 camera.

(*Interesting processing note:  I tried several times to bring it into Registax to sharpen via "wavelets", but it would create a muddy picture that made it look like there were multiple rilles in the Valley.   I finally took the unsharpened master from Autostakkert and took it DIRECTLY into Photoshop.   Here's the surprise:  Sharpening in the Camera Raw filter environment duplicated the funny results from Registax wavelets;  however, doing a basic UNSHARP MASK worked way better in bringing out detail without introducing strange artifacts!   Victory for UNSHARP MASK!!!)

Petavius Rille

Petavius Crater is pretty large at approx. 177 km wide.   As a point of comparison, the often observed Plato Crater is 109 km.   The prominent rille is estimated at 80 km long and it seems to rise up to the top of the crater wall.   My rough guess is that the rille is about 3-4 km wide, which is about 2-3 miles wide.

(As another point of comparison, Gassendi Crater is 110 km and Lacus Mortis is 150 km wide.)

Data was captured 10/26/18 at approx. 1:22 am local time.  16.5 day old moon.  C11, ASI 174mm camera, 610nm filter, flats used.   This is about 400 frames out of 6000.

Lacus Mortis (Lake of Death)

Shot on 10/29/2018.   The conditions were challenging as there were high cirrus clouds moving across the moon.  Made for a very moody image, but poor seeing.  Same technical info as previous shot with the C11, ASI 174mm camera, 2.5x barlow, captured in SharpCap Pro.   About 1000 frames stacked (out of 5k).

The main rille here is Rima Bürg running from left to right.   The secondary rille almost runs perpendicular to it.   There are various small rille in the upper half of the "lake".

No one online seems to know why it's called the Lake of Death.   To me, in this phase (19.7 days old), this area seems quite spooky.   On the left part of the lake, the two relatively straight walls seem to suggest an overall hexagonal shape.  Also, there are 3 scratch marks to the right entering into the shadows -- like the scratch marks of an evil beast.   :)

Rimae Between Gassendi and Mersenius Craters

 

Best 330 frames out of a 1000 through C11.   Camera was ASI174 with TV 2.5x barlow.   Flats were taken because the barlow had numerous tiny scratches and dust in the glass elements.    Sharpcap Pro capture software allowed a "live" dark to be taken.

Shot on 10/20/2018.    Moon was 10.4 days old.

Stacked with Autostakkert (ver 3.0.14), used wavelets in Registax and final enhancements in Photoshop.

The top crater is Gassendi and the largish crater in partial shadow to the left is Mersenius.  The mare is Humorum.

(Note to self:  Set alignpoints (AP) in Autostakkert manually.   Use approx. 300 points.   The default alignpoints resulted in vertical/horizontal line artifacts near bright features.)

Big Jagged Lines = BAD

Here's what it looked like yesterday:

Here's what it looked like earlier this evening:

😟

Later it gets better...

 

Here's BackyardEOS showing the Angelfish frames coming down:

 

Misc Notes on Wind and Approaching Comet

Shooting Angelfish Nebula.    Very windy conditions.   Seeing is horrible and guiding is bad.   Straight up Mirfak is twinkling and blinking at times.

Not much to report but general misery.

Took about 20 minutes of 46P/Wirtanen earlier and the guiding was down in the 4 arc second range.   Stars seemed out of focus even though bahtinov mask was used.   Oh well.

46P/Wirtanen presents as dim and green.   Little to no tail visible.   I'm thinking this will be one of the those fat, wide comets when it's near earth in December.

My super general guess is still mag 9 - 10 right now.

Still need to make a wooden makeshift laptop box for this windy weather.

Flagstaff Star Party 2018

I was a telescope host at this year's Flagstaff Star Party.   There was a professional photographer, Abe Snider, who was covering the event.   He happened to snap this cool pic of me at the scope.

Abe's impressive landscape work can be seen here.

Tracking Problem: Horrible Right-Ascension Errors

So if you find an RA error where the RA line in PHD2 never reaches the middle, that can mean that polar alignment is really bad.   OR......

It can mean some idiot left the tracking speed on "Lunar" on the hand controller.  

I couldn't find the emoji for the head slap.