Seeing Uranus - Two Nights of Celestial Wonders

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Andy Resnick
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Sorry for the title, I just can't help myself :)

Anyhow, here's shots from 2 consecutive nights- you can even see 3 moons, probably Titania, Oberon, and Ariel:

DSC_6673_crop_zpsltmnkebl.jpg

(10/10/16 at 11pm)

DSC_6696_crop_zpsi1e6rlf3.jpg

(10/11/16 at 10:40 pm)

Deets: 800/5.6, 8", ISO 2000. Non-bleached images (not shown) were taken at 1", ISO 100.
 
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Wooo! That's how I felt many years ago when I built a 6" Newtonian and first saw the rings of Saturn.

This may be ignorance on my part: why do some background objects (in the "plane" of what I take to be the moons) suddenly appear at 11pm? I assume exposure time...
 
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jim mcnamara said:
Wooo! That's how I felt many years ago when I built a 6" Newtonian and first saw the rings of Saturn.

This may be ignorance on my part: why do some background objects (in the "plane" of what I take to be the moons) suddenly appear at 11pm? I assume exposure time...

If I am looking at the same dots, those are stars- you can barely see them in the other image. I tweaked both images before posting, one was originally a jpg and the other originally raw, so there's some nonuniformity there.
 
jim mcnamara said:
Wooo! That's how I felt many years ago when I built a 6" Newtonian and first saw the rings of Saturn.

This may be ignorance on my part: why do some background objects (in the "plane" of what I take to be the moons) suddenly appear at 11pm? I assume exposure time...
you know i think i geeked out for almost a week each for Jupiter and saturn throw my little 4.5 in
 
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Andy Resnick said:
Sorry for the title, I just can't help myself :)

Anyhow, here's shots from 2 consecutive nights- you can even see 3 moons, probably Titania, Oberon, and Ariel:

great shots, Andy :smile: pity that the longer exposing to bring out the moons has caused the loss of the nice blue/green colour of the planet

It was only around 4-5 yrs ago that I saw Uranus for the first time through my own scope
The only other time was around 25 yrs ago through my mates scope, back in New Zealand

I really have to try and add Neptune to the collection one dayDave
 
davenn said:
great shots, Andy :smile: pity that the longer exposing to bring out the moons has caused the loss of the nice blue/green colour of the planet

It was only around 4-5 yrs ago that I saw Uranus for the first time through my own scope
The only other time was around 25 yrs ago through my mates scope, back in New Zealand

I really have to try and add Neptune to the collection one dayDave

Thanks- I have some properly exposed shots of the planet (it really is a nice blue-green), but there's not enough space to cut-n-paste it in without blotting out one of the moons. Neptune is also on my to-do list, and maybe Pluto...

Edit- hey! Neptune is very close to Uranus right now... tonight it's cloudy and Neptune is almost directly next to the moon, but within a week (so the moon is a bit away) it should be 'easy' to locate. Stay tuned...
 
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Andy Resnick said:
Sorry for the title, I just can't help myself :)
This helpful hint from, http://nineplanets.org/uranus.html :wink: (Nice shots by the way)
Careful pronunciation may be necessary to avoid embarrassment; say "YOOR a nus" , not "your anus" or "urine us".
 
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Andy Resnick said:
Sorry for the title, I just can't help myself :)

Anyhow, here's shots from 2 consecutive nights- you can even see 3 moons, probably Titania, Oberon, and Ariel:

Deets: 800/5.6, 8", ISO 2000. Non-bleached images (not shown) were taken at 1", ISO 100.
Nice work, but I'm not quite understanding your setup: were those single shots from a DSLR and telephoto lens? Or a telescope? Must have been on an equatorial/motorized mount, right...?
 
russ_watters said:
Nice work, but I'm not quite understanding your setup: were those single shots from a DSLR and telephoto lens? Or a telescope? Must have been on an equatorial/motorized mount, right...?

yes, cropped single shots with a DSLR and telephoto lens. The lens has a tripod mounting foot that I attach to an equatorial mount.
 
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davenn said:
great shots, Andy :smile: pity that the longer exposing to bring out the moons has caused the loss of the nice blue/green colour of the planet

Here's the composite, I left the bright star in the crop:
DSC_6696-1_zpsuyno9pan.jpg
 
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Andy Resnick said:
probably Titania, Oberon, and Ariel

Why those three? In particular, why Ariel? Miranda too close and Umbriel too dark?

Oh and...hehehe...he said "Uranus!" (couldn't resist either)
 
Andy Resnick said:
yes, cropped single shots with a DSLR and telephoto lens. The lens has a tripod mounting foot that I attach to an equatorial mount.
Impressive.
 
Vanadium 50 said:
Why those three? In particular, why Ariel? Miranda too close and Umbriel too dark?

Those three moons are the brightest, is all. I have no idea which moons they really are.