Setting the equipment
Filters for Uranus explained by spectroscopy
To image details on Uranus, amateurs are using red and/or infrared filters. Spectroscopy is a nice tool to describle the actual effects of those filters…
Author Christophe Pellier
Christophe Pellier
Hi everyone ! I have created this new blog to share more easily my comments about the world of planetary astronomy. Even if I'm already an experienced observer, there are always things to learn and products or techniques to test and I hope to share this here. I will also post informations about the events I'm attending regularly and other stuff. Planetary astronomy today is becoming again a dynamical domain of observation so let's improve and share our passion !
Observations and images
Full spectrum of Uranus commented
Spectroscopy is a powerful technique to analyse and understand the celestial objects. It provides us with information about their chemical composition, the quantity of emitted light… Here is a low resolution spectrum of Uranus, commented for pedagogy.
Image processing and softwares
Planetary imaging with an altazimuth Dobsonian
No need of an equatorial plateform anymore!
Setting the equipment
Which IR filter is best to image planets?
There are many IR-pass filters on the market. Here is a short guide to help you pick one… or several of them!
Image processing and softwares
The animation technic reveals new details on gas giants
When it comes to reveal details on planetary disks, we mainly deal with image processing technics. But in this article I will describe how interesting can be another technic that it is the animation of still images to make planetary globles rotate. I have re-discovered this (by the way not…
Planetology
The three states of the Martian dust storm
One of the biggest dust storms ever observed developped on Mars last summer. This article briefly describes the three states of the dusty martian atmosphere and how they can be identified on images: active storm, decay phase, clear atmosphere.
Observations and images
Second mission at the 1 meter telescope of the Pic du Midi
From August 6th to 9th, 2016, I went back to the Pic du Midi Observatory for a second planetary mission with the 1 meter telescope. It has been a great success especially with Neptune storms imaging!
Setting the equipment
The atmospheric dispersion corrector with the ASI224MC
After the IR-cut article of last time, here is another unavoidable accessory with this color cam (…and every other!): the atmospheric dispersion corrector, or ADC.
Setting the equipment
Why you should use an IR-cut filter with a color camera
After dealing with the sampling of the ASI224MC, here is a second article that talks about an essential accessory: the IR-cut filter.
Pro/Am cooperation in planetary astronomy
The JUNO workshop in Nice, May 12th-13th 2016
Getting ready for the arrival of the JUNO spacecraft in orbit around Jupiter, a workshop was held this month in Nice, France, around scientists and amateurs from various countries in the world. High quality informations now available for everyone!