Video transcript of the meeting

Presentations and Discussions

  • Mars and the Moon – David Lee
  • Colour Filters for lunar observing – Randy Enkin
  • Yellow Filters and how human sight works for lunar observing, then seeing colour when observing nebula – Dorothy Paul
  • Space Educator’s Institute -3-day online conference – Lauri Roche & David Lee
  • Perseid meteor shower and other observing hints – Chris Purse
  • Discord chat service being used by RASC National for Perseids observing group – Bill Weir

A Medley of Lunar Images by many RASCals

Edmonton RASCal Alister Ling recorded a wonderful Coho Salmon Moonrise time lapse on August 3rd-4th. Enjoy the YouTube video here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=28&v=jC8eZOwmEnk&feature=emb_logo

Victoria RASCal Mike Nash captured 70% Waning Moon on August 9th. Check out the following link: https://www.astrobin.com/rbewkl/0/?real=&nc=WestCoastCannuck If you Zoom in you can glimpse Hadley Rille.

David Lee captured the conjunction of the Moon and Mars on August 8th together with a wonderful foreground shot taken from Rithet Bog.

Some Great Planetary Detail

On August 4th Edmonton RASCal Arnold Rivera captured martian suface details. Arnold writes: I managed to observe and image Mars this morning starting at around 6:00 am from north Edmonton. Seeing conditions at the time were above average and the surfacefeatures on Mars included the dark prominent area of Syrtis Major on the north hemisphere and the rapidly shrinking south polar cap:
Equipment and details: Celestron CPC1100 (in alt-az mode)
Camera: ZWO ASI120MC-S 9.7ms, 2500 frames, processed in Registax
John McDonald captures Jupiter, this time in fairly good seeing shows fair detail. Date 08-08-2020. 8″ Edge SCT on AVX mount. ZWO ASI120MM-S camera with filter wheel and TV Powermate barlow to give focal ration f/25. Captured 1000 frames in R,G and B filters. Stacked best 45% in Astrostakkert. Post processing in Images Plus and Photoshop.
John McDonald writes: My best image of Saturn to date. I had fairly good seeing as the image shows. Date 08-08-2020. 8″ Edge SCT on AVX mount. ZWO ASI120MM-S camera with filter wheel and TV Powermate barlow to give focal ration f/25. Captured 1000 frames in R,G and B filters. Stacked best 45% in Astrostakkert. Post processing in Images Plus and Photoshop.

Lucky Imaging of Planets and the Moon

If you want to learn how to capture wonderful images like the above perhaps you should attend the following webinar!

Tuesday, August 11th – 7:00pm ADT / 6:00pm EDT / 3:00PM PDT
Nova East 2020 – Lucky Imaging: Astrophotography of the Moon and Planets
Lucky imaging is a technique used to capture high resolution images of the Moon and planets. It involves taking as many images as possible, often several thousand, with a high-speed “video” camera and using specialized software to identify and stack only the sharpest images. The talk, presented by David Hoskin, will cover the equipment, software and processing workflow used in lucky imaging.

Click the following to register: https://zoom.us/meeting/register/tJcvd-isqDopGNaC-bUKGBgFgl2NkMkVl4hv

Noctilucent Hummingbirds from Edmonton

Edmonton RASCal Mark Zalik – captured this remarkable sequence on August 4th which closely resembles hummingbirds. All Edmonton content kindly relayed by Dave Robinson.
Mark writes:
Wonderful NLC display tonight! Nice arrays of billows formed way down near the horizon, where the twilight imparted a beautiful cinnamon colour on the NLC. A bit earlier in the display, the clouds formed an ethereal hummingbird.

Observing

Astronomy Cafe -August 10, 2020
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