Brian & his  Pride & Joy (sort of speak)

Brian newest image... Comet Machholz  & M45  Jan 8, 2005
8/24/03 from B.K.
Good morning Earthlings,
   Here is the latest Mars image. As you can tell, I switched to a web cam
instead of my digital slr. I think it gives me a much better image. This was
taken at 1:30 mdt this morning. 300 images stacked and process in K3CCD
Tools, Registax and PS6.

Comments from Jim S.
Nice Brian!
     That's getting durn close to a good naked eye view! Can't do that with
a film camera, that's for sure. [Ripping film out of camera and pitching
said object against tree.]
     Solis Lacus sticks out like a sore thumb. It's VERY interesting to note
the brightening in the area of Nix Olympica (Olympus Mons)  in Arcadia
(bottomcenter). The bamboo must not grow on those high slopes.  ;)
     Is the bluish haze on the western limb (lower right side) an artifact
of processed chromatic abberation, or a real shot of Martian atmospheric
haze? Hmmmm....  It's near the sunset terminator which makes it doubtful.
Must just be the brightening of Elysium coming around the limb. Note that
the bright area of Chryse is bluish too.  You might want to subtract a
little blue from the picture...
     Keep up the good work Amigo! You're putting us all to shame!  :)

 Have you been checking out MARS? It's going to get 'huge'.
From BK: Date: Sun, 22 Jun 2003 16:14:17 -0600    Here is a compilation of
20 images of Mars, taken with the D30. Stacked and processed in Registax.

Some recent images of the Red Planet
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  Some very nice images that Brian has taken recently June,July/2003.

Some Info on the equipment:
From BK: Date: Mon, 16 Jun 2003 16:51:49 -0600
OK...Technical Data.
    The shot was taken from my backyard here in Longmont. The scope is a RCOS 12.5" f9
Ritchey working at f6.75 with an AP focal reducer. The camera is the ST2000XM from SBIG.
2 mega pixel chip with 7.4 micron pixels. It's a 25% QE camera, stands for Quantum Efficiency.
   The image was nine 10 minute sub frames totaling 90 minutes. Guided through the same scope
with the onboard chip. The images were stacked, dark and flat field subtracted. DDP was used
in MaximDL to show detail in the core. Then in PS for curves adjusting.
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M13 I would like to put these up full size, but some of them are 1600x1200!!  I hope
these will do justice to Brians' work.
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M51 you can even see some 14+ mag galaxies in this one!!
From BK: Date: Mon, 30 Jun 2003 18:46:18 -0600
  Hi everyone,   Imaged M13 this morning. Getting the system figured out a little more.
Still having problems with Dec Backlash.    Full res is 1600x1200. 2x2 binned is 800x600.
I shot full res on star clusters and luminance stuff. And shot 2x2 for color in LRGB images.
Red-40 minutes   Green-30 minutes   Blue-20 minutes   10-minute sub frames
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Very nice color image of M3, you could do photometery with this image
From BK: Date: Fri, 20 Jun 2003 17:43:51 -0600
   Last nights attempt of M3 with 40 minutes red, 30 minutes green and 30 minutes blue.
The clouds hosed my blue so here is the red, green in mono.
              Date: Sun, 22 Jun 2003 16:55:29 -0600
   Finished the color for M3 last night. Turned out to be 40 min red, 30 min green and
only 10 minutes blue. Blue was really hard. Only was able to use one out of six images
for the blue. The only thing I can think of is that my guide star was not easily visable
with a blue filter. Anyway, was able to salvage.
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Look how small the nucleus is on M101, that is some good tracking & excellent resolution!
From BK: Date: Sun, 22 Jun 2003 15:36:50 -0600
   Here is a two hour shot of M101. This is the color shot.
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   I have the S&T poster of the HST image of the Heavens' Pillars & Brians' image here
looks very close to the same quality of the the companion photo of M16 from the
Angelo-Australian Observatory!                 Way to go Brian!!
From BK: Date: Fri, 11 Jul 2003 10:22:54 -0600
   Here is a beginner shot of M16. Taken with the tracking problem. Kevin Brose found the
problem for me and it should be fixed next week. This is a LRGB image taken two weeks ago.
     Luminance-60 minutes         Red-30 minutes     Green-30 minutes      Blue-10 minutes
  The Blue images suffered from the tracking so I could only selvage one of them.  Ordered
a new gear for the mount. Hope that fixes my problem. I'm looking to do more imaging soon.
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