recorded Jupiter (Blue Mountains)

9:23 PM, Friday 11 October 2013. Jim activated the new NSN account for me. When I was unable to access the old account, I immediately assumed it was shutdown for inactivity. And, on that premise, made a new account.

9:35 PM. I sent out a note to the Yahoo!Group telling RASC Toronto Centre members to stay tuned...

10:15. Dietmar asked if I was broadcasting. Not yet. He suggested I could park on a cluster; give people something to look at. Started setting up for the Jupiter event. Moved the MallinCam to the C14 telescope after removing the eyepiece and mirror diagonal. Bill helped as I tried to sort out video issues. Installed the long S-video cable. Connected the RS-485 control cable. Figured out the active serial port. Nothing was showing on the video input of the AVerMedia software. Source was OK. Removed and reinserted the PCMCIA card. Closed all the apps and relaunched. No joy.

10:48. Rebooted the laptop. Again. Saw hot pixels. Bill saw them too. OK. Moving on.

Turned on the cooler. Checked the integration settings. Focused using Aldebaran. Again Bill helped. He thought the seeing was... not good. Like we were under water. Recorded it for a moment, a example of bad seeing. Then slewed to Neptune. Alignment off a bit.

Warned people to watch their step in the observatory. Loose cables between the control computer and the mount... Bob asked if there was anything to look at. Nope. Sorry. Not yet.

I slewed to M33 to have something to look at. But I couldn't see it. And since the go-to pointing was off a little, I had no idea where to shift to. Couldn't see anything. Frustrating.

11:28. Bill said he was freezing. Temperature had continued to drop. Had his wind pants on now. Toque. With BS Protectors. And was considering breaking out the Amarula. Bull! He was imaging The Bubble. Thought the seeing was poor... Said Orion was up.

Dietmar checked in. I was experiencing two issues. The camera was not responding correctly. The text display was working, changing, so I knew I was getting a signal from the camera to the computer. Dietmar rebooted the camera for me. Yeh. It started working.

Also, the Google Hangouts didn't seem to be working right. I could not get back in like before. It was not using the video feed from the camera. I wondered, now that I had the NSN account up, if I should switch to it...

Jupiter was still below the horizon. 1 degree below.

12:06 AM, Saturday 12 October 2013. Bill reported that Betelgeuse and "one of the belt stars" (Mintaka) was up. I was getting really frustrated. Finally, I hard booted everything.

Used the Pleiades for testing.

I manually nudged the mount as Bill watched the view. Then I used the software controls to fine tune the position. Then lost it. Frig! Grabbed the joystick. Hit centre quickly. Meanwhile Katrina joined the Google event. I could hear her typing.

12:09 AM. Asked her to check the URL.

Started playing with the settings in the MallinCam Camera Control software to try to improve the image. It looked like the gain was on.

Invited Nicole to the Google Hangout chat. We talked live through the microphone and speakers until the weird feedback became very distracting. Shut my mic off.

Bill reported taking his first image of the Great Orion Nebula for the year. With a tree stuck in the middle of it.

Felt like the gain was on despite the settings in the software. Dietmar checked if Jupiter was over the hill and trees. He spotted it between the trees.

Phil helped Millie again. Finally got it sorted. Millie was very happy.

Sal said his time lapse panning was working. He and Dietmar chatted about position of the camera, image formats, memory cards, etc.

12:38 AM, Saturday 12 October 2013. Jupiter was up! Visible through the tree branches. 8° up. 38.9 arc-seconds. Magnitude -1.84 extincted to -0.53. According to software, the three shadows were "in progress." I slewed to it.

Jupiter was completely blown out. Asked Dietmar to grab the Quick Reference sheet from the box. I tried to adjust for the recommended settings. Spotted a moon. Turning off the gain. Set to Exposure Control to ALC. Tried 12000, the fastest shutter. Still blown out. BLC off. AGC off. Dropped the Gamma. Set the gain to manual. Focused again with Dietmar watching.

Wanted to close the roof a bit. But it was jammed again! Crap. No tools around. Finally got it going.

Dietmar took to the focuser. We got it a bit better. I turned the camera for better framing. Sal spotted me. Refocused.

Bill said Jupiter looked awful in his 'scope.

Went through all the settings again.

Eric chimed in. Saw the image refreshing. He wondered if I was using a high sense value. I continued to try different settings. I could not seem to control the gain...

Tony popped in. "Yours is bigger than my Jupiter," he said. Yeah: 3.9 metres... He wasn't seeing any shadows despite staring for a long time. Yet. Too many atmospheres.

Stopped getting video. Rebooted the camera.

Sharmin joined in the Google Hangout. Complained, "I don't see anything." She was at the Bayview location. Reported I was having technical problems and I was considering hard booting the laptop. Shared that we were not seeing anything visually.

No options. Hard booted.

I took a look through the Tele Vue and could see one of the shadows. Millie thought she could see two.

Nudged the mount.

Wind was shaking the 'scope. Damn. Took the dew shield off. Put the south wall flaps up. Phil's Dob would shift as soon as he'd let go.

Elaine and Tony popped into the warm room. Tony thought their view was like mine. But they headed to their dome to try some shots.

Sharmin reported they had spotted all three. Eric said the Callisto shadow, according to Starry Night, was sliding off. He was wondering if anyone could see the Great Red Spot. Doug and Keven were online also.

1:45 AM. I shared that the C14 oscillates sometimes when the wind speed over 15 km/h. We were seeing a 10 minutes average of 24 with a peak of 35. I was disappointed with the conditions. But it was a fun experiment trying the Google system. That seemed to work well. Might work well for the prospective "Night at the Observatory" broadcast idea. Brenda confirmed the shadow times, referring to my blog entry. Callisto's shadow would go for another couple of minutes, until 1:50.

Bill could see shadows in his 80mm.

Doug and I played with the Google Hangout settings. Sharing features.

I shut down the video feedback. The system said that the recording would be uploaded to the YouTube channel. Cool. Maybe I'd be able to pull some good frames.

Tony and Elaine came in. Tony said, "That's the best view I've seen." They had shut down their rig. I tore down the MallinCam.

Wind: 42 gusting; 27 average. Increasing. Closed the roof a bit more.

Thanked Elaine for the cheesecake. Triple chocolate! With fruit! Good for ya. Woke me up.

2:30. I reviewed my blog timings again. We wondered if we were seeing one of the moons in front of the planet, along with the shadow. Sal enjoyed the view.

We chatted about SkyTools. My upcoming presentation to the NYAA...

2:35. Ten minutes of shadow left. That was Elaine's first shadow transit; Tony's second.

Bill confirmed they had seen three shadows at Bayview. He said it was a long walk from the parking lot.

2:52. Elaine and Tony headed off to bed. They had a early start tomorrow. Turned on the ceramic heater.

2:53. Checked the local weather conditions. As of 2:37, 10 minute average wind speed 25.7, current 22.0, peak 40.2, humidity 46, barometer 1019.1 and falling, temperature 15.9, wind chill 12.7, dew point 4.3.