ASTRO: Eris the movie

Weather finally allowed me to get two more images of Eris. I've merged
them into a three frame movie. The first frame is the original image
from November 22, 2008. The other two frames are from January 22 and
January 24, 2009. That they all fit on the same cropped frame no more
than 20 minutes across shows how little it moved in those 2 months.
Actually that is more due to catching it as it was going from retrograde
to prograde motion. On Nov. 22 it was moving 0.0003" per second due
west. When taken in January it was moving 0.0001" north and 0.0002"
east per second. So it is still in the typical loop seen at the end of
retrograde motion. I suppose I could determine the track but didn't
take the time sorry.

At least I found another use of Registar to merge these widely differing
frames. No way my other stacking programs could have handled these
widely differing images as to scale and orientation.

I made the animation by using Registar to align and merge all three
frames giving me three images of Eris in one frame. I then made three
version with two of the images of Eris removed rather than trying to
animate three separate frames. The two January frames didn't include
the November position making this route impossible. Also clouds made
matching background nearly impossible for my skills. This blended the
three different backgrounds into one eliminating this problem as well.

The animation is at 1.5" of arc per pixel. Images were 2 minute
exposures of 4, 6 and 7 frames. In all cases I tried for 10 but clouds
eliminated many. By merging all three using Registar's max mode (lousy
for most images but fine for stars and distant frozen dwarf planets) I
got rid of most of the noise the weak data created.

Rick

--
Correct domain name is arvig and it is net not com. Prefix is correct.
Third character is a zero rather than a capital "Oh".

Thanks for posting Rick.
It's fascinating to see that amateurs can follow such a distant object.

Stefan

"Rick Johnson" schrieb im Newsbeitrag
ster.com...
Weather finally allowed me to get two more images of Eris. I've merged
them into a three frame movie. The first frame is the original image
from November 22, 2008. The other two frames are from January 22 and
January 24, 2009. That they all fit on the same cropped frame no more
than 20 minutes across shows how little it moved in those 2 months.
Actually that is more due to catching it as it was going from retrograde
to prograde motion. On Nov. 22 it was moving 0.0003" per second due
west. When taken in January it was moving 0.0001" north and 0.0002"
east per second. So it is still in the typical loop seen at the end of
retrograde motion. I suppose I could determine the track but didn't
take the time sorry.

At least I found another use of Registar to merge these widely differing
frames. No way my other stacking programs could have handled these
widely differing images as to scale and orientation.

I made the animation by using Registar to align and merge all three
frames giving me three images of Eris in one frame. I then made three
version with two of the images of Eris removed rather than trying to
animate three separate frames. The two January frames didn't include
the November position making this route impossible. Also clouds made
matching background nearly impossible for my skills. This blended the
three different backgrounds into one eliminating this problem as well.

The animation is at 1.5" of arc per pixel. Images were 2 minute
exposures of 4, 6 and 7 frames. In all cases I tried for 10 but clouds
eliminated many. By merging all three using Registar's max mode (lousy
for most images but fine for stars and distant frozen dwarf planets) I
got rid of most of the noise the weak data created.

Rick

--
Correct domain name is arvig and it is net not com. Prefix is correct.
Third character is a zero rather than a capital "Oh".