Hi,

sometimes it’s helpful to write down your goals to keep track of them in a busy life. Ok, here my imaging and astronomy related goals for 2010:

• Image Mercury
  The quick messenger of the gods is a hard nut to crack due to it’s small apparent diameter and close elongation to the sun but there are a number of days around the maximum elongation periods that offer best conditions to image mercury in daylight. I never imaged mercury before and am curious if I’ll be able to capture some surface details. Mercury is very fast on it’s orbit around the sun but rotates very slow around it’s own axis. It’s possible to capture thousands of frames within several hours and select the best of them for stacking. Using an IR-pass filter or red filter helps to increase contrast during daylight and tame the seeing.
• Image Saturn
  Saturn opposition 2010 is coming soon. I hope that weather is getting much much better than it has been over the last months.
• Solar imaging
  The currently beginning solar activity cycle should provide interesting targets to image the sun in white-light, CaK and H-alpha. I should finish the upgrade of my PST to a larger aperture.
• Lunar imaging
  Nothing much to write. If the opportunity is there, I’ll be imaging
• Captifier
  A first working test version has to be in place soon. Constant development will follow.

Let’s see what turned out to be realistic at the end of the year…

Solong & cheers,
Oliver