CLICKS (14) CMO #205

CMO CLICKS (14)

The San Gersole Planetary Group (SGPG)

@.. We here introduce the Home Page of the San Gersole Planetary Group (SGPG) which started from 1988 in Florence (Firenze): Its URL is given by

http://www.chim1.unifi.it/group/education/caat/sgpg/sgpg_e.htm

@.. This site is also found by a link-surfin from the Home Page of the CMO Web Site. The articles are given in English and in Italian but full of beautiful photographies.
@.. On the top page the San Gersole Planetary Observatory (SGPO) is described. The main instrument is a 30cm Cassegrain having 720cm focal length (cf CMO #179 p1913).
@.. The page has a series of the click-marks in which we can choose any of Group Members, Group Activities, Group Instrumentation, Image Gallery, Group Bibliography, and News!
@.. The "Image Gallery" contains a lot of good images by the members of the planets, Moon surfaces, the Sun, Comets and so on. Their good images of Mars in 1997 are found here. All images are arranged in a nice way and will be useful as data.
@.. Final "News!" corner reports recent activities of the SGPG: The Observatory site of the SGPO is now under reconstruction shown with several photos. The equator will be an Astro Physics 1200.
@.. Most recent News is the Marco Falorni Seminar on the Planetary Observation (Seminario "Marco Falorni" sull'osservazione planetaria) which was held from the 1st to the 3rd day of May this year. A photo shows the participants; G Quarra, F della Prugna, R Braga, Plinio Camaiti, G Adamoli, M Frassati, D Sarocchi, P Tanga, and A Leo. Partly they were interested and stipulated by the presentation by A LEO e G QUARRA. For example LEO numerically produced a phase-changing of Venus which will be useful this summer. QUARRA introduced the splendid Video reproduction by giapponese HIGA, secured by use of a 25cm telescope at a excellent location, which constituted a simulation of the planet surfaces and received an applause from all the members in the course of the seminar.
@.. At beginning of January this year, QUARRA joined our meeting at Fukui, and it is reviewed with an image in this News Web Site in the following way:

------------------------------------------------------------

Sixth Workshop of the C.M.O. Planetary Observers: January 3, 1998
On January 3th, being Gianni in Japan for a business trip, he had the chance to attend the annual Meeting of Japanese Mars Observers, organized in Fukui by dr. M. Minami (coordinator of the C.M.O. - Communications in Mars Observations). Due to the holiday season, the meeting was restricted to only seven participants and among them there were three japanese CCD observers (Akutsu, Higa e Nishita). Apart from Minami's talk about a few topics of the Mars 1996-1997 observations, most of the meeting was dedicated to the different planetary CCD imaging methods adopted by the present observers, with particular attention to the red planet.
Mr. Akutsu showed many interesting RGB images of planets Venus, Mars, Jupiter and Saturn acquired with his 32 cm Newtonian and a Lynxx CCD camera (12 bit). His enhancement techniques are very similar to those used by us.
Instead Mr. Higa from Okinawa realizes outstanding digital video tapes of the planets by the use of a Sony VX-1000 3-CCD digital videocamera attached to his 25 cm Newtonian telescope. He then reviews his tapes digitizing and averaging 50 to 100 still frames to obtain a single image of the subject and enhancing it with Adobe PhotoShop.
Their work is very well known in Japan where they are considered two of the most skilled japanese planetary observers.
On our part, Gianni has introduced most of the work carried out between 1996 and 1997. He briefly explained the techniques used to remap the planetary images acquired by the SGPG which greatly impressed all the participants.
-----------------------------------------------------------

(Mk&Mn)

CMO Clicks (14) -Japanese-

　＠今回はサン・ジェルソレ・プラネタリー・グループ San Gersole Planetary Group (SGPG)のホームページを紹介する。SGPGは1988年以来の活動で、ご存じクアッラ氏の所属するイタリアのアマチュア観測グループである。下記のURLでウエッブページが見付かる。CMOのHPからもリンクで辿れる。本文は英語の他にイタリア語が使われているが、写真はどれも綺麗である。

http://www.chim1.unifi.it/group/education/caat/sgpg/sgpg_e.htm　

　＠トップページには SGPG と、その所有する天文台 The San Gersole Planetary Observatory (SGPO) に関する概説がある。場所はフィレンツェからも有名なアルチェトリ天文台からも数マイル離れている。主要機は30cmカセグレインで、f/24、從って720cmの焦点距離をもっている(CMO#179p1913參照)。1995年に亡くなったM FALORNIを記念して、マルコ・ファロルニ天文台とも呼ばれるようである。しかしマークはSGPOのものがそのまま使われている。
　＠また、Group Members, Group Activities, Group Instrumentation, Image Gallery, Group Bibliography, News ! と六つの項目があって、それぞれをクリックすればメンバーの活動のそれぞれの内容が紹介される。
　＠ Image Galleryでは『火星通信』でも度々採り上げている火星画像ほか、各種惑星・月面・太陽・彗星などいろいろな画像を見ることが出来る。きちんと整理されていて画像データーとしても有用である。
　＠最後のNews!には、折々のSGPGの活動の様子が紹介される。1997年には天文台の再建を始め、1998年春までかかっていて、基礎工事から自作している様子が写真付きで紹介されている。赤道儀はAstro-Physics 1200のようである。
　＠現在のトップ記事は、五月1日～3日迄開かれた「惑星観測に関するマルコ・ファロルニ・セミナー」(Seminario "Marco Falorni" sull'osservazione planetaria)についての報告である。約十名のイタリア人観測家が並んで写っている。比嘉保信さんのヴィデオ・テープが紹介されたのはこのセミナーで、イタリア語で分からないが、splendideとかeccellenteとかの賛辞に使われる語が見付かる。
　＠1998年正月の福井での「惑星観測者懇談会」にクアッラ氏が出席したときの事も記事になっていて、英文の方にそのまま引用する。参加者一同の記念写真もカラーで載っている。

(Mk)