June 30, 2010
One planetary evening
So far .. Saturn, Venus, Mars and a passing airliner :)
Coming up - Jupiter, Uranus, Luna and will have a go at Neptune, although that may be too close to the Moon tonight :)
Also, resolved the double in Acrux (one of my FAVORITE stars) :D
6mm for the win! I can resolve a planetary disk for Venus and Mars .. for the first time!!! Well Mars for the first time FOR SURE anyways.
Happy!
Coming up - Jupiter, Uranus, Luna and will have a go at Neptune, although that may be too close to the Moon tonight :)
Also, resolved the double in Acrux (one of my FAVORITE stars) :D
6mm for the win! I can resolve a planetary disk for Venus and Mars .. for the first time!!! Well Mars for the first time FOR SURE anyways.
Happy!
June 27, 2010
Eclipse
Almost missed it! That will teach me to go thinking if was Northern Hemisphere only .. so rushed out to grab shots of it (thanks Pip and Rust) and found my IXUS was dirty and scratched and yeah - not happy .. got some, but they suck.
Today is clean camera day and wait for 6mm to turn up :D
Today is clean camera day and wait for 6mm to turn up :D
June 17, 2010
June 5, 2010
Long Exposure ...
ok, before the clouds closed right in tonight :( I had some small success! :)
Here's the best results .. after some Photoshopping of course.
I started here:
Here's the best results .. after some Photoshopping of course.
I started here:
Which was me, forgetting I had left the camera set to 3200 ISO! One of those happy mistakes! Look at all them stars!! Everything is yellow due to the sodium streetlamps of course - next time I do this, it's backyard for me! 206 seconds (3:26) at f/4.0, ISO 3200. Then I moved onto this:
Which actually caught a bit of the milky way there! (top left cnr) This one is 219s (3:39) at f/4.0 and ISO 400. So then of course battery went flat, so went inside for charging, came back out and just as it was clouding over, got these:
123s (2:03) at f4/5, ISO 400
163s (2:43) at f4/5, ISO 400
So I have so far stabilised the mount, and got a minute of metronome clicking (60bpm) for my mp3 player, so I have a stable mount and WAY more accurate timing .. however I do end up outside for hours, in the cold, listening to clicks :)
According to the met service, we are facing rain until thursday next week :( But I live in hope!
All in all a good night! :)
June 4, 2010
Today's things ...
BREAKING: Another Jupiter impact? | Bad Astronomy | Discover Magazine
Mars Rover surpasses Viking -1 record
and this is very interesting, and inspiring ...
Mars Rover surpasses Viking -1 record
and this is very interesting, and inspiring ...
June 3, 2010
Clear Skies tonight
Have recharged the camera battery 2x so far, and have trusty Ixus on car doing timelapse of milky way as we speak. Lenses keep fogging up - I think it's lack of dew shield on camera.
But so clear, so beautiful. Milky way is very visible, Coal Sack stands out well, now if I could only get everything working right .. grrrrrrrr
Will post anything good I get.
AAaaaaaand it's a bust on the long exposures :( Lenses fog up fast and my mount is just too wobbly - re-engineer tomorrow methinks, for stability, especially around the screw mounting. Never give up :)
Timelapse is still going, so won't know how that looks for a little while .. hope it's good.
Here's the best of the shots.
82 seconds at f 4.0, 75mm lens. When I am using the 75mm (18mm fogged up FAST) I have to turn the mounting 17 degrees every 3.5 seconds, so yeah .. I'm not too unhappy with this one, some wobbling and trailing ...
But so clear, so beautiful. Milky way is very visible, Coal Sack stands out well, now if I could only get everything working right .. grrrrrrrr
Will post anything good I get.
AAaaaaaand it's a bust on the long exposures :( Lenses fog up fast and my mount is just too wobbly - re-engineer tomorrow methinks, for stability, especially around the screw mounting. Never give up :)
Timelapse is still going, so won't know how that looks for a little while .. hope it's good.
Here's the best of the shots.
82 seconds at f 4.0, 75mm lens. When I am using the 75mm (18mm fogged up FAST) I have to turn the mounting 17 degrees every 3.5 seconds, so yeah .. I'm not too unhappy with this one, some wobbling and trailing ...
Ok, timelapse came out pretty naff ... I have to learn that the tiny CCD in the IXUS is not going to do the biz for high-iso stuffs ... *sigh* oh well, bed, then more ideas tomorrow ...
June 2, 2010
Goodness from Bad Astronomy
Is Betelgeuse about to blow? | Bad Astronomy | Discover Magazine
Testing new "Blog This" extension :) That and it's a cool story, and my mancrush is still going strong :D
aaaaand ....
aaaaand ....
This is just beautiful ...
Proof of Concept
First tracked shots are in .. not very good, BUT they prove that this is so totally possible with the barn door ...
Focus is an issue, as well as wobbly tripod and lens fogging up, but ...
Here's a patch of sky along the Milky Way, "down" from Crux ...
This is 240 seconds (4 minutes) at fStop 3.5 :D
I'm quite happy with this, it's a first go, but hey .. now it's time to get better and refine. Shot on home made barn door rig, for about $25 all up, plus what I could find in the garage.
Speaking of which, does anyone out there have an old tripod head they don't want anymore? I need one to be able to take pics of different parts of the sky, and I has no job right now :( All replies welcome :)
Focus is an issue, as well as wobbly tripod and lens fogging up, but ...
Here's a patch of sky along the Milky Way, "down" from Crux ...
and here's the same shot on Flickr
I'm quite happy with this, it's a first go, but hey .. now it's time to get better and refine. Shot on home made barn door rig, for about $25 all up, plus what I could find in the garage.
Speaking of which, does anyone out there have an old tripod head they don't want anymore? I need one to be able to take pics of different parts of the sky, and I has no job right now :( All replies welcome :)
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