January 28, 2013

Clouds and Stars

Clouds and Stars by Astronomr
Clouds and Stars, a photo by Astronomr on Flickr.

It's that time of the month again! Full Moon, hiding stars for the last 4,000,000,000 years with it's round, white glowy face!

POTD 28: Night for Day

Algies Bay Panorama

Algies Bay Panorama by Astronomr
Algies Bay Panorama, a photo by Astronomr on Flickr.

27th Pic of the Day .. having fun with Panoramas! This is the Algies Bay Boat ramp, with the Full moon reflected in the water, and Jupiter visible up in the left hand side there. Roughly 180 degrees

January 26, 2013

Pirongia

Pirongia by Astronomr
Pirongia, a photo by Astronomr on Flickr.

POTD 25. A Darker shot, with a slightly lower ISO

January 25, 2013

The City From Afar

The City From Afar by Astronomr
The City From Afar, a photo by Astronomr on Flickr.

Repost from a while ago, Auckland from the Conical Peak

January 24, 2013

Otorohanga Never Looked So Good!

POTD 23. Shot in the Waikato, this might just be the best face of Otorohanga

January 22, 2013

Ribbons Of Light

Ribbons Of Light by Astronomr
Ribbons Of Light, a photo by Astronomr on Flickr.

POTD22: It's a bit of a tramp, but worth it :D

January 21, 2013

Waikato Nights

Waikato Nights by Astronomr
Waikato Nights, a photo by Astronomr on Flickr.

POTD 21.

January 20, 2013

Jupiter, It Moons Us!

Following an unfortunate accident recently involving a falling camera, our latest astrocam candidate, an Ixus 125, arrived in the mail the other day. Great little camera, it shoots full 1080 video making it a hopefully-ideal planetary and moon shooter.

Sadly, no port of CHDK yet, though work seems to be in progress on that. Fingers crossed we'll be able to get RAW out of it soon. A trip to the local hardware store and much experimenting with the camera and an eyepiece in store ("Can I help you find something?" " No, I don't know what I'm looking for") resulted in the acquiring of an odd looking piece of plumbing hardware. A quick hacksaw and much sanding and filing later, and I had an adaptor that takes a GSO 1.25" eyepiece on one end, and slips fairly tightly over the Ixus on the other. Et voila, the birth of astrocam 3 (or is it 4? what are we up to valHallen?).

The bush fires in Aussie were casting a pall across the sky last night, so seeing wasn't the best. Unfortunately it also clouded up around the horizon denying us what would have been a spectacular sunset, if the brief glimpses of a blood-red sun an hour before it hit the horizon were anything to go by. I pointed valHallen's scope at the Moon and then Jupiter once the sun was sufficiently in hiding, and was quite stunned at the details on the camera screen. I shot a few movies and fed one of them to Registax, and below is the resulting shot of Jupiter with (L to R) Ganymede, Europa and Io in tow through the 15mm GSO 1.25". Registax is quite daunting to the newcomer, so I'm sure we can do better with some practice, better focus, and better seeing! Very happy with the result though. Click the link below for Flickr, as usual.