July 29, 2010

Wisconsin Road Trip Part #2: Indiana Dunes State Park - July 22nd, 2010

After picking up Danielle and traveling to Indiana, I took a good portion of the night after sunset to take a bunch of different pictures of different subjects. Here are some of my favorites:
Conjunction of Saturn, Mars, and Venus with the lights of East Chicago. Submitted this to Sky & Telescope - here's hoping they publish it!Second picture of the conjunction of Saturn, Mars, and Venus with the lights of East Chicago. Submitted this to Sky & Telescope, too - here's hoping they publish it!Big Dipper - best one I have so farLyraStar Trails (Polaris in the middle)I love the effect of moonlight lighting up the foreground, no matter how unfocused the shot is
More pictures from the night here

Wisconsin Road Trip Part 1: Ohio

Before catching up to Danielle, I stopped off at the Wayne National Forest in Ohio. Despite the family down the trail setting off bottle rockets, it was a good night to take some pictures. There was a good bit of light pollution from the gibbous moon, giving the background a bit of a blue hue.

I like how you can still see the stars really well even though there's light from the moon and clouds. Note Corona Borealis (Northern Crown) to the left of the center tree.Some decent star trails from a 10 minute exposure, though less moonlight would have made it darker.A good look at Hercules, though the background color is too gray.
More pictures (including some moon shots) here

Constellations @ Middle Creek - July 2nd, 2010

I was doing some observing with the AELC up at Middle Creek and I just opened up the camera in its widest angle and caught the following pictures. Nothing too great, but it's still pretty cool to see the different colors of the stars in the first one, and how much they move in in 5 minutes in the second picture.
Pictures here, too.

July 8, 2010

Summer Update: The Moon through the Refractor May 30th, 2010

The night after my birthday party I got to take out the Refractor and took some pictures of the Moon.
This first one is pretty good, especially since it's through prime focus (no eyepiece). It's much clearer than my previous looks with the 300mm zoom lens.

I also decided to put the 10mm eyepiece in the camera adapter to get some closer shots. My favorite is this one of the crate above. It still seems a bit unclear...perhaps because the Moon was still low on the horizon. So the Moon pictures have improved, but there's still plenty of room for improvement.

Summer Update #2957: April 25th, 2010

While up in Ohiopyle I took some pictures of the moon just using the Canon Rebel XS and a 75-300mm zoom lens on 300mm. I like the look of them, but when I crop or zoom in, the quality goes down significantly.
More pictures from the night here

July 7, 2010

Summer Update: First Night through the Refractor April 4th, 2010

I attached the T-ring adapter to the Canon Rebel XS, and then attached an Orion Universal Camera Adapter.
Started out with the Beehive Cluster in Prime Focus

Here's Saturn in Prime Focus as well, but it's a bit small

Here's Saturn with an Orion 10mm Plossl Eyepiece projection

Lastly, the crop of one of my Saturn pictures
More pictures here

July 1, 2010

Summer Update: March 20th 2010 - Moon & Pleiades

I tried getting the moon and the Pleiades together in a shot, and I was successful! Although, in most of them, the moon was overexposed and the Pleiades underexposed. Any thoughts on how to fix this?

Moon with Pleiades


Setting Moon


Some Star Trails

Overall, nothing spectacular, but good practice for learning the basics. I need to find somewhere that's not light polluted to take star trails.

More pictures from this night here