Saturday, January 31, 2009

Comet passing by Earth

So, I stumbled upon this story on the National Geographic website in the Daily News section and thought I'd post it. It is really neat. There is a comet called Lulin that is visible moving westward from the constellation Libra to Virgo.

Amateur astronomer Gregg Ruppel captured the image below of Comet Lulin on January 15, 2009, which shows the comet's faint tail and rare anti-tail—a slim "second tail" that seems to point toward the sun but is actually an optical effect.

Comet Lulin will make its closest approach to Earth on February 24, and while it will probably be hard to see with the naked eye, astronomers think the "fresh" new comet has the potential to brighten rapidly.

Here is a link to the story on National Geographic -

Comet Lulin on National Geographic

Moon, Jupiter, Venus Conjuction

The photos below were taken at about 8:00 at night on December 1, 2008. They were taken with a Nikon D80, 28-80mm lens. Not the greatest photos, but it was neat to be able to capture this interesting event.




I lightened the picture below a bit to see the Moon better.

Daytime Moon

Below are some photos I took of the Moon during the early morning at about 7:00 a.m. They were taken with a Nikon D80 and 70-300mm lens. They have not been edited, other than the contrast and brightness.



Some photos of the Moon at night

Below are some of the photos I have taken. Some photos are taken with a Nikon F80 and some with a Nikon D80. The lenses I have used are the 28-80mm and 70-300mm, plus a 1.5x tele-converter, tripod and wireless remote. I am in the learning process of taking photos through a telescope. I hope to have new photos up regularly. I'm not sure why, but I love taking photos of the Moon. I find it fascinating.