Moon Again

I tell you, I really must love the Moon or I'm obsessed. Something like that. Anyway, I was out again tonight shooting the Moon. They are probably the best shots I've ever taken of the Moon. They were shot through my Orion telescope with my Nikon D90. The first ones with the entire Moon in the frame are with the 2x barlow. I don't have a 2x barlow of my own yet, so I borrowed one from Bob of Blackholes and Astrostuff. Thank you Bob for that. I think they turned out well. Must have been something in the air. Oh, I know, there were no clouds, so it's what was not in the air tonight! The first four shots look to be the same picture, but they are not. Slightly different settings for each one. Anyway, enjoy.

The following pictures were taken using a 3x barlow. Definitely not quite as clear, but that's partly due to the telescope as well. If the scope was bigger with a longer focal length, the pictures should be really clear. However, even these 3x barlow shots turned out good tonight.

More Moon Pictures

The pictures below were all taken on Saturday night. I went out with my Dad and Bob of Blackholes and Astrostuff. They were taken with my Orion telescope, Nikon D90, 2x barlow, t-ring and 1 1/4" adapter. They appear slightly dark and slightly out of focus because there was lots of dew that night as well as cloud cover.

The two pictures below had a jet stream going through the middle and it looked like I broke the Moon.

First Ever Milky Way Pictures

It seems like I've posted a lot of "firsts" lately. There are good reasons for that. Namely, because I didn't have a telescope before, didn't have the Nikon D90 and all the accessories that go with it, didn't have a Celestron FirstScope, etc. So, this post is about another first for me - photographing the Milky Way. Below are a few of the pics I snapped of the night sky last weekend.

The pictures below are of Jupiter, which is the big bright "star" looking object towards the bottom of the pictures.  It was huge that night.

Finding Planets Easier

Below is a chart that a guy made from the Royal Astronomical Society of Canada. His name is Brian Battersby. It is a helpful resouce for locating planets. It was all to do with the Sidewalk Astronomer's Program which is a program of the International Year of Astronomy 2009.


The image below is showing a conjunction in the Eastern sky involving the Moon, Venus and Mercury about 45 minutes before sunrise on June 19th.

Moon and Jupiter

I was trying to capture some good Moon pictures, but managed to see Jupiter come up after the Moon had risen. They weren't close enough to get them both together in the telescope in good detail, so I got as close as I could and have them both in the picture. All of these were taken with a Nikon D90. The first set below was taken through my Orion 4.5" scope. Enjoy.

The pictures below were taken through a Celestron FirstScope.

Sky Charts for June 2009

Below is a B & W and a color sky chart for our area, which is above 40〫latitude.

The above chart is available from skymaps.com

The above color chart is available from Orion Telescopes

My First "Real" Telescope

I picked up a new telescope today from a local guy. It is an Orion StarBlast 4.5" Equatorial Reflector. It's a decently built scope that apparently has good optics. It's a short tube scope, so easily manageable. The tripod and mount are fairly sturdy so they should stand up fine. Once I take some photos through it, I'll put them on this post.



The pictures below were taken last night through my new telescope. Enjoy.