Northern Lights In the North (Sort Of)

I had the chance to finally capture some Northern Lights (Aurora Borealis) on April 5, 2010. I was out with my good friend Bob of Blackholes and Astrostuff and went just outside the city limits to catch them. They didn't last too long, so we had to work fast. For my first time photographing them, I was pleasantly surprised with the results. At first, I was skeptical about how the shots would turn out, because I was using my Nikon D90, which is notoriously bad for the level of noise it introduces into night shots. But, with a little tweaking using my software, I was able to get the shots looking half-decent.

Aurora's are basically the emission of photons in Earth's upper atmosphere. For a more detailed description, please click here. I can try to explain it but I'm not a science-type guy and therefore wouldn't do it justice. Also, in the title, I have sort of in brackets. The reason for that is because while we may be fairly north of some places that can see the Northern Lights, we are not far enough to see the amazing ones that are seen in the Arctic. They still look pretty awesome.

And a special thanks to Planetaryman (my Dad) for being my newest follower.

Enjoy the photos. And hopefully, Blogger won't butcher them too much this time.

The Moon with Jupiter

I'm not sure if it was an official conjunction tonight, but in my world it was. The Moon and Jupiter were close enough to get in the same frame when taking pictures tonight. For some reason, my camera was not behaving, so I was only able to get a couple of decent shots.



These next two photos were taken by using the multiple exposure function on my Nikon D90. I took two exposures; one of the Moon, then adjusted the settings, and snapped Jupiter.

Waning Moon and Jupiter

Not much to say about this. It's pretty obvious what it is. Just happened to catch the Moon and Jupiter the other night before the clouds rolled in. I wanted to try out my new Celestron 2x barlow again and was extremely happy with the results.




These were taken with my 3x barlow.




These ones of Jupiter and three of it's moons were taken with the 3x barlow as well.

My First Ever Jupiter Photos

Well, after about a month of waiting for the right conditions, I was finally able to photograph Jupiter last night. It looked spectacular. Unfortunately, the photos don't really reproduce how splendid it looked. Although, it is still really neat looking. I was able to capture four of the Moons as well in some of the shots. The shots were taken through my Dad's Celestron C8 (8" Refractor) telescope. I then mounted a Nikon D90 with t-ring adapter. For the photos where the image is larger, I used a 3x barlow and for the smaller first image, a 2x barlow. Enjoy.

Milky Way

I remember when I was a kid looking up at the sky and the Milky Way was easy to spot from where I lived in the city. Nowadays, with all the extra light pollution, it is not that easy to pick out. So, I decided I'd snap some pics from a different city with less light pollution. I travelled to Lethbridge, AB, Canada to snap the photos below. The Milky Way was fairly clear to see and the sky was almost dark, which I miss where I live. The first pic is, I believe, of the International Space Station passing through the photo. It was only visible for a few seconds, then disappeared out of sight. It was still really neat to see. There are a couple of other photos that have a line in them. Those are meteors streaking through the photo.

The two below have Jupiter in them toward the bottom left. It is the bright object.

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.

Day and Night Moon and Clouds

I know it seems like all I post is pictures of the Moon. Well, that is true, but there are reasons for that. The first is that I love taking pictures of the Moon. Absolutely love it. The second reason is because I'm not sure how to use my camera with the telescope yet, so until I do, I'll keep photographing what I can see through my camera. Anyway, below are pictures taking this afternoon and tonight of the Moon and some cloud cover. Not stunning photos, but better than just the Moon by itself. The bottom photo seems out of focus because of the thin layer of cloud creating a haze over the Moon. It was actually in focus though.