Oh the Adirondacks are such a great place. The air is clear, the skies are clear and the clouds were nowhere to be found tonight. I went and visited a few things that I viewed last night. I had changed the battery in my motor drive for my mount and it works so much better! I can track stars now and only have to adjust the Declination (DEC) axis every so often.
What I visited tonight is, yup you guessed it right, Saturn. Of course I couldn't resist it's pretty yellow/orange glow with is rings encircling it. I don't have to work in the morning so I was able to stay up and out late. I went out around 12:30am and came in about 2:30am, technically it was an April 8th am viewing but I'm just going to call it the 7th. Here in the Adirondacks it may be April but it doesn't feel like it with a temperature of about 22°F, my feet are frozen. Once I got Saturn into view with the 32mm I then worked my way down to my 4mm eyepiece which had my No. 12 Yellow filter screwed into it, which turned out to work quite nicely for viewing and for getting the video that enabled me to get this picture.
Saturn (click to enlarge)
I also went into Hercules to see The Great Cluster in Hercules (M13) which is a globular cluster. A bit faint and fuzzy, but pretty with the two stars near it looking like eyes. As you can probably tell my excitement for this doesn't get old, I'm like a kid on Christmas morning every clear night that I get to take the telescope outside. Even the small presents given bring quite a bit of joy. I like to take pictures because it helps bring out what I see with my own eyes a bit. I may have been a bit out of focus for the picture, I just need to practice more. These are nice to look back on as a reference, and also going to come in handy for comparisons later on if/when I get better at imaging and editing.
I briefly went over to Arcturus and decided to get a quick snap shot of it. I think the exposure time was a bit too long, but I feel the need to share it anyway. It's orange glow seems less prominent when it's at zenith I'm guessing that's because it has less atmosphere to go through. Either way it was pretty through the eyepiece so I couldn't resist getting a picture of it to share on here.
Arcturus (click to enlarge)
While I had the camera out with me I decided to piggy back it onto my telescope. The telescope mount came with a mount for a camera to sit on top of the telescope to allow you to take pictures of a bigger area of the sky as if you are looking up at it. Just mount the camera to the back, point the telescope at an area of the sky and start snapping pictures. Below are pictures of the constellation Hercules and the constellation Ursa Major, you'll recognize the big dipper.
Hercules (click to enlarge)
Here I outlined Hercules and wrote in M13 where the Globular Cluster is located. Just below where I wrote M13 you can see two tiny stars, in between them is where the cluster is and when you look at the cluster picture I posted those two bright stars on either side of it are the small ones you see in this picture. (click to enlarge)
Ursa Major/Big Dipper (click to enlarge)
What I visited tonight is, yup you guessed it right, Saturn. Of course I couldn't resist it's pretty yellow/orange glow with is rings encircling it. I don't have to work in the morning so I was able to stay up and out late. I went out around 12:30am and came in about 2:30am, technically it was an April 8th am viewing but I'm just going to call it the 7th. Here in the Adirondacks it may be April but it doesn't feel like it with a temperature of about 22°F, my feet are frozen. Once I got Saturn into view with the 32mm I then worked my way down to my 4mm eyepiece which had my No. 12 Yellow filter screwed into it, which turned out to work quite nicely for viewing and for getting the video that enabled me to get this picture.
Saturn (click to enlarge)I also went into Hercules to see The Great Cluster in Hercules (M13) which is a globular cluster. A bit faint and fuzzy, but pretty with the two stars near it looking like eyes. As you can probably tell my excitement for this doesn't get old, I'm like a kid on Christmas morning every clear night that I get to take the telescope outside. Even the small presents given bring quite a bit of joy. I like to take pictures because it helps bring out what I see with my own eyes a bit. I may have been a bit out of focus for the picture, I just need to practice more. These are nice to look back on as a reference, and also going to come in handy for comparisons later on if/when I get better at imaging and editing.
I briefly went over to Arcturus and decided to get a quick snap shot of it. I think the exposure time was a bit too long, but I feel the need to share it anyway. It's orange glow seems less prominent when it's at zenith I'm guessing that's because it has less atmosphere to go through. Either way it was pretty through the eyepiece so I couldn't resist getting a picture of it to share on here.
Arcturus (click to enlarge)While I had the camera out with me I decided to piggy back it onto my telescope. The telescope mount came with a mount for a camera to sit on top of the telescope to allow you to take pictures of a bigger area of the sky as if you are looking up at it. Just mount the camera to the back, point the telescope at an area of the sky and start snapping pictures. Below are pictures of the constellation Hercules and the constellation Ursa Major, you'll recognize the big dipper.
Hercules (click to enlarge)
Here I outlined Hercules and wrote in M13 where the Globular Cluster is located. Just below where I wrote M13 you can see two tiny stars, in between them is where the cluster is and when you look at the cluster picture I posted those two bright stars on either side of it are the small ones you see in this picture. (click to enlarge)
Ursa Major/Big Dipper (click to enlarge)
Comments
Glad you enjoy the pictures. Took me a few hours to edit these to show them the best I could.
Don
http://exposeyourblog.com
If you do start to consider buying a telescope and an astrophotography rig I'll point you in the way of an astronomy forum that I frequent where the people are nice and friendly and willing to help out with any questions and guide you in the right direction.
A few yrs ago I spent a couple of hundred bucks on a telescope that I wanted to use to see Saturn just like you have in that photo - what a let down - I could see nothing - in fact my eyes were better. Major problem was focus and it would not line up with any star and it wobbled. It put me off.
What is your equipment ? And how much do you have to spend to see these images ?
thanks
Saturn and M13 images above were edited a bit to bring them out more, plus I had a 15 second exposure to allow more light in the camera. I don't really have a rig for photographing but I do what I can with what I have. The actual objects in the sky are a bit dimmer than in images I take. Although Saturn is quite bright right now as it just went through opposition, will be getting dimmer as the month passes by.
Hope you come back and see this comment, and if you have anymore questions feel free to ask. I check here and my e-mail just about every day.