I had went out planning to image Jupiter and a large section of sky like I did in my previous post of November 5, 2011 Viewing Session.
Very first thing I did when I went out was piggy-backed my camera to my telescope, turned on the motor to track the stars across the sky and test out a 15 second exposure. After the first one I examined it, made sure there were no star trails present and then set the camera up to take 20 pictures at 15 second exposure, ISO 400, F-Stop 3.1. I aimed the scope and camera at the constellation Cygnus, and just below it is Lyra with it's star Vega shining near the bottom off centered to the left of the picture.
Single frame 15sec, F3.1, ISO400. Click to enlarge.
16 frames 15sec, F3.1, ISO400. Click to enlarge.
I then took the scope and aimed it at Jupiter tracking it across the sky viewing it in my 12.5mm eyepiece, then I decided to kick it up a bit and put in the 6mm. For some reason I just couldn't get the focus sharp enough with the 6mm, so I took my 2x barlow piece out and put the 12.5mm in it making it a 6.25mm. I know this sounds pointless to do since the 6mm didn't work, but for some odd weird reason it worked and I got a pretty good focus. The next hurdle I had to jump was dimming Jupiter down so it wasn't just a giant bright white ball in the eyepiece which was quite a task, but my Moon filter came in handy to tone down the light. It's hard to spot in the photo below, but the Great Red Spot has started to come around the limb of Jupiter in the upper left side you can just make it out. I attempted editing this image to bring it out a bit, but I had no luck so these are just straight off the camera.
Click to enlarge.
Click to enlarge.
Later on in the night before calling it quits I had seen about 5 meteors from the meteor shower Taurids that peaks the night of November 12 into the morning of November 13. These were very bright and kind of fell from the sky like you would picture a flare gun. Short lasting but quite bright considering how they grasped my attention immediately and made me stop packing in my things to bring it inside. I took a series of images, only about 6 images more focused on Pleiades. I tried a few zoomed out to try and capture meteors but they only seemed to streak across the sky as my camera was done taking an image of an area. I tried for meteors but all I got was this pretty picture.
Pleiades single frame 50sec, F5, ISO400. Click to enlarge.
Pleiades 6 frames 50sec, F5, ISO400. Click to enlarge.
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