January 21, 2019 on 12:08 am | In Moon | Comments Off

We had a real hard frost during the Lunar eclipse.  In fact, I did not even want to go out.  However I wanted to get a few shots.  So I only setup my Canon with a 300mm tele lens and made some quick images.  Here is one of them taken just after midnight.

June 20, 2016 on 11:00 pm | In Moon | Comments Off

Today I was able to capture the “Strawberry Moon”. A Strawberry Moon according to the Farmer’s Almanac is the June Full Moon.  However, this year this Full Moon falls on one of the Solstices, which makes it a very rare event. It has been almost 70 years since this happened and I read it was in 1946. Since the horizon at the house is relative high, I went two miles down the street where I captured the Ingress of the Mercury transit and waited for the Moon to come up. And it was beautiful, deep orange, but ut changed very rapidly as the moon rose. So here two images with the tree line in the background.

September 8, 2013 on 9:37 pm | In Moon, Planets, Venus | Comments Off

Tonight we had the close conjunction of Venus and the Moon.  I started my imaging way before it got dark, but felt that something was missing, until I saw a very bright contrail coming from the right and heading for the conjunction.  All other planes had turned to Hartsfield Airport way before they came to the conjunction, but this one was passing over Atlanta and was heading right for it.  By the time it got there, it lost a lot of its brightness, but still a cool image.

     

August 13, 2013 on 8:35 pm | In Moon | Comments Off

Tonight the Purbach Cross was visible for our area. The X sign shows because of the rising sun illuminates the tops of adjoining craters. It was still bright around 7:00 PM but we had lots of clouds. Here the best image taken through moving clouds. Wish the clouds would not have been there! SVC80 with DMK21Au04.AS and 2x barlow, cropped.

   Moon-PC-0005 13-08-13 19-49-22Final.jpg

April 21, 2013 on 11:37 pm | In Moon, Satellites-ISS-Shuttle | Comments Off

It has been a while that we had a close by ISS-Moon Crossing and clear skies.  Last sunday was such a day.  The centerline was 500 mtr north of the International Horse Park Parkway in Conyers, so we setup around 23:00 in the parking lot.  The ISS was relative large at 56.4″ and was only at a distance of 490 km and the transit took only 0.55 sec.  I almost  missed the image, but was able to finish changing the disk designation for the video file one second before the transit took place.

   Lun-Wh-A-130-909-360-0001 13-04-21 23-29-28StCr.jpg  

June 26, 2012 on 10:27 pm | In Moon | Comments Off

Frank has been talking about imaging the Purbach cross for almost a year.  For some reason we were under the assumption that it would be visible 4 hours before 1st Quarter.  So we went yesterday and soon found out that we were too late.  The cross is made up of the walls of the craters Purbach A, Blanchinus and La Caille.  This morning i did research the times and we should have been there a lot earlier like 9:00 AM.  however the moon did not rise until after 1:00.  The next opportunity to image this would be on November 20, after 6 or 7 PM.

One of the things in looking for the cross made us search all along the terminator, where we found another one adjacent to the crater Pallas.

      M0n-Wi-T-035-109-323-Com7 12-06-26 19-10-25.jpg   M0n-Wi-U-059-038-361-Co12 12-06-26 20-56-05R5.jpg  

August 27, 2010 on 11:51 am | In ISS, Moon, Uncategorized | Comments Off

In order to be better prepared for ISS transit imaging, I prepared this overlay image composed of images made at different times with differend optical components, increasing your chances of actually capturing the transit rather than missing it.  The ISS will move accross the face of the object in a certain direction, indicated as the time of on a clock with 6 o’clock being pointing STRAIGHT DOWN at the horizon, and  3 and 9 o’clock in paralell to the horizon.  So imagine your object how it is tilted at the time of imaging in regard to the horizon. (Will move from tilted  left when it rises, straight up when it passes the Meridian and tilted right when it sets. Knowing how the Sun or the Moon are tilted and knowing the travel direction of the ISS, you can determine where the ISS will travel accross the Sun  or Moon.  The image shows the approx. size of capture with the components I used.  In all three images I used prime focus, and a DMK21AU04.AS with a 640×480 resolution, so in the composite, two of the images are reduced in size to show relationships.  Image (!) shows the size captured with a Stellarvue SV80S with focal lenght of 750mm.  Image (2) shows the same refractor but with an Antares focal reducer screwed in the nose piece of the camera, and in Image (3) I used the same Antares focal reducer/camera, but with a Celestron C11.  As you can see, unless you are on the center line of the transit, you will need to research where the ISS will transit.

   Moon0001 10-08-22 22-05-39ComparisonOverlay3Times.jpg  

August 18, 2010 on 8:30 pm | In ISS, Moon | Comments Off

Following capturing the Sun’s transit of the ISS, we set out to capture a Moon transit.  The opportunity came on Tuesday evening at 11 minutes past midnight.  It would be an inferior transit with the ISS and moon being at an elevation of 10.6 degrees above the horizon.  In addition, at 1295 km., the ISS was three times further away than in our solar transit image.  I spend a lot of time planning and following the changes in ISS’ orbit in the days leading up to the event.  I also need to mention the help Clevis Jones gave us  with this.  Also studying the moon map to see if there was a prefered area wich we might want to try to include in the image.  I nailed it down to three possible sites and Frank Garner got us permission to setup at Mr. & Mrs Edwards property in Social Circle.  The cloud forecast was very iffy.  (See the the time-laps movie on YouTube.  The clouds finally broke five minutes before the event, and five minutes after, the moon sank behind the trees……  Here a composite image of the pass as I captured it, and an animation at approx 1/3 speed.  At the time the moon was 10.6 degrees above the horizon, the ISS at 1295 km. was three times as far from us as in our Solar transit pass from July 30st. and the seeing and transparency was terrible at this elevation.  All three of us captured the transit.  Regardless of how the images came out, this first attempt of a moon crossing was a fantastic event for all of us and a great thrill.  Thanks again to the Edwards for allowing us to be in their front pasture until long after midnight!!  

    MoonISS0002 10-08-18 00-10-15CrRotCompTxt.jpg   MoonISS0002C10-08-18 00-10-15-B-RightOrderCrpRotCompAgain.gif  

August 18, 2010 on 8:48 am | In ISS, Moon | Comments Off

And here the YouTube movie of the transit.

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June 25, 2010 on 9:36 am | In Moon | Comments Off

Played around a bit with Stellarium and Stellarium Scope.  Using the remote controls for the CPC.  while doing this, I used the moon to do some images, which I have not done in a while.  Looking throug the view finder some very bright crates stuck out.  Here two images.  The first one from Mare Crisium with the very bright crater Proclus at the rim of Palus Sumni.  The second image is Copernicus and Kepler at the 8:30 H position.

  Moon0001 10-06-24 21-56-15PS.jpg   Moon0004 10-06-24 22-10-49R.jpg 

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