Planets! =)

Again out a the Witte Observatory helping out with a group of Boy Scouts.... I set up my tripod and took pictures as the crescent Moon set with Venus and Jupiter close behind.  Here are just a couple of the photos.  The partially cloudy sky was beautiful!

Then I stitched them together and made this little video....

After the scouts had gone I worked with John Toney and Dave Philabaum to use our 12" refractor and eye-piece projection (25mm ep) to get some images of Saturn

Still not real impressed.....

Here are a couple of videos shot using the same method

A work in progress?  Or simply bumping up against limitations of the technique?  Hmmm..... ;)

A Few Pics of the Milky Way

Friday night while finishing up Public Viewing at the Witte Observatory I put my camera on a tripod and grabbed a few shots of the Milky way =)  All pics taken using my Rokinon 16 mm f/2.0 lens.  Most shots were 4 seconds long.

Moon in July!

We've had some sort of creepy red / orange daytime skies the past several days due to wildfire activity in Canada.  Here's the full Moon July 3rd.  It was relatively high in the sky when these photos were taken.

July Fourth I my scope up on our deck.  Amidst the neighborhood fireworks I took these pics.  The Moon is much more "normal" - but the skies still have a thin haze (I think) from the smoke from Canada.

I tried my hand for the first time at "projection astrophotography."  I took these through a 25 mm eyepiece.  Looking forward to trying some more pics with this technique.

Last, but not least, another video of the Moon:  ;-)

Full Moon ~ Clearish skies =)

I'm feeling a bit "out of sync" with clear evening skies lately.....  Hmmmm.......

Last night I set up to get a few pics of the Moon and whatever else I could before wispy clouds set in again.  ;)

Venus seemed rather unremarkable, but here's a 25 second trail ;)

Jupiter not be outdone ~ a 25 second trail

Jupiter and it's four Galilean Moons

Jupiter Video...

Moon Pics

My laptop ran out of juice and shut down before I finished capturing this video so Backyard EOS stored the individual *.jpegs in the backup cache.  I used a "Images to Video" program to stitch them together in a video.  Pretty slick :-)

Waning Crescent, Saturn, Planetary Nebula and Globular Cluster May 13

So I set a plan to get up early to take a look at Saturn and the Waning Moon.

While set up, I played around a bit more with the auto guider AFTER making sure the mount was pretty well aligned with the north pole.  (I used the polar scope in the mount.)  I was pretty darn impressed with the guiding - if I do say so myself =)  Another thing I got excited about was I finally figured out how to take exposures using the "bulb" feature through Backyard EOS.  It's as simple as setting the camera to Manual and exposure to "bulb" - then use "duration" in Backyard EOS to set exposure times AS LONG AS YOU WANT!!!

Here's M27, the Dumbbell Nebula, exposure = 2 minutes

Here's M15, exposure = 3 minutes

Waning Crescent Moon

Moon Video :-)

A Quick Video of Saturn <3

Gotta Take Those Clear Skies When You Can Get Them!

My husband and I, along with several others, headed out to the Witte Observatory Complex Saturday night =)  I set up my 6" refractor, Jim H. opened the Clark 12" refractor, and Ray R. opened and was working on the Ealing (16" reflector) ;)

Here are a few objects I knocked of my M-list.  Still not guiding or stacking.....  These (I hope) are sort of like "base-line" pics.  Definitely "fun" to take!

M97  ~ Owl Nebula

M3 ~ Globular Cluster

M 87 ~ Giant Elliptical Galaxy

Through just the camera, a cool conjunction between Venus and M45

Not to be "out done" ~ a friend pointed out this conjunction the same evening with Jupiter and M44, the Beehive Cluster  =)

The local weather forecast is for cloudy skies for the next 6 days..... sigh!  We shall see ;)

Morning Moon and a bit more

I was thinking I haven't captured images of many waning moons yet - since that means a set-up in the morning.....  So one week from last week's eclipse I thought I should celebrate and take a look at a Last Quarter Moon.  :-)

Some images ~

A rather long video this time, but I enjoyed zooming in 5x and then 10 x and traveling along the terminator :-)

It was starting to get light (I should have gotten up just a bit earlier ~ lol) but I decided to go for M13 and M57.  Not too bad for no stacking and skies getting lighter.

M13 - Globular Cluster in Hercules

M57, Ring Nebula in Lyra... a work in progress.  Hah!

p.s.  Minimum temperature this morning ~ 37 F =)