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:  ;-)