Dirty Skies

Archive for November 15th, 2005

Tomorrow morning just before sunrise the Moon and the Pleiades will be less than a degree apart in the sky. I may set my alarm and try to get a shot of this conjunction as well. For those of you in the central and western Pacific, Hawaii in particular… it looks like you will see the Moon occult the Pleiades around 11:30 PM locally (UTC-10). The further west you go the earlier in the evening it will be. I hope someone else gets the camera out!

UPDATE: 1:06 AM EST – After further simulation (and direct observation) it looks like the separation isn’t going to tighten up enough to make a worthwhile shot until the Moon passes below my horizon at daybreak. Time to hit the sack folks.

The clouds gave me little break after midnight and I was ready to go with the camera on the tripod with the telephoto attached. I took about 3 dozen pictures at different settings in order to have the best chance of getting the “money shot.” The reason I do this is because I’m framing and focusing the old fashioned way, through the view finder. After each shot I get a few seconds of the image on the LCD but it’s basically meaningless in low light or astronomical applications. The proof is when you pack it up and go view the shots at the computer.

I got ONE shot…

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What impresses me more (ok so I’m easily impressed) are the features visible on the moon. Here is that same shot with Mars cropped out and a section along the western limb of the Moon near Grimaldi crater enhanced.

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Lastly, (again from the same shot) the moon at full resolution from the camera.

I remind you this is not a telescope but a 6 MP digital SLR with a 100-300 zoom telephoto. I REALLY need to get my act together and get the counter-weight system for my telescope built so I can attach this baby to my ETX90!