Dirty Skies

Archive for November, 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!

I’ve been an avid user of X-Plane for a few years now (since version 5). X-Plane is the world’s most comprehensive, powerful flight simulator, and has the most realistic flight model available for personal computers.

Now I’d always known there were pre-programed scenarios in X-Plane where you could fly the space shuttle into Edwards AFB — final approach, full approach, final re-entry and dum dee dum dum dum the FULL re-entry from orbit to landing.

In the history of Shuttle missions, …the real space shuttle has been hand-flown for the entire re-entry only ONCE, by an ex-marine pilot, as I understand it, who was ready for the ultimate risk and challenge.

Flying a full re-entry takes about 20-30 minutes and covers 5000 miles from the mid Pacific Ocean to Edwards. I’ve probably flown it a dozen times now over the past week… and died everytime! But what fun it is I must say. The closest I’ve come to success was about 100 miles past Edwards. Once you go sub-sonic in the “flying brick,” 100 miles may as well be a million miles… you’re not going to glide 100 miles.

But I’m proud to say that got to actually see Edwards from 80,000 ft. go racing under me at about mach 10.

I’m not affiliated with X-Plane in any way but if you have the system requirements and you enjoy this type of thing, it will be the best $39 USD you’ve spent in a long time.

Now if I could only get Eagle Lander 3D ported to the Mac!

I realize this is kind of late but I just figured it out myself. I noticed last night that the Moon was overtaking Mars. Tonight, starting at about 11PM local time (transit is at 11:35 so it will be high in the sky for me) the Moon and Mars will only be separated by about 2 degrees!!

If the sky clears I might try to get some shots using the “hat trick.”