Tonight I got my first shot of the moon with the D50 and the C8. This was about an hour before sunset. Aiden was my big helper while I assembled the telescope. Then he stood on the stool and looked through the eyepiece at the moon.

The number of craters visible in the high-resolution image is really amazing. Central peak uplifts are visible in many of the larger craters. However, the focus was not tight enough in general to pick up the terrace edges (although you can make out traces here and there). You can click on the image below to see the full-sized photograph, but be prepared to wait! The big photo is 2.3MB at a whopping 2900×2900.

You can see some severe vignette in the corners from the 1.25″ universal T-adapter. The photo is actually a composite of two separate shots because the moon did not fit in the camera’s image sensor at this high magnification.

Telescope: Celestron C8, FL 2032mm, f/10
Camera: Nikon D50, ISO 800, 1/1000s

1st quarter moon in daylight

Another warm night. Tonight I tried using ISO 800 and got this picture at 1/320s. The focus is a lot sharper tonight than I had last night. I really need to make a Hartman mask for the 70mm Meade refractor.

thick crescent moon

Update: clicking the photo should work now!

It was hot outside tonight, even for Houston in the summer. It was still 93ºF after sunset! I got this shot with the Meade refractor using ISO 200 at 1/100s. There’s just a touch of blur from me supporting one end by hand. I was tired and didn’t want to mess with pulling out the GEM tonight in the heat. Click the image to see full resolution photo.

waxing crescent moon

I took this late at night between our house and the neighbor’s. There were scattered light clouds and I don’t think the sky was ever completely clear. Technical details: Nikon D50, Tamron lens @ 300mm, f/6, ISO 200, 1/200s. Click photo to enlarge.

June 7th Full Moon

A few days later I woke up at 5:30 with the realization that the gibbous moon would be high in the sky. I know, I know, too much time thinking about lunar orbital characteristics and not enough time thinking about… hmm… what else is there again? Anyway, you can hardly blame me: the adapter for mounting the camera to the scope had just arrived the day before. (Technically, there’s a T-Ring for the Nikon D50 mated to a universal 1.25″ T-adapter.)

Oooh. Nice craters. The photo was taken just before sunrise. Other tech stuff: 70mm Meade refractor w/ 600mm FL, f/8.57, ISO 200, 1/200s.Click photo to enlarge.

June 10th Gibbous Moon

I took this last one a couple mornings later just after sunrise. This one is framed in the blurred branches of a tree. You can just make out some craters along the terminator. Tech stuff: Tamron @ 300mm, f/6, ISO 400, 1/1600s. Click photo to enlarge.

June 12th Morning Gibbous Moon

This morning I woke up early enough to catch the waning crescent moon before sunrise. This photo was taken with the Nikon D50 through a Meade 70mm refractor (FL=600mm, f/8.57, ISO200, 1/100s). Click on the picture below to see the full sized (1280×1024) image. The photo is unprocessed except for cropping.

Waning Crescent Moon

Venus was nearby, so I also snapped this photo. FL=80mm, f/4.2, ISO400, 1/200s. You can really see the smudges on the CCD sensor in the early morning light. Click on the picture to see the full-size original (it’s really big, 3008×2000, you’ve been warned!)

Crescent Moon and Venus

location: Tomball, TX
time: 830pm-1030pm
cloud cover: 0%
transparency: 100%
seeing: avg (3/5) to poor (2/5)
darkness: city sky glow, full moon
wind: 5-10mph nnw
humidity: 30% up to 50%
temperature: 59F-53F
dewpoint: 31F-39F

M42 in 25mm. Less nebulosity discernible than normal presumably due to full moon.

Observed iota cancri; color of primary (reddish) not as distinct as nights past.

No detail visible in Mars.

Saturn’s moons best in 25mm. Titan and Rhea clear, Tethys and Dione occasionally obscured by bad seeing, Iapetus a challenge, often obscured.

Waxing full moon very bright. First time to attempt identification of features. ID’d Tycho, Copernicus, Kepler, Aristarchus, and Mare Crisium.

Location: Tomball, TX
Cloud cover: none
Transparency: good (4/5) or maybe excellent (5/5)
Seeing: good (4/5)
Darkness: city sky glow, nearly full moon
Limiting Magnitude: n/a
Wind: mild w/ occasional gusts
Humidity: 60% early up to 75% later
Temperature: 60F to 53F
Start Time: 8:30 pm CST
End Time: 11:00 pm CST
OTA: 8″ SC

aligned on capella, sirius, castor, and ruchbah (celestron spells it rukbah). goto could sometimes put target in 9mm field.

double star night – observed four doubles.

polaris (alpha ursae minoris) – always see polaris/double when aligning, but spent extra time observing. primary is significantly brighter than secondary, but both are clear even in 25mm. would like to learn how to use angle and separation to align scope on true north.

castor (alpha geminorum) – two blue stars with similar magnitudes. easy split in 15mm.

algeiba (gamma leonis) – closest pair of the evening, two red stars with moderate difference in brightness.

iota cancri – widest pair of the evening, red primary moderately brighter than blue secondary.

planetary observations

mars – imaged with and without the bushnell barlow. color and clarity of image both deteriorated. with 7.9mm other pinpoints visible, did not check SNP until later, not sure if one of the points may have been phobos or deimos. despite generally good conditions could not discern much detail except one edge seemed to have a touch of blue/white.

saturn – in high-power ep dione like a chick right under saturn’s “wing”, rhea less than a ring radius away, titan 3-4 ring diameters away. with lower power iapetus seen farther away on the other side of planet from other moons. several other stars also in wide field, required SNP reference to pick iapetus from stars.

photo: Saturn with Dione, Rhea, and Titan (click image to see Titan)

moon – viewed terminus briefly to estimate seeing conditions. very little turbulence in 15mm. still have no idea how to identify what I’m looking at.

view all photos at flickr

Location: Tomball, TX
Cloud cover: none
Transparency: good (4/5)
Seeing: good (4/5)
Darkness: city sky glow, waxing crescent moon
Limiting Magnitude: n/a
Wind: mild/none
Humidity: 75% early up to 85% later
Temperature: mid-40’s
Start Time: 8:30 pm CST
End Time: 10:30 pm CST
OTA: 8″ SC

Used additional calibration star during setup, goto was very good.

Tonight the Celestron NexImage camera worked, as opposed to last night’s useless performance. Only major change that I’m aware of was that this time I ran the camera indoors until the scope was set up. Last time I set everything outside, including the camera. Maybe the temp of the electronics was below spec’ed operating range?

Captured several images of mars, luna (with and without focal reducer), and trapezium. Learning curve has just begun. Atmospheric turbulence easily seen in real-time video of lunar craters. Attempted to image Saturn but it was still low in the sky so I could not get good focus.

Observed double star Almech (gamma andromeda), easily split with 15mm. Similar magnitude, brightest with a touch of yellow, second star deep blue.

Betelgeuse yellow with orange at the fringe. Lots of scattering (as with all tonight’s observations) due to humidity.

M34 – dim open cluster in 32mm. Nearly symmetrical pattern of thirteen stars near center like a goose with wings outstretched.

Follow-up Notes

Later reference using SNP reports the dimmest of the four trapezium stars, which it calls Trapezium1B, as mag 7.46. This star is quite dim in the NexImage, although it is easily seen in any of the eyepieces. Also visible in image (but very, very faint) is mag 8.43 star TYC4774-935-1. Transparency was not perfect last night, but even so it appears the NexImage will only be useful for stars of mag 6 or brighter.

Video capture file of Mars was corrupt. Let that be a lesson: next time take multiple images.

CCD has dust on surface and lint that affects image. Needs to be cleaned.

Woke about 4:20 am this morning to watch the total lunar eclipse.

The moon was already halfway into earth’s shadow when I began. I experimented with using the web cam to capture the event. I didn’t expect great results, but the webcam turned out to be completely worthless for the purpose I had in mind.

I started observing in the back yard. The back neighbors had a bright halogen yard light, so I moved around the side of the house after totality. Best results in both locations came with the Bushnell 12×50 binoculars mounted on a tripod.

A few minutes before totality I could perceive the moon not as a disc but as a sphere. This must certainly have been by some effect of the lighting because the moon is too distant to be perceived in three dimensions by human vision.

The color during totality was beautiful. Early on I saw red-orange at the 4 o’clock and 10 o’clock edges, with blue-white at the 7 o’clock edge. The center was quite dark, and the edge was indistinct at 1 o’clock. Without the binoculars the color was more striking and seemed to cover the lower half. Over time the colors seemed to shift subtly, with some areas growing dimmer, others growing redder.

Conditions were generally fair. There were few clouds at first, then more as totality approached. There were times when the moon was completely obscured for a minute or more. I thought the clouds would only get worse, so I brought the computer and webcam inside and coiled the extension cord. Then the clouds dissipated and I watch the dark red moon for some thirty minutes or so. Amanda came out and watched for a few minutes as well.

Sigma Aquarii was clearly visible in the binocular field of view above and to the left of the eclipsed moon. It made me wonder how rare it would be to see a planetary conjunction with a full moon.

The lower the moon sank in the sky the more obstructed the view from haze and occasional clouds, so I went back to bed before 6 am.