Anaheim Hills, California, 10-SEP-2020 4:36 PM
Hand-held camera: Canon EOS Rebel XTLens: Tamaron 55-200mm lense@ 200mm f/16, 1/1600 sec, ISO 1600, Bias -1 step
| Object: | Total Lunar Eclipse |
| Date: | Monday 14 April, 2014 11:50PM - 15 April, 2014 2:50AM / 15 Jamadi-At-Thani 1435 H. |
| Location: | Murrieta, California |
| Equipment: |
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These are my pictures of the blue moon over Lake Elsinore. To take these pictures, I made a pre-planned stop on my way home near the Lookout Roadhouse on the mountains overlooking Lake Elsinore on the eve of the Blue Moon.
Blue moon is not really blue. It just means that it was the second full moon in one Gregorian calendar month. Most of the time there is one full moon in a Gregorian month, but because the lunar month is 29.5 days long, sometimes there are two full moons in a month.
The images were taken on a tripod mount. Some tweaking was done in gimp to enhance the images.
Images
Orion WorldView 10x50 binoculars were rigged with foam sheet pieces on the objective (for aiming hole), and the eyepiece (for the target where sun's image from the aiming hole is to be projected). The projection screen was cut-out from a 3-hole file folder that had smooth white surface on the inside. The objective lens was covered with two circular discs cut out from a foam sheet, with holes in the middle. The projection screen was supported with a channel made out of an open manila folder, with the sides folded up to give it some rigidity. Some blue painter's tape was used for later easy dis-assembly with no tape residue. Scotch tape was used to fix up the projection screen.
The smaller hole can be uncovered as shown, to increase the light going into the lens, thus brightening the image. I was not sure how big a hole (aperture) I need, so I made it configurable.
Here is the first-light image of the sun captured with my cellphone camera. Later pictures with my digital Rebel XT show sun-spots too (coming soon)!
On June 5, 2012 at about 3PM local California time, I setup my fancy wancy solar projection system inside my minivan, with the sliding side-door open. Placing it inside the minivan minimized the wind-induced shaking of the precious delicate equipment (the manila folder channel supporting the projection screen). Unfortunately, unlike my trial run at home a couple of days ago, I had trouble finding the proper camera position to take snaps of the image on the projection screen. I ended up craned with my neck bent against the top of the door frame, pressing hard against it, to get the image into the minimum focus range of my Tamron 55-200mm lens.
I managed to get several pictures of the ingress, and post-ingress states. But I could not capture the Venus ring of fire.
After the ingress had ended, I moved the setup to outside the main entrance to my office building. All the office folks came out and we had a small outreach event. My boss had his family come over from home to witness the transit, and upon his invitation, a neighbor in the office building also came to see the transit.
All the folks were amazed to hear that the little dot (planet Venus) is about the same size as our Earth. And since the Sun is twice as far as the planet, if the Sun were right next to Venus, it would be several times bigger (I held my hands about two feet apart to show them approximately how big it would be). Then I asked to consider how small the earth is in comparison. They all said that it puts things into perspective, and shows how insignificant we really are.
The little dot inside the white circle is Venus. You can also see some sun-spots in the white circle (which is the Sun). Sun-sports are cause by giant fire storms on the surface of the sun.
More pictures to come later Insha Allah...
Wide-field un-tracked long-exposure photograph of conjunction of solar system objects and constellations.
The image was taken on a tripod mount. It was cropped, and no other processing was done, except for adding the labels on the second image.
After taking the picture of the moon, Jupier, Venus and the Pleiades, I found that I got a bonus image of the
constellation of Taurus!
Images
102 of 299 images stacked in RegiStax v4.0, processed in Photoshop.
The images were taken untracked, with a dobsonian mount. The images were captured using K3CCD sofware while they drifted in the field of view. The telescope had to be manually moved after every set of exposures, and the target re-found before capturing the next set of images. This procedure requires extreme patience and a high level of skill.
Wide field image of Comet 17P/Holmes captured with Canon Digital Rebel XT tripod mounted.
74 frames stacked in RegiStax 3, processed in Photoshop.
The images were taken untracked, with a dobsonian mount. The images were captured using K3CCD sofware while they drifted in the field of view. The telescope had to be manually moved after every set of exposures, and the target re-found before capturing the next set of images. This procedure requires extreme patience and a high level of skill.
Wide-field long exposure with Canon PowerShot A95 on tripod. 15 sec exposure with 16mm @ F/4, ISO400; 4 images registered, stacked and processed in Photoshop
Wide-field long-exposure photographs of conjunction of solar system objects.
Images
I Stacked images using RegiStax, and improved the image by using wavelet filter, contrast, etc.
I timed the imaging session with the transition of the Red Spot, which you can see here in the center, top half of the planet.
The images were taken untracked, with a dobsonian mount. The images were captured using K3CCD sofware while they drifted in the field of view. The telescope had to be manually moved after every set of exposures, and the target re-found before capturing the next set of images. This procedure requires extreme patience and a high level of skill.
Images
Used Logitech QuickCam Pro; stacked 64 images using RegiStax, and improved the image by using wavelet filter, contrast, etc. Then flipped, rotated, and enlarged the image.
The images were taken untracked, with a dobsonian mount. The images were captured using K3CCD sofware while they drifted in the field of view. The telescope had to be manually moved after every set of exposures, and the target re-found before capturing the next set of images. This procedure requires extreme patience and a high level of skill.
Test with Logitech QuickCam Pro with lens and casing removed. No long-exposure modifications were made!
