More astronomy

This isn't the most exciting photo I've ever taken but last night was the first sight of Venus this winter. I knew it was going to be an evening star and had been looking out for it after getting home from work. The other dot is Jupiter. I realised that they would get closer together as Jupiter moves nearer to the Sun and so I thought I'd get my Starry Night software out to see when they get close.

Back in February this year these three were close just before sunrise and I set up my then new camera to try and get photos. Unfortunately on that morning it was cloudy. Starry Night said that Jupiter and Venus will get close on December 1st, but even better is that a 3 day old crescent Moon will also be there in the evening. In fact the Moon will occult Venus, that is Venus will disappear behind the Moon. It's rare for a bright star to be occulted, never mind a planet and something I've never seen.

According my Starry Night Venus disappears at around 3:47 PM - just after sunset. It reappears at about 5:14 PM - about the time I usually get home from work. You can't miss Venus - it's the very bright object in the southwest. I hope to have some good photos in December.

Astronomy

Back in 2005 I bought a decentish telescope. I used to have one before a fire at the house and decided to replace it. To be honest I haven't done all that much with it, partly because it's a bit of a pain to set up every time. It's an equatorial mount, with motor drive, 150mm reflector. To use the motor drive you have to set it up pretty accurately and I couldn't use it on the garden as it was. Using it on the front was pointless with all the street lights.

At work I made a contraption that could hold my Sony Cybershot digital camera at the eyepiece and on April 14th 2005 I took these shots. My first attempt at astro-photography.

From left to right, Callisto, Jupiter, Io, Europa, Ganymede (and no I didn't know without running my Starry Night software). The image has been rotated 180 degrees because through the telescope Callisto would have been on the right. It's a 2 second exposure, which has over exposed Jupiter but it's hardly a professional setup. Jupiter is the bright "star" low in the south that you might have seen recently.

The photo of the Moon has also been rotated 180 degrees and I was chuffed to bits with it. Magnification is x30. I have no idea what the exposure was because I lost all that data with the software I used. What I do remember is moving the spot meter to get different settings.