Posts Tagged ‘Canon’

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Penumbral eclipse, full moon, no clouds!?

April 25, 2013

by yaska77

It’s been a very slow couple of months of late. The British weather is infamous the world over, and not only have we just experienced the first real warmth of spring, but an abundance of evening clouds have kept many a garden astro indoors.

The signs were good this evening however, there was a penumbral eclipse on the April Full Moon (as noted in our April Astro Guide), and not a cloud in the sky! What madness was this!?

Penumbral Eclipse 25042013 21.07 BST Sky-Watching.co.uk

Taken with a Canon Eos 550D and a 250mm lens mounted to a fixed tripod, the penumbral eclipse is visible over the top left edge of the full Moon (click to enlarge) – Credit: Sky-Watching/A.Welbourn

Some time ago the spotter scope on my telescope was knocked out of alignment, so combined with the clouds it’s been a shamefully long time since I used it.

Looking on this evening as a chance to at least re-align the spotter scope (even if the Moon would not rise high enough to see any of the partial eclipse), I set up and found my fence was just low enough for the scope to catch it before the shadow passed!

Penumbral Eclipse 25042013 21.22 BST Sky-Watching.co.uk

Now mounted to my Sky-Watcher 200P Telescope, the partial eclipse is still a visible shadow over the northern edge of the Full Moon (click to enlarge) – Credit: Sky-Watching/A.Welbourn

So finally we’ve had an astronomical event that the clouds missed. But not by much I can tell you, an hour after these photos were taken the Moon was enveloped behind a blanket of cloud.

So we do get a break once in a while after all :)

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Perseid Meteor Shower – 12th August 2012

August 12, 2012

by yaksa77

After the dress rehearsal for this morning’s Perseid meteor shower peak provided so many sightings on Friday I had hight hopes. Never one to conform to expectations though, the run up to the peak was decidely slow starting and a bit lacklustre!

Undeterred by this, or the stubborn refusal of evening cloud to move on, I still set out just gone midnight to the Wye Downs in mid-Kent. Despite only capturing a few flashes with the camera eventually the show sparked into life, and in just over an hour I saw 33 meteors!

Taken using a Canon EOS 550D at 18mm focal length, f/3.5, 20 second exposure at ISO-1600 – 12th August 2012 (click to enlarge) – Credit: Sky-Watching/A.Welbourn

This is probably the best of the photos I got while out in the countryside, I love the way the meteor flashed into view right in the middle of a gap in the clouds.

The Pleiades cluster is also nice and bright, and you can see Jupiter is just rising at the base of the fence post directly below the meteor!

This one shows a nice long clear Perseid tail with more definition to the shape at the end of the streak, heading away from Andromeda – 12th August 2012 (click to enlarge) – Credit: Sky-Watching/A.Welbourn

After a few hours I packed up and headed home to find the skies had cleared over my house. Not wanting to miss the opportunity I set up again and caught a few more (the best of which are above and below). In the image above the Perseid can be seen streaking away from an oval smudge that is the Andromeda galaxy.

I’m so pleased that after my disappointment with the faint efforts I got last year, over the last two nights I’ve caught some nice clear examples of one of nature’s most beautiful free displays!

Another clear Perseid streak, this time with a faint green tint to the tail! 12th August 2012 (click to enlarge) – Credit: Sky-Watching/A.Welbourn

I’m not sure what the weather forecast is for this evening but the shower should still be fairly strong, and I feel on a bit of a roll at the moment so may just set the camera up again tonight.

Well, I wouldn’t want to miss anything would I!? :)

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Transit of Venus 2012 – My “last in our lifetime” washout (but with a silver lining…)

June 6, 2012

by yaska77

The alarm went off just after 4am this morning. Dragging myself to the window in the hope last night’s rain had passed and the sky would allow unrestricted access to the transit of Venus, I drew back the curtains to find a dull cloudy grey blanket with occasional downpours of rain.

On June 5 2012, SDO captured this image of one of the rarest predictable solar events: the transit of Venus across the face of the Sun (click to enlarge) – Credit: NASA/SDO, HMI

I waited up for half an hour to see if there was any sign of improvement, and if anything it rained more.

While the images already being posted online in their hundreds provide a great catalogue of this special event, I personally lucked out again thanks to the British weather.

Typically, when I got up later the clouds were breaking and the Sun could be seen.  I’m prepared to admit I spent rather a lot of time making a homemade solar filter for my camera using Baader AstroSolar Safety Film, so I was certainly not going to waste a chance to at least test it.

By cutting a hole of equal size in two squares of card, you can then fix the solar film between them, then make a collar for your lens by wrapping strips of card around it and then fixing it to the filter square (click to enlarge) – Credit: Sky-Watching/A.Welbourn

The next image that follows is bittersweet for me. Sweet in the fact that I’ve been able to image the Sun using a standard zoom lens on my Canon Eos 550D for the first time, but bitter because is shows I could clearly have captured the Venus transit this morning if only the weather had played ball.

C’est la vie.

Shot from my own back garden, the sunspots match those in the SDO image at the top, so I could have captured my own bit of history (click to enlarge) – Credit: Sky-Watching/A.Welbourn

Sadly my image is missing the very important detail of the planet Venus during transit, as the sunspots match those seen in the SDO image released by NASA.  If only it could have held out for a few more hours (ha!) I’d have got it, and with some degree of clarity too. Not to be seen again until 2117…

Using this solar filter however has sparked an idea, one which will require some more sunspot activity but also a week of good weather with clear skies at about the same time of the day for several days in a row.

I’d like to show the relative movement of similar massive sunspots over a short period of time.

So should this come to fruition the transit blocking clouds may well have had a silver lining :)

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ISS pass near Venus – 17th April 2012

April 17, 2012

by yaska77

There’s a great account you can follow on Twitter if you’d like to be sent alerts whenever the ISS will be passing your location. Twisst ISS alerts send out thousands of messages every day, and right on shedule this evening the ISS began a pass over my house.

The ISS streaks across the sky near to the bright planet Venus from 17th April (click to enlarge) - Credit: Sky-Watching/A.Welbourn

Taken using a 50mm lens on a 6 second exposure (f/2.5 ISO-200), I think enough of the stars appear cleanly without too much drifting. Venus is beautiful at the moment, and it always looks great in an image!

The ISS streak seems to "phase" as it passes behind part of a tree (click to enlarge) - Credit: Sky-Watching/A.Welbourn

So, 10 minutes in the cold and a nice, bright, high ISS pass later I’m back indoors with a hot cuppa.

And my Canon Eos 550D is having its batteries charged. The Lyrids meteor shower peaks soon, I think I’ll get the flask ready for a night in the cold!

If you’re on Twitter you can follow @twisst and while you’re there, why not follow us too!

And if not you’re not on Twitter yet, come and join us!

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Venus in the Pleiades – 4th April 2012

April 4, 2012

by yaska77

As per usual our skies were cloudy last night. I’m beginning to believe the clouds wait to roll in just before particular astral events, usually the ones I most want to see! Last night (as noted in our Astro Guide for April) the planet Venus appeared as if part of the Pleiades star cluster.

Thankfully tonight Venus hasn’t moved on all that far, and a break in the clouds just after sunset gave us the chance to get some photos!

The bright planet Venus shines next to the Pleiades cluster, and the setting Jupiter is accompanied by some of her moons (click to enlarge) - Credit: Sky-Watching/A.Welbourn

Taken with a Canon Eos 550D using a 50mm lens (4 sec exposure, f/3.5, ISO400), virtually none of the stars you can see in the image above were visible to the naked eye!

A cropped full size view of the beautiful Pleiades next to a radiant Venus (click to enlarge) - Credit: Sky-Watching/A.Welbourn

This is a fullsize cropped section of the image. Yesterday Venus would have appeared lower down and closer to the lower left edge of the cluster, so they would both have appeared in the field of view if the Canon were attached to a telescope.  Another missed opportunity.

Still, the great thing about astrophotography is that there’s always something worthy of imaging, and we like the shots we got this evening.

Space is cool :)

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