Comet Lovejoy and the Pleiades

Posted on January 20, 2015 by acubedsf

Comet Lovejoy – Change in Position in One Day

Sunday and Monday evening it was clear, so it was time to find Comet Lovejoy again. This time it was near the beautiful Pleiades. Of course, that is worth a picture.

I thought it would also be fun to see how much the comet had moved over one day – the change is quite visible. I was hoping to go for a three-day comparison, but now it’s cloudy again.

Camera geek info:

Canon EOS 60D in manual mode set at f/4.0, 3.2 second exposure, ISO 6400
Canon EF 70 – 200 mm f/4L lens, set at 94 mm for Pleiades and comet and 200 mm for comet, manual focus at infinity
Tripod
Cable release

In choosing which picture is the best, I find that I am using the following criteria: good focus (automatic toss for out of focus picture unless happen upon cool “artistic” effect), no visible star trails (stars should look like a point, not a line), visibility of comet, color of objects, color of sky, and noise of sky. While I have pictures with darker, less noisy sky, they don’t show the comet as well.

I am also finding that the image quality is far better when I zoom to my desired field of view instead of cropping in post-processing to get there.

Astrophotography – Planets

Posted on January 16, 2015 by acubedsf

Conjunction of Moon and Saturn

Saturn (“One of the These Things is Not Like the Others”)

Jupiter and four Galilean Moons

You know you enjoy a hobby when you get up early and go out into the dark cold for it. This morning there was a conjunction of the Moon and Saturn, so I got up and went out. And while I was at it, I took some pictures of Jupiter and its moons, too. I checked – yes all four moons were on the same side of Jupiter this morning. I think it would be fun to make a time lapse of their motion. Might have to try it.

I learned a new astrophotography trick last night. I knew I needed to manually focus for star pictures, but it’s hard to do with dim sources and a camera designed for autofocus. But my camera has a nifty real-time view on the LCD screen with a 10x view … so I could zoom in on the moon or a planet and use the real-time view to help me manually focus. Neat! And *much* sharper pictures.

The real-time view also showed me that, in spite of the solid tripod, the 200 mm is actually quite shaky if I want to crop further in. So I get out my cable release so I could watch the image settle down on the 10x screen and then trigger the camera without actually touching it.

I also already knew that although I could easily see both the Moon and Saturn, Saturn would disappear or the Moon would wash out without some filtering. Graduated neutral density filters to the rescue! I used two (wish I had more and stronger ones) to dim down the Moon so you can see both bodies in the same photo.

Camera geek info:

Canon EOS 60D in manual mode set at f/4.0, 1/60 second exposure for Moon and Saturn, 1/13 second exposure for Jupiter, ISO 2000
Canon EF 70 – 200 mm f/4L lens, set at 200 mm, manual focus at infinity
Singh-Ray Galen Rowell Filter ND-1G-SS + ND-2G-SS for Moon
Tripod
Cable release

Comet Lovejoy – Take 2

Posted on January 16, 2015 by acubedsf

Zooming out this time:

After over a week of dreary gray weather, we finally got (partly) clear skies. Comet Lovejoy was still not naked eye visible from the suburbs (the patchy clouds did not help), but I could find it with the camera! I’m hoping to get pictures two nights in a row so I can get pictures of it moving across the sky. It was certainly in a much different place this week than last week, and I had to re-learn how to find it.

Camera geek info:

Canon EOS 60D in manual mode set at f/4.0, 2 second exposure, ISO 5000
Canon EF 70 – 200 mm f/4L lens, set at 200 mm, manual focus at infinity
Tripod

Edinburgh Moon

Posted on October 5, 2014 by acubedsf

A very exciting, non-writing life milestone for me in September was delivering my oldest to university. In Scotland. Far, far away. We spent our first night in Edinburgh where I got this beautiful shot of the moon with Edinburgh castle.

ApolloCon 2014 Pictures

Posted on June 29, 2014 by acubedsf

I had a blast at ApolloCon 2014, moderating two panels and participating in two others. One end of the hotel was much colder than the other, so I got a nifty TARDIS blanket to keep me warm … perfect for the Dr. Who panel I was moderating.

I forgot to take the traditional picture of the view out of my window (it was a parking lot anyway), but my wonderful husband did take some pictures of my panels.

Bad Boys vs. Good Guys with Dominick D’Aunno, Shanna Swendson, and Charlayne Elizabeth Denney.

Moderating Short Fiction: Still a Thriving Market with Austin Malone, Rie Sheridan Rose, and D. L. Young.

My TARDIS blanket – warmer on the inside!

Moderating The Big Blue Box: Dr. Who with Diane Ullman (Queen Victoria), George Padgett, and Al Griego.

Back from Seeing Alpha Centauri

Posted on June 21, 2014 by acubedsf

Summer vacation this year took us to Peru, where we greatly enjoyed experiencing another culture and exploring the Inca ruins, including the magnificent Machu Picchu. I also enjoyed photographing the moon and stars that can only be seen in the Southern Hemisphere. The Southern Cross looks like a kite to me.

View from our Lima hotel room:

Peru-Lima-View