Spooky Spot

Sun is wishing everyone a happy Halloween -:]

Sun spot AR2192 is about to go away but is looking a bit like a skull right? Trying eye-piece projection with my little 81mm refactor scope. Worked out okay. Hope to try again in a few weeks when it comes back around or if there are any new semi big or interesting sunspots now that I have my solar filters.

P.S. Here are some maybe halloweeny sounds to listen to while viewing the astrophotography https://soundcloud.com/t1t4/sets/astrophoto-sound-track

Found a Pinwheel and a Horsehead

Went camping at Pinnicals National Park and was finally able to get my new little telescope out under pretty dark skies. Mixed luck but super fun!

First time imaging the Triangulum Galaxy (aka m33). Only about 7min of exposure but still got something. Need to get a couple of hours of this one at some point.

Finally managed to get an okay image of the Horsehead Nebula! I think I've been trying to image this for a few years now and finally got something okay. The new scope is a lot smaller than my other one and is a fair amount faster (3"@F6.6 vs 8"@F10) with a wider view. Also you can see the Flame Nebula (aka NGC 2024).

And how could I resist giving trying out the Orion Nebula (aka m42)? I couldn't. Much wider view without the need for a reducer which let me fit the Running Man Nebula (aka NGC 1977) in as well.

Now to practice my alignment with the new mount which took me the better part of an hour or more to setup this time. I want to spend more time imaging and less time fiddling with the telescope to to get it up and running next time. I might have had better images, more images or time to take some pictures of the meteor shower if I had been able to get up and running faster. Next time but so far so good!

Bit of a solar eclipse

There was a partial eclipse today and I managed to get a few images.

I think this is slightly sharper than the next image.

But this one still turned out okay. You can click on the images to see a larger version.

 And one more. Less processing and maybe a little cleaner?

Whales in the Line Up

Saw 4 or more whales on dawn patrol at Montera. Only managed to get this short video of one or two before suiting up. We paddled out to just about where they were but we didn't see any while we were surfing. When we got out we saw a few about 1/4 mile to the south.

Orange Moon, Red Planet and some Stripes

 2014-04-16 Lunar eclipse. I think this is about the full eclipse of the moon. Unfortunately there were a lot of thin clouds. Luckily they were thin enough that it was still easy to see the eclipse.

I think this shot is a bit before the full eclipse but it was a bit more clear.

Here is an animation of a little bit into the eclipse till it started to go orange.

Mars was also at it's closest point to earth so I shot a few pictures of which this came out about the best. Like I said there were lots of light clouds and to top that off the seeing was not very good. I feel lucky I managed to get an image this good. Still waiting for good seeing and a clear night to go back out and try and get a better shot while Mars is still close.

And Jupiter was out so I snapped a few shots if it as well. Not to good. Again due to the poor seeing and light cloud cover mostly.

Sea Turtles!

We took our first trip to Hawaii the last week of March. Linda got a cold the first day in Kauai and 5 days later was feeling better so we tried to do some snorkeling our last day on Kauai. It started off sunny but when we got to the beach the clouds rolled in and the wind kicked up. She only made it about waist deep before realizing she was to sick for the suddenly cold weather. I was already in so I spent about 15min snorkeling and saw a bunch of sea turtles and some other fishes. Lots of other fun pictures to come maybe soonish.