I took these photos a couple of nights ago (30th September) with the digital camera - my first attempt at the moon with the Canon! Although they’re not amazing pictures in terms of sharpness etc., I’m quite pleased with them as a first attempt. The first few pictures I took were totally black - nothing in them at all - but I’ve learned enough recently to know what I needed to adjust (slower shutter speed, higher ISO) in order to get some more light into the picture. A good start!
I’ve just put resized pictures up here because they’re actually HUGE at full size (2MB each and over 3000 pixels wide).
Had another bash at Jupiter and could see the two main stripes quite clearly in the telescope. Got closer to capturing a picture of it this time, but just as I got everything lined up and started to focus … the laptop went into power saving mode and switched off!! This happened a couple of times and was really starting to irritate me, so I moved onto the moon since it had appeared by that point.
We’re forecast to have a couple of clear nights, so hopefully I’ll get out again tomorrow.
Here’s the moon video that the picture was generated from:
The skies stayed fairly clear, so I managed to get this picture tonight:
And here’s the video:
We think we also saw Jupiter last night but struggled to get a good clear view of it (and couldn’t get anything more than a fuzzy blob in NexImage). Not sure why that was, as I believe the NexImage is quite capable of capturing Jupiter. Maybe the “seeing” wasn’t good enough last night?
If there’s one thing yesterday’s video recording has taught me, it’s the need for polar alignment and a drive motor. Without a drive motor, the object being recorded drifts out of view in the telescope (as you can see above). A drive motor allows the telescope to automatically track stars as they move across the sky and they will therefore appear stationary in the telescope’s view.
The drive motor for my Celestron C6-N Telescope is the Celestron Motor Drive, DA for CG-4 mounts (model #93522) and costs around £125 (£125.35 + p&p from 365Astronomy.com)
I had literally less than 5 minutes between finding the moon in the telescope and getting it photographed with the NexImage before it went behind a cloud. Consequently, it’s not an *amazing* picture, but it’s a good start I think!
My First Moon Photo on NexImage
Oh - and it was taken through my [not very clean] living room window shortly after sunset, so was pretty bright outside still. Not a bad image, considering all that!
Well, I’ve finally managed to get a glance at the moon through the telescope! It’s not rising very high at the moment, so I had to view it from inside the house through the sitting room window. It was shortly after teatime, so still very light, but I was able to make out craters etc. which was ace! Viewed it through the NexImage on the laptop (an loan from dad!) and it looked fantastic. Only problem is that it’s very windy today and partially cloudy, so it kept disappearing behind clouds. I stupidly decided to wait until it got darker before taking a picture, and now it’s too cloudy and the moon is too low (obscured by trees) to see. A [very frustrating] lesson learned!
I’m EXTREMELY keen to get started with star-gazing - or, rather, moon gazing to start off with. Best to begin with a big bright target methinks!
I noticed last night that I couldn’t see the moon at all but I put it down to cloud cover. Now I’ve since done a bit of research about moon phases and this is what I’ve learned:
The shape of a moon varies from a “full moon” (which is when the earth is between the sun and the moon) to a “new moon” (which is when the moon is between the sun and the earth).
The moon is set to be “waxing” as it progresses from a new moon to a full moon. It is said to be “waning” as it progresses from full moon back to new moon.
The moon rises and sets just like the sun does! A new moon rises and sets at the same time as the sun. As the moon “waxes” (e.g. to become a crescent or half moon), it gradually rises and sets a little later each day. By the time it is a full moon, it rises pretty much when the sun sets and the moon sets around the time the sun rises. As the moon wanes, the moonrise and moonset times continue to get later until it ends up rising at the same time as the sun again - and that’s it back to being a new moon again!
So, having looked up the moonrise and moonset times for Glasgow (reasonably close to me), they are as follows:
Today - rising at 7.30am, setting at 8.32pm
Tomorrow - rising at 9.50am, setting at 8.42pm
23rd August - rising at 10.36am, setting at 8.52pm
24th August - rising at 12.04pm, setting at 9.05pm
25th August - rising at 1.30pm, setting at 9.21pm
26th August - rising at 2.52pm, setting at 9.44pm
27th August - rising at 4.06pm, setting at 10.16pm
So it’ll probably be quite a few days before the moon is visible during darkness.
Edinburgh, UNITED KINGDOM
