Show Your Astrophotos

[Wrangellian]

Nice shots you guys.

Nice to have a lake in the foreground for planet photos. I've got trees and mountains which more often block the view..

Venus still hasn't risen very high in the sky yet, but I guess this is the time of year when the ecliptic begins to lay down somewhat, so that won't happen this time. It's almost at elongation, anyway.

Uranus and Neptune are also out there to see among the other planets if you have bino's. I managed to spot Vesta a week or two ago for the first time, with the help of Stellarium showing me where to look!

[Ptychodus04]

9 hours ago, Walt said:

Nice pic of Jupiter!  What size scope do you have?

 

I have a 12” LX90. The Jupiter pic was shot at prime focus using a barlow lens for an effective focal length of 6,096mm (f/20) and is a stack of 85 images. The moon pic is a single frame shot at prime focus with a 90mm Maksutov Cassegrain mounted to the LX90 with a focal length of 1250mm (f/13.8).

[Ptychodus04]

This shot is a 30 image stack of the Moon rising at prime focus on my LX90. Not too bad taking into account the low position, bad turbulence, and the piles of Saharan dust in the air!

[Ptychodus04]

Whilst taking out the trash this morning, I was greeted by an extremely bright Moon. This isn’t the best picture (iPhone 7 camera) but our largest natural satellite put on quite a show.

[Wrangellian]

Interesting.. What caused the two long 'spokes'?

[Ptychodus04]

1 hour ago, Wrangellian said:

Interesting.. What caused the two long 'spokes'?

They are lens flares. It is an artifact generated by a bright light source hitting the lens at an angle. Apparently, I didn’t hold my phone up very straight.

[Walt]

Just now, Ptychodus04 said:

They are lens flares. It is an artifact generated by a bright light source hitting the lens at an angle. Apparently, I didn’t hold my phone up very straight.

There's an app for that....

[Ptychodus04]

16 minutes ago, Walt said:

There's an app for that....

To make lens flares or to make me hold my phone straight to take a picture?

[Walt]

....to make you hold your phone straight. 

[Wrangellian]

5 hours ago, Ptychodus04 said:

They are lens flares. It is an artifact generated by a bright light source hitting the lens at an angle. Apparently, I didn’t hold my phone up very straight.

That's a pretty strong flare, and your moon isn't very far from the center. I wouldn't have thought you could get that without some sort of filter (or a fingerprint smear!)

[Ptychodus04]

1 hour ago, Wrangellian said:

That's a pretty strong flare, and your moon isn't very far from the center. I wouldn't have thought you could get that without some sort of filter (or a fingerprint smear!)

Nope, that’s what I got from the camera. 

[Wrangellian]

I've never gotten anything like it from my digital camera!

[ynot]

15 hours ago, Ptychodus04 said:

Apparently, I didn’t hold my phone up very straight.

How do You do that?

[Ptychodus04]

6 hours ago, ynot said:

How do You do that?

As compared to the Moon. I can’t see why else I would get such a strong flare.

[Ptychodus04]

This isn't the best photo of a nearly full moon but not to shabby for hand held and thickening upper altitude clouds. This is shot at F5.6 1/4000th second exposure through a Canon 300mm lens at ISO 400.

 

[snolly50]

@Ptychodus04 Here are some SC clouds from 3 nights ago, Luna and her nimbus...

 

Handheld Nikon D600 with Nikkor zoom at 500mm

 

[Ptychodus04]

Nice shot @snolly50!

[snolly50]

9 minutes ago, Ptychodus04 said:

Nice shot @snolly50!

Thanks Kris, the Moon's a little blown-out by the overexposure to reveal the cloud glow. If you click to enlarge the image, you can see some lunar detail. I could have opted post-capture to select the moon's orb and adjust its brightness independently, but I was too lazy.  

[Ptychodus04]

1 minute ago, snolly50 said:

 ...I was too lazy.  

Hear hear brother.

[Wrangellian]

Early this morning I risked frostbite to head down the road a bit to watch the Moon and Mercury rise in the clear, freezing air. Water accumulates in the farm fields below me in the Winter, frequented by water birds - quite a few of them, actually. Mainly geese and ducks, a few swans, and others that I can't identify. (Maybe the pic would fit better in the Nature Photography section? but my intent was to get some shots of the sky objects. The birds were a bonus)...

Venus was higher up, blazing brightly. I don't remember it seeming so bright! Maybe my astigmatism is getting worse. Anyway there was a bit too much separation between the 3 objects to get them all in one decent shot.

Closeup of Moon and Mercury (near treeline) around 6:43AM - somewhat overexposed but the effect is nice:

Fun fact: that star near the moon is called Zuben Elakrab.

 

Wider shot with birds, around 7:03AM - exposure is closer to accurate but not sure by how much. Dark streaks in air are birds flying around.

Mercury is just visible about halfway down from Moon:

 

Here's a warmer-looking shot that I quite like, but a little overexposed. Mercury visible here too - look closely. About 7:10AM:

[Wrangellian]

Just for completeness here's a wide angle to include Venus, about 7:12AM. This doesn't do the scene justice - there's no way I can capture how it looks to the eye.

They can put a man on the moon but they can't make a camera with an automatic setting to approximate what the human eye sees (in terms of exposures), can they?

Mercury is not visible in this shot, partly because I've shrunk all these by 50% and a small speck disappears, but it was getting lighter out also.

 

 

An earlier shot overexposed, which gives more of an impression of how bright Venus was ~6:37AM, overexposed. Mercury had not yet risen above trees:

If someone had told me that Venus was actually brighter than the moon, I wouldn't have been surprised. According to Stellarium it is not, but they are in the same ballpark. (Maybe early this morning when the moon is even slimmer, that might be the case?)

 

[snolly50]

@Wrangellian Excellent images. I especially like the 2nd one featuring the frozen footed birds.

[Ptychodus04]

Got up early yesterday for some bass fishing on a nice 33 degree morning (beats going to work!).

 

This was the view from the parking area at the boat launch.

 

And I landed plenty of bass. I stopped counting at 25.

 

[minnbuckeye]

@Ptychodus04, Nice composition on the early morning light. The "fall" bass fishing is pretty hot here in Minnesota right now too, only I have to pull them through the hole in the ice. Landed 5 bass yesterday while I was perch fishing. Not quite as big as yours, but close. May your fossils and fish keep jumping into the boat.

 

Mike

[Ptychodus04]

1 hour ago, minnbuckeye said:

@Ptychodus04, Nice composition on the early morning light. The "fall" bass fishing is pretty hot here in Minnesota right now too, only I have to pull them through the hole in the ice. Landed 5 bass yesterday while I was perch fishing. Not quite as big as yours, but close. May your fossils and fish keep jumping into the boat.

 

Mike

Sometimes I forget about ice fishing. I remember the days sitting on a bucket freezing my posterior off with my old man as a very young boy. It was so much fun that I haven’t done it since!