The Milky Way from Bryce

Just a quick photo I got of the Milky Way tonight over some trees at Bryce Canyon National Park.  Enjoy!

A Pretty Morning Threesome

Weather and clouds seemed to be conspiring against me in my attempt to get the conjunction of Saturn and Venus.  As an added bonus, Mercury is also in the morning sky right now and fairly bright.

Well, I finally got my chance.  I am at a workshop at Bryce Canyon.  I got up early and drove to Fairyland Canyon near the entrance to Bryce Canyon National Park and set up there to get the conjunction.  Venus and Saturn are at the top (Venus is the bright one) and Mercury is the bright one lower in the sky (click to embiggen).

You still got another chance or two.  Saturn will be moving up above Venus the next few days and Mercury will be getting lower.  You can really watch the movement of the planets from day to day when they are this close together in the sky.

Monday Night Pictures

I saw that the ISS was makinga pass tonight and decided to go outside and check it out.  It was only about 20 minutes past sunset, so long exposures to pick up the trail were difficult.  Using a zoom and low ISO got some results.

There was supposed to be cargo ship nearby, but it was too bright to see the much dimmer satellite.

I turned a little to the south of this image and saw the Moon and Jupiter rising over the Rincon Mountains.

Go out tomorrow shortly after sunset.  The Moon will have moved  to the east (left) of Jupiter.  Should be a nice pairing.

Quick Crescent Moon Pics

From a little star party on the west side tonight.

Lots of Earthshine on the crescent Moon.  I flashed the foreground to illuminate it…only have a built in flash.  Might be my next investment: external flash.

A Night @Kitt Peak

I just got back from out Project Astro workshop night at Kitt Peak.  Spend most of the evening showing teachers objects through the Galileoscope including Jupiter, Mizar, M4, M7, M8, M13 and M31.  Not a bad collection for a little scope.

I did manage a couple of night shots.  Couldn’t resist getting the Milky Way over one of the domes on Kitt Peak.I also took a shot toward Tucson of the lights.  Remember Tucson has good lighting ordinances so note the lack of upward directed lighting,  You still get some light…hey, there are a lot of people down there!

Good night…another day of the workshop tomorrow!

More on the Galileoscope

It has been a while since I have written about the Galileoscope.  I got mine a few weeks ago and know many people have received them and another shipment is just arriving at the warehouse so if you are still waiting, the wait is about over. If you haven’t ordered any, this is a great time since your wait time for the scopes should be shorter.

First, there have been some problems with people finding the small lenses for the eyepieces.  There is a piece of packing foam on top of the objective lens.  The eyepiece lenses are in this piece of foam which is easily mistaken for packing material.  The directions that come with the Galileoscope are not the best.  Fortunately, you can download an updated set at the Gaileoscope website.  There is also a pictorial version for those who may not be able to read English.

So now you got your Galileoscope assembled and are starting to play with it.  You might want to check out how to Pimp My Galileoscope on the Cloudy Nights Forum. You can also check out photos of and taken through the Galileoscope on Flickr. I think it is safe to say that people are seeing more with the Galileoscope than Galileo saw through his!

Although Saturn is too low in the sky to observe right now, the image to the right was taken by me through the Galileoscope using a cheap (less than $100) HP digital camera.  You can clearly see the nearly edge on rings, even at 25x.  I hope to get a good image of Jupiter soon and will post it if I do.

The ISS Plus Two

Tonight I stayed home to image from the Courtyard of my townhome.  It was a much brighter ISS pass than last night, so I thought I could catch it without going out to a dark site.

I caught an interesting photo of the ISS.  You can see it as the bright streak on the left.  On the right you see a series of pairs of “stars” connected by a very thin streak.  This is a plane that happened to fly through my image.

Now for the challenge.  Click the image to embiggen.  Look closely between the plane and the ISS for a thin streak heading down to the left right.  After checking Heavens Above, I believe this may be the Cosmos 1666 rocket (I could see it visibly, but it was tougher to catch with the camera).  Look closely and you will see the Milky Way starting to poke through the image.  Several star clusters are visible.  After seeing that, I wish I drove out to the park to catch this from a slightly darker site.

Another ISS Pass

This time with the shuttle docked.  I got out there a little early to see a little of sunset.

The pass was about half an hour after sunset so the sky was still a little light.  Therefore, I used a low ISO and a shorter exposure.  After taking several shots during the pass, this was my favorite.

We have really good passes here Tuesday and Wednesday.  The monsoon is taking a break, so I might have a shot at them (although the seeing is still not that good here).

If you want to see if they will pass over your area, you can use Heavens-Above or Space Weather’s Simple Satellite Tracker.

The ISS in July: Part I (I Hope!)

A little cloudy here in Tucson, but that didn’t stop me from going out to catch the ISS pass.  Went to my usual haunt at  Saguaro National Park East, right at the end of Speedway for those that know Tucson.  Here is the first shot (click to embiggen).

This is the first part of the pass. There was a bit of a breeze and the clouds were moving fast.  You can see they look blurred in this 15 second exposure.

The ISS moved to a more clear part of the sky and I got another shot.

That’s more like it.  Hoping for better weather later this week, but the monsoon season in Tucson is pretty dicey.

Four Celestial Bodies

It was cloudy for the nice conjunction yesterday, but it was still pretty good this morning (click to embiggen)

The crescent Moon is obvious with Earthshine.  Venus is very prominent with Mars slightly to its upper left.  You might have to click for a larger version to detect Mercury almost directly below the Moon (it is hard to see at this resolution, but the full picture is a pretty big file).  The Moon was very close to the Pleaides, but I got up too late and the sky was too bright to get a good shot of them together.

I went ahead and zoomed in on the Moon, Venus and Mars for a closer shot.
The Moon will be even a more slender crescent tomorrow morning and almost directly left (north) and a little higher in the sky than Mercury (well, for Tucson at least).  New Moon is Monday at 3:35pm EDT, so the crescent could be a little challenging, but I have spotted it that close to new several times, so it is definitely achievable.