Today marked another opportunity to capture a transit, and this time, we had clear skies and I kept the timing straight in my head and everything. The target was the Tiangong space station, China’s own entry into low-Earth-orbit experiments and observations, and the waning crescent moon. I checked everything,
Tag: moon
Visibly different, part 55
Sure, this was the weekly topic three years ago, but who says it can’t be resurrected?
I mentioned a few days ago that I could illustrate something better, and now I’m keeping my promise. We’ll start with an image from several years back, with new annotations.
With the light angle of approaching 1st quarter, waxing crescent now, Theophilus crater stands
I’m selfish
I’ve been having reminders popping up from my calendar that the Perseids meteor shower is peaking within the next few days, and various sites that I’ve visited have been promoting it as one of the best showers of the year, insofar as number and display. But I’ve been neglecting posting about it for two reasons, the first being very self-centered: the skies have
Mostly good
So I did indeed get out to view the occultation of Mars by the mean ol’ moon (ours, I mean, not any of the other planets’,) and even snagged a couple of video clips. The nice thing was, Mars was bright enough to be seen near the moon with only a slight overexposure of the moon itself, so that worked out acceptably well.
You can see it easily down there at the bottom,
Edging out the little guy
Tomorrow night, a little after 9 PM EST (so 2 AM Jan 14 UTC – adjust as necessary,) the moon will occult Mars, pretty directly for most of the US. This will last for a little over an hour before Mars reappears again out the other side, so this is an easy thing to spot by naked eye, and a good target for telephoto lenses, small and large telescopes.
I keep making noises to this
Nuh uh
My attempts to finagle a clear sky and/or some nice Geminids meteors failed, but the haze did produce a nice, wide lunar halo, which nonetheless took a much longer exposure to bring out than the moon required, so the moon got blown out in the middle. This is at 18mm and just barely got the halo in the frame – I could have gone wider with another lens, but didn’t deem
So much for that
A couple weeks back, I came across another photo of the International Space Station in front of the sun, and it renewed my interest in trying to obtain an image of this on my own, especially since I now have a working solar filter – I’d be fine with the moon, too. Thus began the research into how one got an accurate prediction for the passes as seen from one’s own location.
Here’s
Blink and you missed it
The conditions held and I did get out to watch Spica disappear behind the moon. I tried a short video clip, unable to tell if it was actually capturing Spica or not but suspecting that it wasn’t – the frame rates for video translate to a pretty short shutter speed and even as bright as it was in comparison, Spica was still pretty dim. Upon returning home, I found that
Preliminary
Just now, took a peek out there as the sky was darkening, noticed that it was more than clear enough, and did a couple of test shots. I also noticed another speck in the viewfinder and reframed, but I was still working handheld and sharpness was lacking. As I was setting up the tripod and getting the remote release out and the camera set for mirror lockup*, the last little light
Watch Spica vanish before your eyes!
I really haven’t been finding posting material recently, because I’ve had a lot of other things going on, though I have a few unrelated pics that may show up a little later. Right now, I’m providing what little warning I can, having discovered only this morning that the moon will be occulting Spica this evening.
Basic orbital dynamics: the stars move across the