It was cold, just over freezing, and dry in Suffolk. I set up my Stellarvue SV80BV to do some prime focus photos of the event. The full set of photos can be found here.

I took my first images around 1:30 AM and even though you could not see a shadow on the moon with the unaided eye the camera did pick up a bit of shadow starting to creep over the surface.

Around 2:10 AM or so some pretty heavy clouds started to move through, the moon was bright enough to be seen even through the clouds, but there was a period of time around 2:20 AM that the moon was completely blocked out and I thought that we may miss seeing totality.

Luckily the clouds moved off about as quickly as they moved in and by 2:30 or so the sky was crystal clear. Still a few thin clouds for the first photo below.

But then things started to clear up nicely.

During totality the moon was a nice red color and it was amazing how as the moon darkened the stars brightened. It was really cool to look through the eye piece and see a field of stars behind the moon, these stars are usually washed out during a full moon.

At around 4:00 AM I decided to call it a night and try to get a few hours sleep. It was great to see the eclipse and I am glad my picture came out as well as they did. The full set can be found in my Flickr Lunar Eclipse December 21, 2010 Set.

Alignment Stars: Spica and Arcturus
Calibration Stars: Vega and Antares

Did not really plan out my session. Even though I had a nap earlier in the day I was still kind of tired from being out in the morning, but I did not want to let the clear sky go to waste.

From my observing notes:

Messier 13 – The Great Cluster in Hercules – M13 is a globular cluster located in the constellation Hercules, I had to work a bit to get good focus using the 9mm in the C6. Once I was able to get focus it was very easy to resolve the individual stars outside of the clusters center. Also, able to resolve well with the 22mm. Focus was easier to obtain with the 22mm. While focusing on M13 with the 9mm Nagler I did notice a “mirror shift”, this is the first time I have experienced this in any of my scopes (not saying it has not happened before, this is just the first time I have noticed it).

I also observed M5, M10, M92, and M12. Messier 12 was the hardest of these to resolve.

Saturn looked very nice with the 9mm. The shadow of the planet’s rings were easily seen on the planet’s surface. The rings are still nearly edge on so there was no real detail to be seen. Three of Saturn’s moons were easily visible. I looked up the planet in Stellarium to figure out which moons we were seeing and they were Rhea, Tethys, and Titan. I am not very good a sketching but I did draw a small sketch of the moons locations so I could look it up.

The kids came out for a bit to look at Saturn , Mars, and the Moon. My son Johnathan stay out with me for most of the time I was out, which was cool since he is generally not into it.

We tried to look at M81 and M82 but both of these appeared as just smudges. M81 had a bright center but no detail and M82 showed no detail, just a smudge of faint light. I am not sure if it was because of the amount of light pollution or if these targets are just better suited for the 8″ scope. I have observed both of these with good detail in the 8″.

Around 11:30 we were over the heat, humidity, and mosquitoes so we called it a night.

Visually Mars was very easy to observer and I was able to get some good detail even at medium to high magnification. Large, red-orange, and bright. I could even see the white polar region. The air was just not still enough for imaging. I was able to get good focus and the scope was staying on target but the images just came out a bit blurred. So below is the image I ended up with, it is 120 seconds at 5 frames/second stacked through the AT66ED 400mm scope with a 2x Barlow with the Celestron NexImage camera. I tried imaging through the Celestron 8″ SCT but the seeing was not very good to image at that high magnification.

Mars - January 27, 2010

After spending some time trying to get a decent image of Mars I turned the scope to the Moon and took a few stills. I think several of them turned out right well and you can see some good detail. I will identify the major features in the photos when I have more time. There are also a couple other images on my flickr page.

Moon - January 27, 2010

Moon - January 27, 2010

Moon - January 27, 2010

The moisture took over both scopes about 2 hours into observing. I have got to get a dew heater!

The sky was clear and the moon was bright. Did a little looking around at M81, M82, M3, and M53 but the brightness of the moon really washed them out. Took a good look at Saturn, probably should have set up my NexImage to try to take a few pics, but was just enjoying looking.

Orion is disappearing in the southwest before midnight. Won’t be to long before he disappears from the night sky until late fall.

Here is a quick snapshot I took of the moon at Prime Focus with my D60.

Waxing Gibbous Moon on April 4, 2009

https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/1915

Can be configured for your locale, and set to display just about anywhere on the browser.  Mouseover it and it displays the info. Pretty neat.

The Crescent Moon and Venus Through the Clouds

The clouds rolled in Friday afternoon and it stayed cloudy all weekend.  It was a great weekend to just do nothing.  Ending up laying on the couch and watching all three LoTR movies on Sunday.

Tonight was just a quick look.  The weather was calling for a mostly clear sky and I just wanted to take advantage of it, even if it was only for a quick look.

Because of this I decided to setup my NexStar 60 SLT Refractor.  I have not used this scope since I got the C8.  Unlike the C8 the 60 SLT takes about 5 minutes to setup and align, the views are no where near as spectacular, but if you are just trying to take in a quick view, it’s perfect.

I setup the scope and powered it up, selected the two star manual align on the GOTO controller and after setting the location, time, and date selected Betelgeuse for the first alignment star and then Rigel for the second, after I was finished aligning these stars in the eye piece “Alignment Success” flashed on the screen of the hand controller.

I selected M31 on the GOTO controller and the scope moved into position nearly dead on the Andromeda Galaxy.  Through the 15mm lens I could pick up a fair amount of detail.  The bulge of stars in the center fading outward to the left and right of my field of view.

After studying M31 for about 20 minutes, I entered M33 hoping to get a glimpse of a second galaxy. The scope changed position but I was not able to find the Triangulum galaxy in the eyepiece.  After about 5 minute or so of searching I gave up on this one till next time.

Venus is high in the Southwest sky so I entered Planet and selected Venus on the GOTO controller.  The scope slewed around to the planet, it was a little high in the eyepiece, but still not bad.  Venus looks like a half moon and is very bright.  I was able to get a pretty decent view of the planet through the 20mm eyepiece.

I ended my time with M43, this is one of my favorites.  Partly because it is so easy to find and partly because it can be viewed with even a low power scope.  Even with a small scope you can see this nebula and enjoy it’s beauty.

Just before 8:00 PM some high thin clouds started to move in and the moon began to rise in the East.  By 8:30 the light of the moon reflecting off the high clouds was washing out all but the brightest of stars.

Cold and clear, the moon was very bright and nearly full.  The light from the moon pretty much washed out anything deep sky.  Had a look at M43 in Orion and even it was washed out by the moon light.  The nebula was still visible but very faint.

Saturn rose in the east just before 11:00 PM.  Shortly after that it was high enough in the sky that I was able to pick it up in the scope.

Saturn was very bright and easy to find in the eastern sky.  I had trouble focusing on the ringed planet at first, the brightness of the sky and the brightness of the planet made it hard to get a real sharp focus on the rings.  I used a Celestron #12 Yellow filter and was able to get a real good sharp picture of the planet in the eye piece.  The rings of Saturn are facing edge towards earth and with the yellow filter I could pick up the fine detail of the edge of the rings across the middle of the planet.  Four of Saturn’s moons were also easily visible through the eyepiece.

I tried out my new Orion Highlight 3x Barlow with my Celestron 25mm Plossl eyepiece.  Really brought the view in close.  Was not able to get as sharp of focus as without the Barlow, but I am getting better, more practice I won’t be so heavy handed on the focus knob.

I tried to take some prime focus pictures with the D60, but I was not able to get a good sharp focus and/or get the exposure right for the brightness of the planet.  I wish I had set my laptop and NexImage Camera up, I probably could have gotten some really good shots, next time.

I spent about an hour looking at Saturn and called it a night just after midnight.

It was a nice night early on, cold and fairly clear to the East and directly over head. By about 9:00 PM there were some clouds moving in from the Southwest. A thin layer of clouds covered the sky by 10:00 PM so I called it a night a little earlier than I wanted.

Orion Nebula | 01/03/09 19:10 EST - 6x30secs - Prime Focus

Moon 01/03/2009 - 1/200 exposure - Prime Focus

I need to practice focusing some as most of the shots I took were just a hair out of focus. I also took a few shots of the Andromeda Galaxy but they were just too out of focus.

When I set the scope up early in the afternoon, Venus was visible in full light. I wanted to try out the T-Connector and camera in the daylight to minimize the fumbling at night. I took a quick shot of Venus and here it is:

Venus - Early Afternoon - 01032009 - 1/200 exposure - Prime Focus

Kind of cool being able to see this planet well before dark. Looks like a miniature half Moon.

Jupiter and Mars are very close together in the southwest and I was able to easily get them both in the 105mm’s field of view.  Both planets disappeared quickly over the horizon.

Jupiter and Mars - 5:44 PM EST - 105mm ISO1600 1/10 f2.8

The Moon and Venus are more south-southwest and higher in the sky with a bit more space between them. I was not able to get a good shot of them both with 105mm. The 50mm picked them up quite nice.

Venus and the Moon - 5:53 PM EST - 50mm 1/50 ISO800 f2.8

These are a bit hurried, but hopefully tomorrow night will be clear and I will have a little more time. The Moon and Venus are suppose to meet up in the sky for a conjunction tomorrow night and Mercury and Jupiter should be nearly side by side.

Can’t wait to piggy back the 105 on the scope!

My wonderful wife also got me the t-connector and t-ring to be able to do prime focus photography through my C8.  I am looking forward to a good clear sky and some time to try that out!