Scattered Thoughts . . .

Until recently, I've been using my usual photography-based cameras for my astrophotography.  I'm not going to get into details here but using those everyday cameras is not ideal for most astrophotography (it's okay for some things but not ideal for most) so I purchased two astronomy cameras.  One camera captures high speed video in color and the other camera captures high speed video in monochrome.  Capturing video provides me with many frames to stack as images in a very short period of time.  Stacking the images provides a lot of benefits including less noise, more details and cumulative exposure.  With these cameras and a fast computer, I can capture hundreds of video frames (which are images) in just a few short seconds.  And that is at 6mp.  Many low end astronomy cameras are less than HD resolution, one or two are at Full HD resolution and my cameras happen to capture larger images at 6mp so I'm happy with that too.     I have two Sony cameras that I use for my ev

Over the snowy Mother's Day weekend, I spent a little bit of time sorting out and organizing some of my astronomy gear indoors in this warmth.  The priority was to find a way to organize a bunch of eyepieces.   Fortunately, I have been sticking to putting together specific mini sets so it is not like I have a scattered selection of mismatched eyepieces.  I've been purposely purchasing eyepieces that will fit my specific needs...  including staying within financial limits.   I have stuck with a plan of putting together small cases for grab-and-go use.  It will be easy to grab one of these cases and a small telescope if I'm in a hurry to see something.  Each zippered case is approximately 6"x9" and 2" deep.   I put together a small set of GSO Plossls.  These are quite inexpensive but are pretty good eyepieces.  With each set, I included a 2.5x Barlow lens so I only included long, wide view eyepieces with long eye relief.  I wear eyeglasses so my prima

The guide scope and guide camera that I use with my astronomy gear is old.  Actually, by digital standards, the guide camera is considered ancient!  I've wanted to test this guide scope/camera combo again at night so I can determine if upgrading would be worth it.  I haven't been all that happy with the imaging I am getting with that camera.  Last night, we had completely overcast skies so there were absolutely no stars visible but the moon was faintly glowing through the clouds. I quickly mounted my guide scope on my tripod.  Then I attached my guide camera to the little guide scope.  Then I grabbed my Windows tablet and headed outside to the deck with everything in tow.  I pointed the guide scope at the moon and then adjusted the settings of the camera using my tablet...  and here is the resulting image... There are a few things worth noting here.   First, considering how overcast the skies were last night and how the moon was mostly obscured by those clouds, it i

Actually, this month's Pink Moon isn't named as such because it appears pink.  It is named the Pink Moon for the April blooming of the Ground Phlox which is a pink flower.  Anyway, tonight's moon was quite colorless from our neck of the woods as it rose over the Worcester Range.  It was, however, quite large.  I think this is the full moon that is closest to Earth for this calendar year, if I remember correctly, which would make it a so-called supermoon.   I shot this photo through our opened living room window.  Convenient, huh?  Since it was a last second decision to shoot this full moon, I didn't quite get all my camera settings set correctly.  Within a couple of minutes, the moon was moving behind some utility lines and then trees.  This image will have to do... For those interested in the technical aspects of this image...  I shot this with my little Sony a6000 camera body and my Canon L 400mm f5.6 lens mounted on a tripod.  I shot it at f8, ISO 100, with a

I have a down day for my health today... and I know tomorrow will be the same... so, I'm here at my desk trying to find some simple things to keep my mind occupied with something other than my health.   There has been a lot of talk in a few of my astronomy groups about trying to capture a decent photo of the Milky Way and it seems that a lot of beginners have big problems with this. Fortunately, it really is not as difficult as people make it out to be.  Most of these beginners have brand new dSLR's which are more than capable of capturing the Milky Way yet they are having difficulty capturing a decent image so I figured I should write something with some basic info about how to accomplish this type of photography. Any dSLR, technically speaking, is capable of capturing a pretty good image of the night sky so the biggest obstacle is learning how to use your dSLR. Today's mirrorless cameras are just as adept at this type of photography and some mirrorless cameras

I've been waiting for the past week for another good day to observe the sun so I could try my hand at solar astrophotography yet again. This morning was finally a good morning to set up my telescope on the deck so I started moving gear to the deck early this morning. While waiting for two new solar filters to arrive and for the weather to be more suitable for astronomy, I've been doing a lot of research about our sun. I actually learned quite bit... some of it even a bit frightening... but I'll save that info for another blog entry which will be written solely for that particular topic. Last week, when I tried my initial attempt at solar astrophotography, I was left feeling a bit disappointed and later found that adding two additional filters to my telescope would allow me to capture more detail. Unfortunately, I'm still waiting on one of these filters to arrive but I did have one of the filters to use this morning. So, if I could see just a little bit more detai

Sony a6000, Canon 400mm f5.6 L lens               First, while my dislocated thumb heals I'm limited in what I can get accomplished around the house so I wanted to write a little bit about a photo of the full moon that I shot a few months ago.  I belong to a few different astrophotography and astronomy groups and someone was asking about lenses for photographing the moon so I helped them out with a few tips. Afterward, I got to thinking that the info I shared with that astronomy group would probably be good to share here too.  The main reason for the request for help was to help the person choose a lens that would be good for photographing the moon. For this type of photography, most people recommend a 70-300mm lens but I've never been happy shooting with a standard 70-300mm lens. That being said, I have managed to get a few decent shots over the years using a 70-300mm lens on a smaller 4/3-sized sensor. The advantage of the smaller sensor is it doubles the equivalent

The sun can be seen illuminating the back end of the Wedge. It has been difficult for me to get out at night lately to view the night sky with a telescope. We don't get crisp, clear nights all that often and especially in the summer. My health problems don't help in this cause either because quite often I am left too exhausted by the time we finish dinner. The real icing on the cake lately has been a roaming bear in our neighborhood at night and I really have no desire to bump into a roaming bear in the dark! Needless to say, it has been difficult to get out at night for some astronomy in recent weeks. The aforementioned nighttime viewing problems got me wondering about giving daytime solar astronomy a try. To make a long story short, I found that all I need to do to view the sun is replace one part of my telescope with a part that is designed specifically for viewing the sun... then add a filter or two... then I can view the sun with my own telescope and shoot images w

My health has been rather lousy lately so today is another "down day" of inactivity while my health recovers.  I've been rather frustrated and anxious lately about accomplishing nothing around the house to the point that my doctors are a bit concerned because they feel that I am having some heart issues. I'm convinced it is just frustration and a bit of anxiety causing these relatively minor heart issues. Unfortunately, the more I have to sit around recovering, the more frustrated and anxious I get. There is a lot I want to do and accomplish but my health is refusing to cooperate. And, to be honest, we've been spending far too much time at the hospital and medical appointments. I'm frustrated. So, as I sit here again while my health recovers, I've decided to revisit the moon images from the other night.  I shot this series of images in two formats... a compressed jpeg format for simplicity and a RAW format for more detail. I always shoot both jpegs a

Sony a6000 camera So, after writing about my "first light" experience last night, I realized that I haven't really written anything about this telescope or even the camera I used. Let me start by saying that both of these pieces of equipment are considered "entry-level"... the telescope is an entry-level telescope for just getting started in astrophotography... and the camera is an entry-level, all purpose mirrorless interchangeable lens camera.  Let's start with the camera since that is what actually captures the imaging. It is a Sony a6000 camera body... quite small and almost pocketable... but works great for action photos of the grandchildren as well as wildlife photography. This is also the camera I bring to the hospital because its shutter is quieter than my better camera and because it is a bit smaller than my better camera. This is an old camera by digital standards but it far surpasses entry level cameras produced today by all other manufact