Scattered Thoughts . . .

Imaged through a Celestron 70mm refractor. Back a couple of months ago, I wrote about rebuilding a cheap telescope we had lying around collecting dust and taking up space in our small home. I had rebuilt it using old parts from another cheap, useless telescope we threw away as well as a few new parts to increase the quality of this cheap telescope. Overall, I spent about $350 upgrading this telescope which could have bought me a decent telescope but then I would have thrown this telescope in the trash bin as well. I felt it was worth trying to rebuilt it and upgrade it so the grandkids could use it occasionally. For some quick, easy views of the night sky, this rebuilt telescope has proven to be a decent scope... not a great scope... but it is decent.  This telescope and mount is relatively lightweight and small which makes it easy to just grab and go out to the yard and that is a definite plus. As mentioned before, since I rebuilt it and upgraded it, this telescope now provides

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

I finished post-processing the two remaining sets of images from my first telescope observations with my new telescope. For a "first light" observation session with a new telescope... and never having done any astrophotography previously... these images turned out quite well! These two resulting images (each at a super-resolution of 96 megapixels) provide a much closer look at Montes Apenninus... a lunar mountain range named after the Apennine Mountains in Italy.  This rugged lunar mountain range towers to almost 18,000 feet in height. The total length of the mountain range is approximately 370 miles. I point this out because most people assume that the moon is relatively level and dotted with craters simply by its appearance from Earth. The reality is that the moon has a mostly hilly, rolling landscape and, obviously, some areas consist of towering mountain ranges as well. This particular rugged and towering mountain range ends at the crater Eratosthenes... Just beyon

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

This evening, I was sorting through all the photos I shot through my new telescope the other night and came across a few series of images that might be worth processing. So, below is another photo from that "first light" observing session. Unfortunately, most of the photos I shot the other night were very underexposed so some detail and crispness has been lost due to that mistake. In this particular series of photos, the images were all grossly underexposed but I thought I might be able to salvage something out of them so I loaded the series of photos into Photoshop as a stack of layers. Just like the two other photos I shared the other night, the final image is a 96 megapixel image after processing it. I started with seven images and stacked them... adjusted levels... did some noise reduction because I had to lift the levels a bit too far after starting with gross underexposure... some selective sharpening... I removed some chromatic abberations along the top edge of the

It is always a memorable event when you set up a new telescope outside and peer through the eyepiece to see the first light coming through the scope... tonight was one such night for me! When we arrived back home from the hospital tonight after another visit to Miss Ellie in the PICU, I immediately started setting up my new telescope in our driveway. Well... truth be told, it is about a month old now but I hadn't had a chance to observe the night sky before tonight. Tonight would be first light through this telescope.  Setup required about eight trips in and out of the house. I need to find a way to consolidate all the little odds and ends to make this task a bit easier and faster. Then I had to set up the scope... level it... align it with Polaris... then do an additional alignment on one to three additional stars. This went fairly well but I plan to do a bit more practicing on this because my alignment was off a little bit. Plus, I couldn't figure out how to slew using th

The past two mornings, we have had clear skies and the moon has been in the sky until late in the morning. This has allowed me to test the little telescope that I recently finished rebuilding with better parts.  I had to make some adjustments to the tripod mount after yesterday morning's quick test because the mount was a bit gummed up. I disassembled it, cleaned it up, re-lubed it, and reassembled it. This morning, I was excited to head back outside to test this little cheap telescope again. The primary advantage of this little telescope is that it is lightweight. My better telescope (which is far superior) needs to come outside in three parts... the tripod legs, the actual mount, and the telescope . Since this old cheap telescope (a Celestron 70az... converted to a 70eq) is so small and lightweight, I was able to set it up in a matter of minutes with minimal effort. The disadvantage of this little telescope is that it has a small aperture (diameter of the telescope) and the

As we were driving home from the hospital the other night after Sheila's first afternoon of radiation treatment, the moon appeared just over the horizon, larger than life. The moon actually appeared far larger than any 'supermoon' I've ever witnessed. The moon was so distracting that it was difficult keeping our eyes on the road. The moment we arrived home, I quickly made my way to one of my longest lenses to see if I could capture a shot or two of this moon. Only two minutes had passed but the moon was now obscured by clouds by the time I looked out our living room window. Since the moon covered so quickly by clouds I figured I should step outside and wait for some clouds to pass... hopefully, just as quickly. On the positive side, the clouds gave me a little time to choose some camera settings and get the camera set up correctly. I set up my shutter speed, my aperture, and the ISO, checked my focus settings, and then just waited for the clouds to start breaking up

I was out shooting some photos at around 5:30 in the morning as I usually do while we are at the lake house... covered completely in clothing from head to toe yet still getting eaten by millions of flying insects. Even though I hate dealing with all the biting insects, I'm always hoping to capture a good photo of some early morning wildlife while the lake is calm and the sun is low creating a warmer, softer light. That rarely happens but I can always hope for the best.  On this particular morning, I was attempting to compose a landscape shot that I've shot far too many times already but I prepared to shoot it again anyway.  As I was looking through the viewfinder, I caught a glimpse of what appeared to be the moon at the top edge of the frame in the center. I pulled my head away from the camera... looked up... sure enough, the moon was still rather high in the sky.  I snapped a quick photo of the landscape and then switched gears.  I grabbed my other camera that has a b

Tonight... just before dawn on the east coast... 6:22am, to be exact... our moon will be the closest to Earth tonight until we have another "supermoon" in 2034. I had hoped to capture the moon as it rose over the mountains outside our living room. More specifically, I had hoped to capture the moon just as it was cresting over the tree lined mountain ridge, capturing crisp trees with the supermoon behind it.  I peered through the window before coming to my desk but there was no moon in the sky just yet. It wasn't even five minutes later when I heard Sheila ask from the other room, "Is the supermoon tonight?"   I immediately asked, "Is the moon over the mountains already ?" "Yup." "Ugggg."  Then I grabbed my camera, a freshly charged battery, and my newly purchased Canon 400mm f5.6L lens. I have very little experience with this lens but I knew that this particular lens should be, by far, the best super-telephoto lens I'

I had another lousy health day yesterday so I didn't do much around the house. My spine was so inflamed that I could hardly walk so I put all the home renovations on hold for a day while the inflammation subsided. Today, I'm feeling considerably better but I'm waiting for the rain to stop. While I was camped out in the living room on the couch yesterday, I decided to refresh my memory on effectively using two of my camera bodies that I use for super-long telephoto. I practiced getting some steady shots and reminding myself of the best settings for each camera body under specific conditions.  Both of these cameras have tiny viewfinders so viewing my subjects while wearing glasses is difficult and frustrating. As a result, I really do not enjoy using either of these camera bodies. I'd love to get a newer body with a much larger viewfinder but it simply is not in my budget just yet. I'll need to use these bodies again for yet another summer season.  I practiced u

I sent my two compositions of this week's lunar eclipse to the printer this evening.  I have all my prints done professionally so when I say I sent images to a printer, I am referring to a professional shop and not my own printer connected to my computer. For the final version of the prints, I added text on each. I wanted to make it easy to figure out the date, time and location of this event without having to go digging into the EXIF info (file properties). I wanted this info to be visible on the print itself. Although I feel text on photos adds a distraction, having this added information works in this situation. I'm looking forward to getting the high quality, Fuji Pearl Paper prints (Fuji Crystal Archive Digital Pearl Paper is glossy surface, silver halide color paper with a unique pearl-like, silvery iridescent appearance. The embedded pearl-like crystals give a high gloss effect reflectance) ... I order prints printed on this paper regularly and I have to say that t

Waiting for the moon to rise above the treeline... As is the case when trying to accomplish anything, there were some obstacles to overcome when shooting the eclipse the other night. First, I should mention that there were a few things working in my favor which is unusual. The weather was good with clear skies at the same time as a major astronomical event. This combination has been a rarity in my lifetime. My health was doing quite well this particular day so I there were no major health problems to drag me down. (Plus, I pre-medicated with extra medications, just in case.) I was exhausted but I easily found a solution to that problem... just set up the tripod at the living room window and shoot out the window! The fact that these three things came together for one event was amazing... a rare lunar eclipse... on a night when we had clear skies... and also a day when I was feeling relatively well... this was amazing. Power lines and telephone lines getting in the way