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The good stuff (photos)...

The good stuff (photos)...

The good stuff (photos)...

(OP)
Here's a shot I took of the so-called 'Blood Moon' during the total Lunar eclipse tonight. This was taken with my Sony A65 DSLR with a 400mm lens (35mm equivalent = 600mm) or about 14 power. This is the full frame (no cropping).

The star off to the right is 'Spica', the brightest star in the constellation 'Virgo'.

The picture was taken a little after midnight PDT.

John R. Baker, P.E.
Product 'Evangelist'
Product Engineering Software
Siemens PLM Software Inc.
Industry Sector
Cypress, CA
Siemens PLM:
UG/NX Museum:

To an Engineer, the glass is twice as big as it needs to be.

RE: The good stuff (photos)...

Nice picture John.

Bill
--------------------
"Why not the best?"
Jimmy Carter

RE: The good stuff (photos)...

(OP)
An investment in a sturdy, but albeit, expensive tripod. A remote shutter release also helps.

For the record, that photo was shot at 1/5 of a second with the lens stopped-down to around f11. Earlier in the night, at the start of the eclipse, I was shooting at 1/125 of a second with the lens fully stopped-down to f32. While it might be dark outside, the Moon is a very bright object and you have to set the exposure based on it and not the sky. Granted, it's a bit of trial and error, but my Sony A65 allows me to see the image based on both the shutter speed and the f-stop so I'm able to preview the final image, as it will be recorded, not just what my eye would see looking through the viewfinder.

Here's one of those earlier images shot at 1/125 of a second, fully stopped-down at f32. Again, this is the full-frame (no cropping):



BTW, I also have a 6 inch reflecting telescope which I was looking at the moon as well, but I was mostly using it to look ar Mars which was visible a little above the Moon. Mars was on one of it's closest approaches in years and you could see the ice caps but I don't have a set-up to shoot photos through it (perhaps one of my next 'investments' will be one of those nice new Meades which you can easily mount a digital camera on).

John R. Baker, P.E.
Product 'Evangelist'
Product Engineering Software
Siemens PLM Software Inc.
Industry Sector
Cypress, CA
Siemens PLM:
UG/NX Museum:

To an Engineer, the glass is twice as big as it needs to be.

RE: The good stuff (photos)...

(OP)
Speaking of Mars, here's a shot I took with that same Sony A65/400mm lens set-up while the Moon was at it's maximum occlusion. Note that this was shot at 1/100 of a second with an f-stop of around f16. This is not a full-frame image but rather it has been cropped at the maximum pixel size (the Sony A65 is a 24 MP camera). Now before anyone thinks that the bright area near the top right of the image are the polar ice caps, I kind of doubt it. I suspect that it's a lens artifact, perhaps a little spherical aberration. But still, it's a pretty good shot considering, and you can clearly see why it's called the 'Red Planet':

John R. Baker, P.E.
Product 'Evangelist'
Product Engineering Software
Siemens PLM Software Inc.
Industry Sector
Cypress, CA
Siemens PLM:
UG/NX Museum:

To an Engineer, the glass is twice as big as it needs to be.

RE: The good stuff (photos)...

John,
Lucky you. Very nice photos!
I was clouded out (in Calgary).

Have you ever tried a "stacking" technique?

I'm looking forward to getting myself a Canon SLR later this year. A "t-ring" adapter is all you need to mount any SLR to any telescope.

STF

RE: The good stuff (photos)...

(OP)
Any modern scope. Mine is over 30 year old and it uses the small diameter eyepieces. Now if I had one of the newer reflectors with a 1 1/2 inch eyepiece tube, yes there are adapters which can take a T-mount, of which I have several. Of course, with something like a new Meade 10" Schmidt-Cassegrain Telescope, you can mount, again using a T-mount, your DLSR directly on the back of the scope itself since they use an internal focusing scheme there is really no need for the normal adjustable eyepiece tube. But then I'd have to spend something like $3 or $4 thousand for a rig like that, but it would be nice thumbsup2

Now I was just talking to someone and they said that he saw a photo that was amazing, not so much the photo itself, but how it was taken. Someone just lined up their iPhone camera lens with the lens of the telescope's eyepiece and focused through the phone's screen and it was a very good image. I haven't seen it myself, but he said it was amazing when you considered the technology used.

John R. Baker, P.E.
Product 'Evangelist'
Product Engineering Software
Siemens PLM Software Inc.
Industry Sector
Cypress, CA
Siemens PLM:
UG/NX Museum:

To an Engineer, the glass is twice as big as it needs to be.

RE: The good stuff (photos)...

There appears on object at 4:00 (relative position) to Mars in the first photo.

It's small, but it does appear to have a true "arc" - Do you know which of the two Martian moons it is?

RE: The good stuff (photos)...

(OP)
That first image I posted is of the Moon during last nights so-called 'Blood Moon' eclipse, although it does look sort of like Mars now that I think about it. As for the 'moon' in that image, if you check my opening post you'll see that this was 'Spica', the 14th brightest star in the heavens and the brightest star in the constellation 'Virgo'.

John R. Baker, P.E.
Product 'Evangelist'
Product Engineering Software
Siemens PLM Software Inc.
Industry Sector
Cypress, CA
Siemens PLM:
UG/NX Museum:

To an Engineer, the glass is twice as big as it needs to be.

RE: The good stuff (photos)...

(OP)
I think you will find that a Lunar Eclipse can ONLY occur at the precise moment when the Moon IS full.

John R. Baker, P.E.
Product 'Evangelist'
Product Engineering Software
Siemens PLM Software Inc.
Industry Sector
Cypress, CA
Siemens PLM:
UG/NX Museum:

To an Engineer, the glass is twice as big as it needs to be.

RE: The good stuff (photos)...

Unless you go for a long ride.

A.

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