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| Date: 24/03/08 | Time: 6:15am | Seeing: NA |
| Weather: Cool stiull autumn morning, some passing cloud, dew forming on the telescope. | ||
| Equipment: 4" Refractor | ||
You learn something new. Today it was the discovery that my digital camera does do exposures of 15 seconds. Suddently starfields and dark sky photography are within grasp. So, some snaps of an autumn mornings observing session.
The beginning of the waning moon |
The southern cross |
The last gasp for the conjunction of Mercury and Venus. |
There is an inevitable amount of processing required (Except for the moon) to get the details out, so that it looks as it appears to the naked eye. But I think they're nice enough. :-)
| Date: 07/02/08 | Time: 5:45pm | Seeing: NA |
| Weather: Warm, high cloud. Should have paid more attention to that bit! | ||
| Equipment: 4" Refractor | ||
Well, the first real astronomical event, the opposition of Mars, has been a complete washout for me as it's been far too low on the horizon for the telescopes to see! We also happened to have lots of clouds for the recent conjunction of Venus and Jupiter, so it was quite good to zap home from work and find that yes, I was able to see the partial eclipse!
The hazy sky certainly had a softer quality to it, and during the ride home on the bus, I was able to squint at the sun and see the bright crescent shape formed by the moon.
One of the first things that I noticed were the shadows. They had a distinctive double edge to them. The first picture here shows the gaps in a leafy tree throwing multiple pinole images of the eclipsed sun on the ground. Setting up the telescope, it was stunning to see how much of the sun had been eclipsed. There are no sunspsots visisble in the 4" at the moment, so it was just the perfect disc of the sun.
 5:31pm NZDST |
 5:40pm NZDST |
 5:47pm NZDST |
 5:40pm NZDST |
6:03pm NZDST |
6:24pm NZDST |
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This site last revised April 2011
