Astronomy, Part I
First Attempt: Nikon D300, 300mm lens with tripod and self-timer. At this focal length, the objects' motions across the sky started to blur the images at around 3 to 6 second exposures, so I had to ramp up the ISO to keep the shutter speed fast. These will be quite amateurish until I work out better techniques, so bear with me.
Here's my favorite of the ones I took, the Orion Nebula, which makes up the middle "star" in Orion's sword and is visible with the naked eye to a certain extent. This gives a pretty good impression of it, but it's stunning on a whole other level through the 16" reflecting telescope.
Astronomy seems to be one of those things that starts out really cool, and then becomes way cooler, and very different, the deeper you get in.
And this here is Mars. Notable mostly because you can see its phase (though keep in mind that the shape is exaggerated a fair bit by the trail it makes through the sky, which you can tell with a comparison with the stars around it). I think it's close to the slimmest it gets, around now, but since its orbit is beyond that of earth's, it never gets slimmer than a fairly full gibbous. Also, you can see the noise from the high ISO in this shot, which wasn't necessary since Mars is so bright. I'll try to take another one sometime with a shorter exposure and lower sensetivity, which will clear up both of those problems.
Mars might've been the first thing in the sky to make a real impression on me, when I was younger. Even looking at it with your naked eye, you can get a sense of it in a way that you can't get with stars. They're too far away to feel the distance involved: with Mars, you can just barely tell that it's not a point, that there's a real and oh-so-nearly comprehensible, breathstealing void between us and that object out there.
This is hardly worth posting, it's so faint and blurry; but towards the top of the image, there's a cluster that lives in the Auriga constellation. It doesn't seem like much here, but these sorts of clusters are absolutely unbelievable through the telescope, so when I figure out how to take a good picture of one, it's sure to show up here.
Up next: Saturn!
Here's my favorite of the ones I took, the Orion Nebula, which makes up the middle "star" in Orion's sword and is visible with the naked eye to a certain extent. This gives a pretty good impression of it, but it's stunning on a whole other level through the 16" reflecting telescope.
Astronomy seems to be one of those things that starts out really cool, and then becomes way cooler, and very different, the deeper you get in.
And this here is Mars. Notable mostly because you can see its phase (though keep in mind that the shape is exaggerated a fair bit by the trail it makes through the sky, which you can tell with a comparison with the stars around it). I think it's close to the slimmest it gets, around now, but since its orbit is beyond that of earth's, it never gets slimmer than a fairly full gibbous. Also, you can see the noise from the high ISO in this shot, which wasn't necessary since Mars is so bright. I'll try to take another one sometime with a shorter exposure and lower sensetivity, which will clear up both of those problems.
Mars might've been the first thing in the sky to make a real impression on me, when I was younger. Even looking at it with your naked eye, you can get a sense of it in a way that you can't get with stars. They're too far away to feel the distance involved: with Mars, you can just barely tell that it's not a point, that there's a real and oh-so-nearly comprehensible, breathstealing void between us and that object out there.
This is hardly worth posting, it's so faint and blurry; but towards the top of the image, there's a cluster that lives in the Auriga constellation. It doesn't seem like much here, but these sorts of clusters are absolutely unbelievable through the telescope, so when I figure out how to take a good picture of one, it's sure to show up here.
Up next: Saturn!