Sunday, January 28, 2018

A Demonstration of Astronomy on the Cheap!

I don't yet have a fancy telescope that can track stars and take long exposures of them. But the moon is a different story!


That photo was taken from my hometown, in the midst of real light pollution, and with a street light across the road. As for the technical details:

Taken on January 28, 2018, with the moon at about 92% full
Telescope: Orion SkyScanner 100 telescope ($95)
Camera: Taken with iPod Touch, 6th Generation
Software: NightCap Camera ($1.99)
Settings (in NightCap): ISO 30, Shutter 1/150, Zoom factor 1.8

I plan eventually to get a decent refractor scope with tracking capability to minimize the "smearing" of images caused, of course, by the earth's rotation during time-lapse pictures.

Added Photo 1/31/2018:


I took this one last night when I set up my gear preparing for the eclipse this morning. You can see some clouds swirling around the moon... and it got MUCH worse. This morning, during the eclipse, our valley was totally covered with clouds. 😒

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