Space and astronomy news
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Congrats to Universe Today writer Ken Kremer and his image processing partner Marco Di Lorenzo for their handiwork being featured on today’s Astronomy Picture of the Day. It’s one of their great images they have enhanced of the Opportunity Rover peering into its current location at Santa Maria Crater on Mars. Check it out on APOD!
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A college-age team of space and photography enthusiasts have created a fully reusable capsule that can travel autonomously to the edge of space using high altitude balloons. To date, their capsule, named PURSUIT has had four flights, reaching altitudes ranging from 24,000 to 36,500 meters (80,000 to 120,000 feet.) “We wanted to fly capsules to the edge of space and capture the most difficult imagery that other teams didn’t even bother trying,” said Project Soar team leader David Gonzales II. “Our capsules shoot high resolution stills and shoot HD video of their incredible journeys.”
Last fall, the team captured the stunning image above of a sunrise from space from about 25,000 meters above the Earth. “To our knowledge, Sunrise Soar II captured the highest resolution images of sunrise ever taken from the edge of space by a high altitude balloon flight,” Gonzales told Universe Today.
In images taken from over 36,000 meters, absent are the reddish sunrise colors that we see on Earth because of the atmosphere.
Their PURSUIT capsule cost about $500 to put together initially, but their total cost per flight is only $40.
The crew consists of twelve different students and recent graduates from various colleges. Gonzales said he formed Project Soar and put together the team as a hobby. The team hopes to do several more flights soon.
See more images and videos, and read detailed reports about the team’s adventures at their Project Soar website.
Just before the holidays, UT reported about about the Growing Storm On Saturn and showed us the Cassini images. Now more than a month has passed and the white scar of the raging atmosphere has escalated to an incredible size… Nearly 10 Earths wide!
Despite sub-zero temperatures and significant snow cover, at least one dedicated observer has been getting up early to observe what we rarely see – a change in Saturn’s pale golden face. “I was out from 4:30am to 6:00am early Saturday morning. I brushed all the snow off my Dome, and spent an hour or so shooting Saturn with its Big White Storm brewing in the cloud tops.” say John Chumack of Dayton, Ohio. “The seeing conditions were not the best, but I went for it anyway, after the high cirrus clouds moved out of the way, I had to try! -3F Temps in my backyard in Dayton, OH nearly killed my attempt.”
And temperatures like that are warm compared to Saturn’s surface. Depending on the depth of the atmosphere, it could be anywhere from -218.47F to -308.47. Unlike an Alberta Clipper here on Earth, Saturn is constantly having hurricane-like storms. However, few are easily visible in the average telescope. “The storm is enormous.” said John. “It’s no wonder we can see it from Earth, since Saturn at the time of this shot was about 865.2 million miles away or 1.392 billion km from us!”
But there’s more than just a storm hiding in John’s image. Thanks to a little ‘negative thinking’ he was also able to capture five tiny moons circling around Saturn’s icy ring system – Rhea, Dione, Enceladus, Mimas, and Tethys.
“My feet and fingers were numb by the time I was done, even with gloves on, nothing like having to touch frozen metal to point the telescope and run the focusers. Even the hand control paddles were having a tough time with the extreme temps, the LCD went blank and stopped working.” said John. “Heck, I nearly got freezer burned myself!!!”
Yeah, but what a view!
Many thanks to John Chumack of Galactic Images for braving the weather and sharing his work!
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Think you are seeing double in this new image of the Rosette Nebula? This new astrophoto from César Cantú in Monterrey, Mexico shows two different views of this massive cloud of dust and gas, comparing two techniques of combining filters so that different features stand out. César used a Takahashi FSQ106 telescope and a FLI 8300 camera with 3 nanometer narrowband and RGB filters, using an exposure time of 8 hours and subexposures of 600 seconds each. He used PixInsight and Photoshop CS for processing.
The Rosette Nebula (NGC 2244) is part of a larger cluster, which lies at a distance of about 5,200 light years from Earth and in its entirety measures roughly 130 light years in diameter.
Thanks César for sharing your stunning image — flowers just in time for Valentine’s Day! See more at his website, Astronomía Y Astrofotografía.
Looking for the orbiting NanoSail-D just got more exciting! NASA and Spaceweather.com have teamed up to offer prizes for the best amateur astronomy image of the now-orbiting and unfurled NanoSail-D solar sail. NanoSail-D unfurled the first 100-square-foot solar sail in low-Earth orbit on Jan. 20.
To encourage observations of NanoSail-D, Spaceweather.com is offering prizes for the best images of this historic, pioneering spacecraft in the amounts of $500 (grand prize), $300 (first prize) and $100
(second prize).
The contest is open to all types of images, including, but not limited to, telescopic captures of the sail to simple wide-field camera shots of solar sail flares. If NanoSail-D is in the field of view, the image is eligible for judging.
The solar sail is about the size of a large tent. It will be observable for approximately 70 to 120 days before it enters the atmosphere and disintegrates. The contest continues until NanoSail-D re-enters Earth’s atmosphere.
NanoSail-D will be a target of interest to both novice and veteran sky watchers. Experienced astrophotographers will want to take the first-ever telescopic pictures of a solar sail unfurled in space.
Backyard stargazers, meanwhile, will marvel at the solar sail flares — brief but intense flashes of light caused by sunlight glinting harmlessly from the surface of the sail.
NanoSail-D could be five to 10 times as bright as the planet Venus, especially later in the mission when the sail descends to lower orbits. The NanoSail-D satellite was jointly designed and built by NASA engineers from the agency’s Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Ala., and NASA’s Ames Research Center in Moffett Field, Calif.
To learn more about the NanoSail-D imaging challenge and contest rules, satellite tracking predictions and sighting times, visit this page about NanoSail-D. (not much info there yet as I write this….)
or see the NanoSail-D website for more info about the solar sail mission.
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This image is a “first light” for noted amateur astronomer R. Jay GaBany’s new observatory, and it might be the deepest, most detailed view of the iconic edge-on spiral galaxy NCG 891. This first photograph from his new observatory in California includes almost 35 hours of exposure time! “As a result, hundreds of small, much more distant galaxies can be seen in the image as well as very small scale structures across the galaxy’s edge,” Jay wrote us. If you go to Jay’s website, Cosmotography.com, you can see larger versions where you can see very faint dust clouds, called cirrus, that have never been imaged within NGC 891 at this scale.
“Last fall, I moved my remote observatory from the south central mountains of New Mexico, where I have been taking pictures for the past five years,” Jay said, “to high in the Sierra Nevada Mountains, between Yosemite and King’s Canyon National Parks, in the east central part of California….For me, the first picture included many test exposures taken to insure my instruments were functioning correctly. As a result, I chose a familiar subject so I could spot problems quickly. Luckily, I had very few challenges and my new remote observatory is now operating both smoothly and reliably!”
NGC 891 is located in the northern constellation of Andromeda. It’s easily visible with a small telescope this time of year and is a favorite subject for astrophotographers. “However, no image of this galaxy (to my knowledge) has gone as deep as this picture,” Jay said.
Also, Universe Today would like to send our congratulations to Jay for being recognized by the American Astronomical Society (AAS) and Sky & Telescope Magazine, as he was awarded the Chambliss Amateur Achievement Award for his work with Dr. David Delgado and his team of professional astronomers! The award is given annually to an amateur astronomer from North America who makes outstanding contributions to scientific research.
Jay was cited as being one of the world’s leading amateur astrophotographers for the past decade, “who has single-handedly, through his dedicated and careful work, spawned a new research direction in the exploration of galaxy evolution via low-surface-brightness imaging of galaxy halo substructure,” the AAS press release said. “GaBany has devoted hundreds of hours working with professional astronomers to make deep images that reveal faint tidal streams and rings in the outer halos of galaxies, indicative of recent and ongoing galaxy interactions with dwarf satellites, supporting studies of galaxy formation.”
Congrats Jay!
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Not very long ago we published a news release about the latest (and largest) deep sky survey image ever. The implications behind such a massive undertaking at such incredible resolution means you could spend hours studying just a few square millimeters of such a photo and find any amount of undiscovered information. Do professional astronomers have the time to search? Or can anyone have a look? That’s the topic of the latest of the latest American Astronomical Association press release – ESO: Hidden Treasures Brought to Light. Let’s find out…
According to the release ESO’s Hidden Treasures 2010 astrophotography competition attracted nearly 100 entries, and ESO is delighted to announce the winners. Hidden Treasures gave amateur astronomers the opportunity to search ESO’s vast archives of astronomical data for a well-hidden cosmic gem. Astronomy enthusiast Igor Chekalin from Russia won the first prize in this difficult but rewarding challenge — the trip of a lifetime to ESO’s Very Large Telescope at Paranal, Chile. The pictures of the Universe that can be seen in ESO’s releases are impressive. However, many hours of skillful work are required to assemble the raw gray-scale data captured by the telescopes into these colorful images, correcting them for distortions and unwanted signatures of the instrument, and enhancing them so as to bring out the details contained in the astronomical data. ESO has a team of professional image processors, but for the ESO’s Hidden Treasures 2010 competition, the experts decided to give astronomy and photography enthusiasts the opportunity to show the world what they could do with the mammoth amount of data contained in ESO’s archives.
With amateur astrophotography beginning to play a huge role in astronomical discoveries, just image what you could do with a mountain of data!
The release goes on to state the enthusiasts who responded to the call submitted nearly 100 entries in total — far exceeding initial expectations, given the difficult nature of the challenge. “We were completely taken aback both by the quantity and the quality of the images that were submitted. This was not a challenge for the faint-hearted, requiring both an advanced knowledge of data processing and an artistic eye. We are thrilled to have discovered so many talented people,” said Lars Lindberg Christensen, Head of ESO’s education and Public Outreach Department.
Digging through many terabytes of professional astronomical data, the entrants had to identify a series of gray-scale images of a celestial object that would reveal the hidden beauty of our Universe. The chance of a great reward for the lucky winner was enough to spur on the competitors; the first prize being a trip to ESO’s Very Large Telescope in Paranal, Chile, with guided tours and the opportunity to participate in a night’s observations. Runner-up prizes included an iPod, books and DVDs. Furthermore, the highest ranked images will be released for the world to see on www.eso.org as Photo Releases or Pictures of the Week, co-crediting the winners. The jury evaluated the entries based on the quality of the data processing, the originality of the image and the overall aesthetic feel. As several of the highest ranked images were submitted by the same people, the jury decided to make awards to the ten most talented participants, so as to give more people the opportunity to win a prize and reward their hard work and talent.
Kudos!
Original Source: American Astronomical Society Press Release – Image Credit: ESO
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Today, the Sloan Digital Sky Survey-III (SDSS-III) is releasing the largest digital color image of the sky ever made, and it’s free to all. Just how big? Step inside and find out…
According to the American Astronomical Society press release, the image has been put together over the last decade from
millions of 2.8-megapixel images, thus creating a color image of more than a trillion pixels. Just how does that relate? Even a large format professional CCD camera will only produce about 11 million pixels and really big screen to view – but this terapixel image is so big and detailed that it would take 500,000 high-definition TVs to view it at its full resolution. Can you imagine?! “This image provides opportunities for many new scientific discoveries in the years to come,” exclaims Bob Nichol, a professor at the University of Portsmouth and Scientific Spokesperson for the SDSS-III collaboration.
Where did this huge astrophoto come from? The new image is at the heart of new data being released today by the SDSS-III collaboration at 217th American Astronomical Society meeting in Seattle. This new information, along with the previous data releases which it builds upon, gives astronomers the most comprehensive view of the night sky ever made. SDSS data have already been used to discover nearly half a billion astronomical objects, including asteroids, stars, galaxies and distant quasars. The latest, most precise positions, colors and shapes for all these objects are also being released today. (Time to update our software programs!) “This is one of the biggest bounties in the history of science,” says Professor Mike Blanton from New York University, who is leading the data archive work in SDSS-III. Blanton and many other scientists have been working for months preparing the release of all this data. “This data will be a legacy for the ages,” explains Blanton, “as previous ambitious sky surveys like the Palomar Sky Survey of the 1950s are still being used today.” And who among us hasn’t used the POSS program to confirm something we’ve seen or perhaps caught unexpectedly on an astrophotograph? “We expect the SDSS data to have that sort of shelf life,” comments Blanton.
So when did all of this begin? The image was started in 1998 using what was then the world’s largest digital camera: a 138-megapixel imaging detector on the back of a dedicated 2.5-meter telescope at the Apache Point Observatory in New Mexico, USA. Over the last decade, the Sloan Digital Sky Survey has scanned a third of the whole sky. Now, this imaging camera is being retired, and it will rightfully become a part of the permanent collection at the Smithsonian in recognition of its contributions to astronomy. “It’s been wonderful to see the science results that have come from this camera,” says Connie Rockosi, an astronomer from the University of California, Santa Cruz, who started working on the camera in the 1990s as an undergraduate student with Jim Gunn, Professor of Astronomy at Princeton University and SDSS-I/II Project Scientist. Rockosi’s entire career so far has paralleled the history of the SDSS camera. “It’s a bittersweet feeling to see this camera retired, because I’ve been working with it for nearly 20 years,” she says.
But what next? Thanks to such incredible resolution, the enormous image will form the cornerstone for new surveys of the Universe using the SDSS telescope. These surveys rely on other forms of data, such as spectra – an astronomical technique which employs specialized instruments to break the light from a star or galaxy into its component wavelengths. Spectra can be used to find the distances to distant galaxies, and the properties (such as temperature and chemical composition) of different
types of stars and galaxies. “We have upgraded the existing SDSS instruments, and we are using them to measure distances to over a million galaxies detected in this image,” explains David Schlegel, an astronomer from Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, and the Principal Investigator of the new SDSS-III Baryon Oscillation Spectroscopic Survey (BOSS). Schlegel
explains that measuring distances to galaxies is more time-consuming than simply taking their pictures, but in return, it provides a detailed three-dimensional map of the galaxies’ distribution in space. This is the type of accuracy we could only dream of five decades ago.
According to the press release, BOSS started taking data in 2009 and will continue until 2014, explains Schlegel. Once finished, BOSS will be the largest 3-D map of galaxies ever made, extending the original SDSS galaxy survey to a much larger volume of the Universe. The goal of BOSS is to precisely measure how so-called “Dark Energy” has changed over the recent history of the universe. These measurements will help astronomers understand the nature of this mysterious substance. “Dark energy is the biggest conundrum facing science today,” says Schlegel, “and the SDSS continues to lead the way in trying to figure out what the heck it is!” In addition to BOSS, the SDSS-III collaboration has been studying the properties and motions of hundreds of thousands of stars in the outer parts of our Milky Way Galaxy. The survey, known as the Sloan Extension for Galactic Understanding and Exploration or SEGUE started several years ago but has now been completed as part of the first year of SDSS-III.
Need more? In conjunction with the image being released today, astronomers from SEGUE are also releasing the largest map of the outer galaxy ever released. “This map has been used to study the distribution of stars in our galaxy,” says Rockosi, the Principal Investigator of SEGUE. “We have found many streams of stars that originally belonged to other galaxies that were torn apart by the gravity of our Milky Way. We’ve long thought that galaxies evolve by merging with others; the SEGUE observations confirm this basic picture.”
So what’s next? SDSS-III is also undertaking two other surveys of our galaxy through 2014. The first, called MARVELS, will use a new instrument to repeatedly measure spectra for approximately 8,500 nearby stars like our own Sun, looking for the telltale wobbles caused by large Jupiter-like planets orbiting them. MARVELS is predicted to discover around a hundred new giant planets, as well as potentially finding a similar number of “brown dwarfs” that are intermediate between the most massive planets and the smallest stars. The second survey is the APO Galactic Evolution Experiment (APOGEE), which is using one of the largest infrared spectrographs ever built to undertake the first systematic study of stars in all parts of our galaxy; even stars on the other side of our galaxy beyond the central bulge. Such stars are traditionally difficult to study as their visible light is obscured by large amounts of dust in the disk of our galaxy. However, by working at longer, infrared wavelengths, APOGEE can study them in great detail, thus revealing their properties and motions to explore how the different components of our galaxy were put together. “The SDSS-III is an amazingly diverse project built on the legacy of the original SDSS and SDSS-II surveys,” summarizes Nichol. “This image is the culmination of decades of work by hundreds of people, and has already produced many incredible discoveries. Astronomy has a rich tradition of making all such data freely available to the public, and
we hope everyone will enjoy it as much as we have.”
I do believe we will…
(The SDSS-III Data Release Eight (DR8) can be found at http://www.sdss3.org/dr8. All data published as part of DR8 is freely available to other astronomers, scientists, and the public. Technical journal papers describing DR8 and the SDSS-III project are on the arXiv e-Print server (http://arxiv.org).)
Credits: American Astronomical Society Press Release, M. Blanton and the SDSS-III.
This lovely image of the Seagull Nebula was sent to us by Cesar Cantu from the Chilidog Observatory in Monterrey, Mexico. He took the image on January 4, 2011 using a Takahashi FSQ106 Telescope and a Canon 5D camera. The Seagull is near Sirius, the main star in the constellation Canis Major. The region also includes NGC 2327 – a compact, dusty emission region with an embedded massive star that forms the bird’s head and IC 2177 – forming the sweeping arc of the seagull’s wings. The image is dominated by the reddish glow of atomic hydrogen and is about 3,800 light-years away.
Beautiful! See more at Cesar’s website, Astrophoto.
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Millions across Earth enjoyed one of nature’s most awesomely spectacular events during today’s (Jan. 4) partial solar eclipse – the first of four set to occur in 2011. And there was nothing partial about it, for those lucky eyewitnesses where it was visible in parts of Europe, Africa and Central Asia. The eclipse reached its maximum, about 85%, in Sweden. See the maximum stunner above – taken despite pessimistic weather forecasts -by Peter Rosen in Stockholm, Sweden, with more photos from the sequence here at spaceweather.com
Probably the most technically amazing feat is the double solar eclipse captured in one image by renowned astrophotographer Theirry Legault – see below – boasting both the ISS and the Moon on the eclipsed sun’s face. Legault had traveled to the deserts of the Sultanate of Oman, near to the capital of Muscat, for this rare spectacle of nature. The ISS was calculated to be visible in a thin strip barely 11 kilometers wide, according to Astronomie Info news. The ISS transit lasted just about 1 second, speeding by at 28,000 km/sec.
See a global compilation of gorgeous eclipse photos here and comment or send us more.
Update 1/6/11: this is a work in progress so please check back again.
New readers photos and eyewitness accounts added below today; as received
Click to enlarge all photos
First up: Double Solar Eclipse by renowned astrophotographer Theirry Legault in Oman
Check out this exciting gallery of images contributed by eclipse watchers from multiple locations around the world, on Flickr
Here is a collection of images and an eyewitness report sent to me by Marco Di Lorenzo, in Pescara, Italy
Marco writes; Pescara is located at 42.467°N and 14.225°E, about in the center of Italy on the Adriatic sea. I chose my location at the new pedestrian bridge because it is a modern structure which offers a nice foreground and also an open, elevated viewpoint. I used a couple of cameras plus a digital video camera. All the cameras were mounted on a tripod.
The weather was cold and the situation didn’t improve in the mid morning. Illumination was comparable to a slightly foggy day. The frigid temperature didn’t encourage people to go out and check. However some people did venture out. Someone asked me some info on eclipses and how to take pictures of it – very hard indeed, especially if you use a cellular phone !
Urijian Poernick sent these photos and description:
“Colorful Solar Eclipse” at Halley Astronomical Observatory, Heesch, The Netherlands
The weather forecast predicted overcast skies with only a few small bright intervals in all parts of The Netherlands. Nevertheless, dozens of members of Halley Astronomical Society and visitors, including many children, challenged the cold winter weather and came together on the flat roof of Halley Astronomical Observatory in The Netherlands.
Due to the clouds and veils it was a very colorful eclipse, with all tints of red and yellow. After twenty minutes the sun and the moon disappeared behind the overcast skies again and they didn’t come back before the end of the eclipse (9:39 UT).
During this short period everyone could watch the eclipse through the telescope and we were all enthusiastic. It was a beautiful spectacle! www.sterrenwachthalley.nl
Gianluca Masi is the National Coordinator of Astronomers Without Borders in Italy and captured this pair of photos from partially overcast Rome, Italy. The clouds contributed to make for a delightfully smoky eclipsed sun
Edwin van Schijndel sent me this report from the Netherlands:
I made some pictures in the southwest of the Netherlands. The weather conditions were not so good in the early morning, most places were covered by clouds so we decided to move about 70 miles to the southwest from our hometown. Finally we stopped not far from the city of Bergen op Zoom and were able to see sunrise while most of the sun was covered. It was splendid!
Unfortunately there came more clouds so the rising sun disappeared and we drove 20 miles to the north just before Rotterdam and the sky was more clear at this place. Again we took some pictures but the maximum covering of the sun had been a few minutes before. After all this wasn’t really a pity, we were very lucky to have seen the rising of the sun and be able to make some nice pictures of the partial eclipse. Many people in the Netherlands saw less or even nothing.
Send us or comment more solar eclipse photos to post here. ken : [kremerken at yahoo.com]
Look here for some photos from the recent total lunar eclipse on Dec. 21, 2010
Read a great preview about the eclipse by Tammy Plotner
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More Readers Photos and Eyewitness Accounts. Beautiful, Thanks ! ken
Story and Photos sent me by Stefano De Rosa. Turin, Italy
Early in the morning, I moved to a site close to Turin (Italy) where the forecast was not so bad as in my city to try to observe and photograph the partial solar eclipse. Unfortunately, when I arrived it was cloudy and foggy and so decided to go back home. Technical details: Canon Eos 1000d, F/22; 150-500mm lens @ 500mm; ISO. 1/1600 sec
Suddenly, as I was sadly driving on the motorway, close to the city of Alessandria, noticed a little break on the clouds from my rearview mirror: I stopped the car and, after a quick set up, managed to capture the crescent Sun!
http://ofpink.wordpress.com
Well, I hope you carefully looked back before hitting the brakes ! – ken
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Story and Photos sent me by Roy Keeris, Zeist, The Netherlands
Me and a friend (Casper ter Kuile) wanted to see the eclipse from The Netherlands. If clouds should intervene, we planned to drive a little (max. a couple of hours) to a place with a better chance for a clear sky. During the night we checked weather forecasts and satellite images. We were pretty unsure if we would succeed in seeing the eclipse, because it was pretty cloudy, and especially the low clouds tend to be quite unpredictable. In the end we chose to drive to Middelkerke (near Oostende) in Belgium because of a clear spot approaching from the North Sea.
We arrived at the Belgian coast just in time before sunrise. There we witnessed the eclipse from the top of a dune. About 25 minutes after sunrise the sun appeared from behind the lower clouds, just when the eclipse was at its maximum. It was magical!
First we saw the right ‘horn’ and then the left one appeared. From then on we watched the rest of the eclipse and took many pictures. [no pics from Casper ??]
Later we heard that despite the clouds, many people in The Netherlands were able to see the eclipse. There was a long stretch with a clear zone in the clouds- near the border of Germany.
If they had a clear horizon, people could look underneath the clouds and were just able to see the sunrise. I could even have seen it at home from my apartment on the 13th floor! But the trip was fun. It’s always nice to hunt for the right place to be at these events.
Here are some pictures I took from Middelkerke. They were shot with a Canon 400D in combination with a Meade ETS-70 telescope and a Tamron 20-200mm lens.
Thanks – Yes the hunt is half the fun. ken
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Story and Photos sent me by Igal Pat-El, Director, Givatayim Observatory, Tel Aviv, Israel
We took some images of the Jan. 4 Solar Eclipse from the Givatayim Observatory, just near Tel-Aviv, Israel. We were pleased to have Prof. Jay Passachoff as a guest during the eclipse. We had a live broadcast in plan but we had to cancel it due to heavy rain from the first contact, therefore we closed the dome’s shutter and went to the balcony trying to take some quick photos of the eclipse.
We had the portable PST Coronado CaK telescope with a Ca filter On a Alt-Az mount (we could not do any alignment due to the rain). We took about 5 images against all odds in this very dim filter, using the Orion SS II Planetary imager, all of them through the haze and clouds.
Thanks, Igal. Another good lesson learned. Take a chance. You never know what you’ll get till you try !
I’ve combined Igal’s photos into a collage for an enhanced view. ken
See more photos and a video in comments section below
