Historical Archives - 2005
Things that happened in 2005
GoTo: | Entrance | Fotos | Messier | Fishtank | Grog! | Pirates | Dino Riders | Author | Ξ Marks the Spot
Archives of the ages
Montag, der Elfte April - Solar Eclipse
I saw it happen and took pictures, more on this later, but now...
The local peak of the partial solar eclipse.
The majority of the solar eclipse pictures were taken from a Questar standard 3.5" telescope. I also
had an 8" setup with a solar filter, but the sun is slightly too large to effectively photograph with one
that large. It was also somewhat cloudy during the photographing, so in some of the photos, you can
definitely tell there are clouds making shadows for my view, but generally doesn't affect the image much.
I've noticed pretty much all of the things I've written about lately have to do with astrophotography
so perhaps I should focus more on that for the site, instead of the pirate thing which never really
materialized.
More pictures!
Jupiter, Ganymede, Io, and Europa - Jupiter in the middle, the moons from left to right. Taken through an eight inch telescope.
The Orion Nebula - A fairly dim shot of the Orion Nebula, I have to work on the levels to see much of the cloud.
Weeks later!
Saturn through the 16inch - Two different exposures of Saturn, where the Cassini division in the rings is also visible.
The Whirlpool Galaxy - Messier Object 51, taken through a 90mm telescope with a CCD camera.
Mittwoch, der Vierundzwanzigste März - Astrophotography
There's probably a lot to say about this, since I've been doing a lot of it lately. I haven't gotten very
deep into the process yet, but I've gotten a couple of great pictures so far. Last night was my first
trial with Saturn and Jupiter, which turned out with the feel you can tell what they are, and see 4 of
the moons of Jupiter, but there's not really much more than that. Now, without further delay, I'll show
some of the results.
Half Moon - Took this one in February and is currently featured on
astronomy.physics.tamu.edu.
Nearing Full Moon - Another Highly detailed shot, this time closer to the full phase.
Waxing Crescent - This is the moon through a 90mm telescope which I just decided to take a picture with. You can see the slight shadows from the craters in the dark area.
Trial shot of Jupiter - You can't see too much, since I didn't hold the camera very still, but you can see the zig-zags of the 4 Galilean moons.
Trial shot of Saturn - This shot barely gives you the idea of a ringed planet, but seems roughly like a drawing Galileo made of the planet in 1616.
The Next week...
Second Try at Jupiter - Forget I ever took that first picture, This shot through the 16 inch telescope wipes it off the map in all aspects.
Mittwoch, der Sechsundswanzigste Januar - Fotos
I think I've finally gotten used to my camera. All of the faults are pretty obvious now and I know how
to work around them. I'm thinking about what kind of camera I should get next, and all of my thoughts
point to a Digital SLR. This idea will probably delay the acquisition for some time, but I'll gladly take
donations if you're willing to provide to the cause! Recently, I've added a significant number of pictures
to the photographie page, most of which are from Downtown Houston in the
buildings section. I will probably be trying out some Astro-photography soon, with the aid of a telescope.
Hopefully this will turn out as cool as I imagine, but with a 2 second max exposure period, I can't expect
too much. Lots of things of which to photograph, too little time and too many weirdos saying you're not
allowed to take pictures. For the icon, we have a picture of the moon rising a couple of nights ago, a
day before it was fully illuminated.
Other stuff, Earl died several days ago. She now sleeps in a bed of Casting
Resin, and is a monument on my desk. There's probably more to say about this, but that will come later.
I'm not sure, but I might be addicted to poptarts. Other than that, things are great! I
should probably re-write a bunch of stuff on this site at some point, but who knows when that will happen!
On that pop-tart addiction, it's important to show this 1993
article by Dave Barry. This has triggered numerous experiments which I may even have to test some day
if I acquire a toaster meant to die. This is a rather good example of
such an experiment.
Archives of the ages
GoTo: | Entrance | Fotos | Messier | Fishtank | Grog! | Pirates | Dino Riders | Author | Ξ Marks the Spot
Copy-right-handed-rule by Kent.Last Modified: Wednesday, 29-Aug-2007 21:42:10 CDT