I took this shot of Polaris and the Little Dipper last night at the River Ridge Observatory. Nothing fancy, just a 30 second image a 6400 ISO with my widest angle lens. Polaris is the bright star just above the center and a little to the left. The Little Dipper extends almost horizontally and drooping a little as it does to the left. The thin clouds add a nice touch I think though normally I don’t like them.
I used my Canon Rebel tonight to do some simple astrophotography. It was connected to my Nexstar mount for tracking and running BackyardEOS on the laptop to control it. After spending quite some time manually focusing and trying different ISOs and exposures I settled on ISO 1600 and 30 seconds. It was supposed to be clear but there were thin clouds all over. The bright “star” on the left is Mars and if you look closely in the lower left quadrant you’ll see the teapot of Sagitarrius. I was also hoping to capture the nova currently in Sagitarrius just above the spout and if I zoom in I can see a star right where the nova is but it’s none too impressive.
Here is a young moon, just three days old with the planet Jupiter which is rapidly heading away from us and toward the far side of the Sun. Canon EOS Rebel 5, 300mm lens, 1/60 second, ISO – automatic, hand-held leaning on car.
