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.
Sunset 10/16/2016
We had an almost cloudless and low haze sky at sunset this afternoon. I grabbed the camera and watched it. Pardon the slightly “gritty cop drama” feel to the video, I neglected to use a tripod and leaned against a street sign.
Saturn, Mars, and Antares August 24, 2016
Wednesday evening I went outside and took some pictures of a rough alignment of the planets Saturn, Mars and the star Antares. The ruler straight alignment occurred earlier in the day so I had to settle for a slight bend. Vertically from the top, near the center of the frame the bright stars are Saturn, Mars, and Antares. If you know your constellations you can also make out the pincers of the scorpion on the right as Antares is the heart of Scorpius the Scorpion.This was shot with a Canon Rebel T5, 75mm lens, 1 second exposure, at f4.5, ISO 1600.
