Author: admin1

New Toy, First Light

First attempt at using the iOptron SkyTracker, a motorised mount. All pictures taken with a Canon 7D on a Manfrotto tripod. Aligning the SkyTracker with the Pole Star is easy and quick, and focussing is a doddle with the Android app DSLR Controller.

This is the moon through a 300mm lens.

And this is Orion’s Belt (the three stars in a row) with the Orion Nebula below, a 2 minute exposure at ISO400 with a 55mm lens. Processed in Photodesk to reduce light pollution and moonlight (it was just past full) and to subtract a dark field to get rid of hot pixels. The tracking was excellent, but Phobos the cat bumped the tripod halfway through 🙂 The faintest stars here are magnitude 9.5.

Sight of the Night: Perseid Meteor

We were lucky last night to have clear skies around midnight, so we spent some time on the patio looking for Perseid meteors. We took over 500 photos, and fortunately — it’s very difficult to photograph meteors — managed to catch a couple, of which this is the best.

The picture has been lightly processed to darken the sky, but the vivid green colour is accurate. The group of stars at the top is the double cluster in Perseus.

We took the picture with a Canon 7D and a 50mm lens at F2.2. Exposure was 5 seconds at ISO1600.

Phenomenom of the Day: Vibrating phone wire

There have been occasional reports of a lone icy cable incomprehensibly oscillating on a snowy day. Admin1 observed one such from the roof at his work, and yesterday we saw the same thing outside our house. Despite all the strobing on the video, only one cable is wobbling: the second one from the top. It trembled for at least twelve hours and only stopped when the snow melted. It is anchored to the same building as the static one above, about 30cm lower down, and does not pass over any heat sources. There was no wind, and the birds singing in the background were not sitting on it.

The videos offered at the end share the honour of being derived from a file called MVI5177…