Astronomy Nightly

During the trip last weekend to Mahogany Flat Campground, a good friend of mine, Jason Dotter, shot this time lapse sequence of the Milky Way. http://youtu.be/0BjGeYQsZQk?hd=1 He used a Canon XSi with a 15mm fisheye lens. ISO 1600, f/2.8, 30 second exposures spaced 10 seconds apart, starting at 2:43…

For full disclosure, I need to share that I had a photo in the running for the Lion background image. The photo that has that honor is way better than mine. I knew something was up! Like everyone else, when they unveiled the new Andromeda Galaxy (aka Messier 31) image used for the default OS X Lion …

If you are an astrophotographer that uses a digital SLR, I hope your camera has a live view capability.  It's a game changer for quickly focusing your telescope & camera combo and getting great shots.  Here's a great article on using live view for astrophotography focusing: http://www.astropix.c…

I took a trip to Death Valley National Monument a week ago.  You'd think that August in Death Valley would be suicide - and rightly so.  However, the campground I stayed at was up in the mountains on the west side of Death Valley.  Mahogany Flat Campground is up above 8100' elevation and has 10 camp…

Graeme Devine of Santa Cruz, CA recently posted a gorgeous video made from several hours worth of exposures of the Milky Way.  He took the shots from his front porch.  His work really shows off what you can do with a DSLR hooked to a computer. Most DSLRs come with software that lets you take timed e…

For several years, my Celestron telescope's NexStar hand controller has been getting fussier & fussier.  On my last dark sky trip (many hours from home), the hand controller stopped responding.  I messed with it in the field for about 5 hours that night...cycling power, attempting realignments, …

Despite being "no-go" for weather until nearly the last minute, Space Shuttle Endeavour launched this morning for STS-130.  Seconds after launch, they punched through a thin cloud deck - reminding me of the launch of STS-123 in March, 2008.  Main engine cutoff (MECO) happened about 4:22am EST and En…

The DSLR that I use for astrophotography is the Canon EOS 5D Mark II.  It's an amazing daytime camera and it has great low light capabilities.  Canon recently released new firmware for the 5D Mk II, version 1.2.4.  Among other things, this update includes fixes for problems with noise in long exposu…