Galileo's Camera

2013 was (supposedly) an awesome year for astronomy. I actually thought it should've been called the Year of Comets with 5 comets going past. 2013 also came in with two solar eclipses, one annular and a rare hybrid eclipse (the last hybrid solar eclipse prior to 2013 occurred in 2005). Looking forward to 2014, here's what we got: Meteor Shower Jan 3,4 Quadrantids meteor shower. Planetary Event Jan 5 Jupiter closest to earth. A 10x or higher binocular should be able to resolve the Galilean moons while giving a good photo op for the astrophotographers. Comet Mar 24 Comet Holmes perihelion. In 2007 Comet Holmes had a major outburst. The comet may not be that prominent this time around. Planetary Event Apr 8 Mars closest to earth. Eclipse Apr 15 Total lunar eclipse. Unfortunately not visible to Sri Lanka. Meteor Shower Apr 22,23 Lyrids meteor shower. Eclipse Apr 29 Annular solar eclipse. Again, not visible to Sri Lanka. Meteor Shower May 5,6 Eta Aquarids meteor shower....

Moon and Venus - 06th Dec 2013 This was the view from my balcony when I returned home today, and that is what prompted me to take the next photo. The photo above, is very unlikely to be what you think it is. No it's not the Moon. It is in fact the planet Venus. Sometimes called the twin sister of Earth, Venus is the closest planet to Earth and also the closest in size. Due to the similar size and density, gravity on Venus is also pretty similar to that of Earth. But the similarities end there. The atmosphere of Venus is 96% Carbon Dioxide and is 92 times denser than that of Earth. The surface temperature of Venus is thought to be about 462 C. Due to the close proximity to Earth, Venus displays very prominent phases. In fact Venus and Mercury are the only two planets that display a full range of phases like the Moon. Contrary to intuition, Venus appears the brightest when the phase is a crescent as opposed to full. Venus is right now in its brightest peak. It will...

There is one photo that I thought I would never be able to take from Sri Lanka. I was thinking of going to the northern most corners just to see if it would provide a good view for this. Seems like you don't have to try that hard. Polaris and Big Dipper. Polaris is at the dead center of the bottom margin of the photo. Polaris and Big Dipper. Blue skies due to twilight. The elevation you can see Polaris or the pole star is pretty simple. The star appears as an extension of the north-south axis of the earth. So if you are right at the north pole, it is directly overhead, i.e. 90 0 from the horizon. Further you move from the north pole, for each degree in latitude, the elevation of the pole star comes down by one degree. This effectively means that your latitude is the elevation you see Polaris. If you are living in Sri Lanka the southern most tip (at Dondra Point) is at a latitude of 5 0 55' and the nothern most tip (Point Pedro) is at 9 0 49'. My choice fo...

Composite image of Jupiter (16x1/80sec ISO400) and Galilean Moons (1x1/10sec ISO800) The photo is a composite image of a high exposure shot to bring up the Galilean moons and a stacked image of Jupiter. The image of Jupiter might be the best I've done so far. Jupiter 16x1/80 ISO 400 stacked on Registax

Today (03rd November 2013) marks the last eclipse for the year of 2013 and it is a total solar eclipse for some areas in the world. Although Sri Lanka is not in that list, if you want to see how it looks like, there is someone webcasting it as it happens: SLOOH - Total Solar Eclipse or embedded via the SLOOH website The webcast of the eclipse will begin at around 17:15 Sri Lankan time.

Given the current weather in the evenings, I didn't expect to do much of stargazing. But imagine my surprise when I woke up around 3:30 AM to one of the clearest skies I've seen in Colombo. Did a bit of pointing, and decided to shoot Jupiter. One of the things that I shot way back when I was using my Astromaster 114 EQ. Jupiter - two images shot through NexStar4SE and stacked on Registax. Although not too bad, it is not that great either (have a look at http://www.astronomyforum.net/astrophotography-forum/8031-astro-io-jupiter-6-29-08-a.html for a comparison). There seems to be focus issues still and I am not sure where exactly the problem is. Moving to the 4SE has proven a good option. Given that it tracks, I don't have to fiddle with the controllers every two minutes. And even without a barlow, I can take a reasonably sized planetary image where 114EQ was producing very small images. Here's an old photo for comparison: Jupiter - single shot through Astr...

You can see a very bright star in the evening skies these days. Have a look at the western skies, just after the sunset, you will see a very bright star. It is so bright, that you can see it just after the sun sets and the skies are still blue. This is not actually a star. It's the planet Venus. It is easy to identify as it is pretty much the most brightest object in the night sky (barring the moon) and appears only right before the sun rise or right after the sun set and stays on for about two hours. This made the ancients call it the Morning Star and the Evening Star. The Babylons understood that these two stars are in fact the same. Here's my very first attempt on capturing Venus: Venus - 50x1/800sec at ISO100 If you are wondering as to why it seems to be a partial disk, more like the Moon, it is for the exact reason. Just like the Moon, Venus has phases, but instead of just 28 days, the cycle lasts 584 days. And right now it is in a "halfway" through a p...

The very first constellation I learned to recognise was Orion. Perhaps it's fitting that the very first presentable deep space image I did was also related to it. The Orion Nebula (M42/NGC1976) The Orion Nebula is visible to the naked eye, but cannot see much details to fully appreciate the beauty of it. The nebula is essentially what makes up the second star of Orion's sword. A wider field view of Orion with the nebula visible as a large bright blob is shown below (copied from Wikipedia): Orion (from Wikipedia) The first photo shown was taken from a Canon 550D fixed to NexStar 4SE on prime focus. 32 frames of 2seconds stacked with 10 dark frames on Deep Sky Stacker and then readjusted on Photoshop. It is obviously far from perfect. I think you need about 100 shots to make a good composite image. But as a beginner's attempt, I think it is pretty good.

Crescent Moon and Venus (top). The other star visible closer to the moon is Spica, the brightest star of Virgo

About a week back, the NexStar 4SE that I ordered arrived. I've been quite eager to test it out in the field but however so far been unsuccessful due to bad weather. But the first impressions so far have been good. Here's a short review on the 4SE compared to the 114EQ. Out of the box: Everything was neatly packed in one single box. Assembling the telescope was very easy, the entire set was only four pieces or so. There is no way you could get it wrong. The batteries for the controller of the telescope are not included (8 AA batteries). The battery for the spotting scope (CR2032) was included, but had already drained. Tripod Assembly: The tripod mount of the 4SE is made out of steel. This is not a major change from the tripod of the 114EQ, but does differ in one aspect. The feet/base of the tripod of the 4SE consists of rubber bushes instead of the plastic base of 114EQ. This somewhat absorbs vibrations and would allow a better photographic experience. The plastic moun...

This year is what probably you should call the Year of Astronomy. We are going to have three lunar eclipses, two solar eclipses (and one of them being a hybrid solar eclipse; an eclipse that appears as a total eclipse to some areas and an annular eclipse to other areas), three comets and Saturn at the closest to Earth. If you live in the right location, you are in for a treat! Unfortunately for me, two of the comets ( comet PANSTAARS and comet Lemmon ) escaped viewing due to bad weather. And yes, I missed them when they became visible back in April again. The first astronomical event I was able to photograph was the partial lunar eclipse on the 25th April 2013. I'm quite glad that I travelled to a reasonably remote location to view this, but well, the clouds were still a bother. All is not lost though: Partial Lunar Eclipse - 25th April 2013 The montage above is not a true multi-exposure shot. It is mostly "photoshopped" and you can see the cloud cover in the...

Probably about an year or so back, I tried to capture Saturn. It didn't work out well because there was a collimation error in the telescope; Saturn turned out like two saucers placed face to face. Last week, when I visited a national park, I decided to try it once more, this time with the Samyang 500mm Mirror Lens. This also being around the time of the Saturn opposition (Saturn being on the opposite side of the Sun and being closest to Earth), I thought it would make a good target. Only two problems: Cloud cover and the Full Moon. Anyway, I did manage to capture a reasonably okish amateur shot of Saturn. I just wish I had my telescope with me. Saturn - Samyang Mirror Lens, Canon 550D with 800 ISO 1/50 shutter speed. I did try to take another shot with the 2x converter attached to the mirror lens, but it seems like the vibration of the shutter is too much for the whole apparatus. The photos taken with the converter turned out to be just elongated bright blobs of light. ...

Today is the first day of the new year according to the traditions in Sri Lanka (or rather the traditions of Buddhists and Hindus in Sri Lanka). I personally find the traditional new year in SL interesting as unlike many traditions around the world where the new year begins with a new day, it begins at a particular time of the day marked by the movement of the Sun from Pisces to Aries. The traditional new year also carries along with a lot of "traditions", astrological and otherwise. There are specific times defined by astrologers ("nakath") which denote the beginning of the new year, the beginning of Sun's transition in to the new year and the times defined as "auspicious" for various tasks (starting your profession for the new year, first meal of the new year etc.). As mentioned in the earlier post, the objective of this attempt is not to find scientific proof of the astrology, but to analyse the mathematical basis of astrology. In this one...

Whenever I tell that I am interested in astronomy, there are some who come back with "Oh god! Don't tell me you don't believe in all that crap?". Sometimes I answer with a very serious "Well those are true!". The reality is that while there is a reasonable number of people who don't distinguish between astronomy and astrology, there is an even larger number of people who dismiss astrology as complete fallacy and non-scientific for the wrong reason. Given that the traditional new year of the Sri Lankan Buddhists and the Hindus which is  based completely on astrology, is around the corner, I thought it would be the right time to start off an article about the mathematical basis of astrology. Astrology consist of studying the movement of celestial bodies and predicting the future (or largely the future of individuals) based on that movement. The predictions made based on astrology have been challenged over and over and have failed to be proven on a ra...

Jupiter and Galilean Moons - From top to bottom: Europa, Io, Callisto and Ganymede I am not some one who is very sentimental, but I can't stop going back to the times that I was about 13-14 years old when I look at this picture. Back in around 1994-95 I constructed a telescope using nothing more than a lens of dad's old spectacles, an eye piece from a toy binocular and PVC tubes. It was a very crude construction but worked pretty well. If I could remember it had a magnification factor of about 20x. The first celestial object I pointed it at was the Moon and I was pretty overwhelmed to see the craters of the moon. That was the first time I saw them "for real". I am pretty sure I would've pointed it at a few other objects, probably at the Orion Nebula as well, but what I can distinctly remember is seeing the moons of Jupiter. For the past month or two, Jupiter has been high in the sky during the evenings and being quite a bright object, have been a goo...

While trying to find a possible location to spot the comet PANSTARRS (C/2011 L4), an interesting question came up. Would we actually get a better (and by better I mean practically better) chance of viewing if we were on a rooftop? Given that the comet is between 5-10 degrees above the Sun, there is only a small viewing window. How much better would this get if you were on a rooftop? The question actually converted into something else, how far can you see and how much better does it get if you climb up high? The calculation is pretty simple if you assume the Earth to be a perfect sphere. Although it is an ellipsoid, let's just assume it to be a sphere for the sake of calculation. In the diagram above, r is the radius of the earth h is the height of the observer (or height to eye level) d is the direct distance from eye of the observer to the horizon and  D is the actual distance (i.e. on the surface of earth) Since the line with the distance d is a tangent to the spher...

I'm pretty sure quite a lot of us have seen moving stars. No these are not shooting stars, these are much slower and are reasonably bright. These are man-made satellites. Thanks to a tip-off from my dad (he's an avid reader of a local science magazine), I knew for a while that the International Space Station (ISS) is visible to naked eye just like a satellite. Only thing you need to know is where and when. Guess what? NASA has a whole service dedicated to spotting the station at http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/station/main/index.html . You can go to http://spotthestation.nasa.gov/ to subscribe for an email alert service or use Station Sightings link (direct link at http://spaceflight.nasa.gov/realdata/sightings/SSapplications/Post/JavaSSOP/JavaSSOP.html ) to get a list of dates and times when the ISS flyby will be visible above your city. After a bit of a wait, managed to capture it on my camera. Come to think of it, I think its been about 6-9 months since I first ...

So yeah, managed to mend it DIY way, it does not look so great but well it still works. So here's what happened: I was trying to shoot Sirius around mid night and was dead tired. Was scrambling around half a sleep and toppled the telescope over. Had this been on grass, this would've been fine but it fell over and hit a tiled ledge on the balcony. Saw a piece coming off and my immediate thought was that its the bracket that went off. It wasn't the bracket, it was the mount. The only option I could think of was to write to Celestron  and see if I could purchase a replacement part. Unfortunately they didn't have any. They did confirm however that if I were to speak to one of their retailers, I might have a very small chance of finding one. Few emails later I figured that this is also not a possibility and the options I have are to purchase a new tripod-mount (i.e. the entire set), a new telescope or try to somehow mend it my self. With the PANSTARRS ...