The Binocular Mount I purchased for my tripod arrived today. I was pleased to find that it’s the correct size; it’ll be a great help when I’m outside looking at the stars (hopefully tomorrow night).
Not much is going on this weekend, so it should be pretty relaxing.
Today was completely cloudless, so I rushed home after work to setup the telescope and try out the new solar filter and camera mount. The solar filter lets in roughly 1/10,000th of the light – pretty cool. This is one of the pictures taken, albeit a bit out of focus since I was hastily taking picture before the sun went down and it was pretty windy outside. Next time I’ll take more time and hopefully come out with some clearer pictures.
Tonight I was barely able to get my third necessary picture of the moon. Check out the Waxing Crescent. This was difficult to get because without the moon filter it was very bright and with the filter it was too dim. The wind was also pretty strong tonight so a lot of the pictures I took had a slight blur to them. Hopefully the one linked to above will fit in with the others nicely.
Last night I got a picture of the Waning Gibbous phase of the moon. What’s funny is I went to bed thinking I was going to miss the shot because the moon had already set for the day. I woke up at 3:48am and noticed bright moonlight shining through our window and realized I had misread the Virtual Moon Atlas software I use. So I got up and spent about an hour outside then went back to bed. I now have 2/8 of the pictures I need for my project.
I’m starting a project aimed at getting 7-8 pictures of the moon, with the telescope like these, at its various stages. It will probably take me a while to get done because of the timing and weather but I think the end result will be pretty cool. Once I have them taken, I plan on utilizing Ana’s newfound mat cutting abilities and arrange them in a nice frame.
Tonight just happens to be a full moon, so I hope it stays clear so I can mark that one off the list.
It was a very clear night tonight. Since I was too tired from cleaning all day to get the telesope out, I pulled out one of my astronomy books and the following text jumped off the page at me:
I cannot help but wonder if this will have an adverse affect on the desire to explore space in future. A large part of me thinks it won’t, but what if Galileo (or Kepler, Newton, etc.) didn’t have the night sky to inspire and intrigue him? I think it is safe to say we would be in a completely different situation right now.
It’s pretty saddening to me.
