Astronomy Log

Meade Filter Series 4000 Moon Nd96
ND 96 Moon Filter (0.9 density; 13% transmission): The neutral density filter transmits light uniformly across the entire visual spectrum. It serves as an excellent method to reduce glare and irradiation when observing the Moon with any telescope 4" and larger. The ND96 may also be employed in the splitting of close double stars where one of the binary pair significantly exceeds the other in brightness.

Price: £14.99

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Whilst away on holiday in Menorca for the week, was the chance to see and image the daytime showing of the Moon and Venus close together.

I would not have known about this had it been for me reading Sky at Night magazine in the plane a few days earlier.

I did not take my DSLR with me, so took this photography with my Lumix TZ7 camera instead. It was taken on the 11th September 2010 at 16:30 GMT (Menorca time 17:30).

I don’t know how many people in the UK saw this, as it may have been cloudy here at the time.

What great weather we have been having lately, could it be anything to do with there being no planes flying at the moment due to the icelandic volcano erruptions? After spending the day listening to talks, looking at telescopes and viewing trade stands at Kelling Heath I decided to come home and do some imaging.

The moon has been looking amazing at the moment in the blue twilight sky, unfortunately for me at the moment my west viewpoint is obstructed by my own house, so I snuck around the side of the house and managed to get this image below of the moon and venus on the bottom right.

f/4.5 1/10sec -2 exposure on a Canon 450D

The same moon taken using my Canon 450D straight into an 80mm StarSky Refractor - 1/125 second exposure with a ISO400 setting.

Click on both images to enlarge them.

Managed to get out tonight for a while around 7.30pm, I did not think the clouds would clear. Usually whenever there is something worth looking at it’s always cloudy! But eventually the clouds went and the moon was in full view, even though it was -1 degrees in the shed.

I took these images by attaching my Canon 450d to my cheap £100 guiding refractor telescope, I still think the photographs it produces are great for a £100 telescope. Images were taken mostly using an exposure time of 1/800th and an ISO400

I stayed out as long as possible to try and get the full story of the eclipse, all the way through from start to finish, but I did move my camera between the refractor and the lx200 so some later shots did get rotated as I did not put the camera back in the exactly same position.

The partial eclipse was not a great site to behold, but still something worth looking at.