A very partial solar eclipse

Yes, I said, a VERY partial solar eclipse... for, you see, a 5,000 mile long storm is SLOWLY making its way through central Oregon here... and I do mean sloooooooowly. Yup, just in time for the partial solar eclipse today. Rain, rain, and more rain. Then a momentary break just after the eclipse began...

You can see a major sunspot collection known as 2192 as well as the fuzzy clouds passing by.

That sunspot collection is larger than the planet Jupiter which is bigger than 1,300 Earths!

I was very surprised that I could capture what I did, given the thickness of the cloud cover.

Then, MORE RAIN! MORE THICK CLOUDS! AAAAARRRGGGH!

Maximum eclipse passed and still more clouds.

Then about 20 minutes after maximum, FINALLY there was a thinning in the clouds,

not a clearing, mind you, only a thinning... but just enough to start photographing again!

I also took some shots with a 200mm telephoto:

Then a last parting shot of the sun as the moon moved away from it

Yes, astronomy can be frustrating at times. But go ahead and do what you can... it just may surprise you!

Second Total Lunar Eclipse of the Year 2014

Got out to the observatory about 2:10 am, Wednesday, October 8 and the Moon had already begun to slide behind the earth's shadow.
I used my Bushnell NorthStar 90mm Catadioptric Telescope piggy-backed on my Old Faithful Celestron C8. I attached my Canon T3i camera at prime focus and set up my intervalometer to trigger the camera every 60 seconds.
(Don't miss the BONUS at the end of this blog account!)

Initially I had the ISO set for 400 but eventually increased it to ISO 800 as totality began. The shutter speed initially was 1/250 sec but had to slow it way down to 15 seconds during the middle of totality. Here's my first shot at about 2:25 PDT:

As the shadow moved across the disk of the Moon I took a longer exposure (10 sec) just to show that the orange color, visible to the human eye, was already visible:

As totality came it appeared photographically that the Moon still had not been totally covered. This is an optical illusion because the human eye saw only shades of orange and deep orange. Notice that the lightest part of the Moon is in the 8:30 location from the camera photo point of view:

Here is a shot of what totality looked more like with the human eye. Notice that the brightness on the 7:30 rim were less pronounced:

At the end of totality you will notice that the lightest part of the Moon had moved to the 6:00 location (once more from the camera photo point of view):

Here is a shot of myself in the observatory with the eclipsed moon outside:

Well, it was about 4:30 am now and frost had begun to affect the front lens of the Bushnell scope and my feet were freezing (it dropped to 25 degrees F then !). So it was time to wrap up this 2+ hour session and get warm!

Each time I go out for one of these eclipses I learn new techniques and also what NOT to do. Next time: bring out the hair dryer to rid the scope of frost! Next time: use better socks and boots!

Here's the BONUS: As totality hit I heard elk calling out in the night! Awesome! What we all miss when we are cozy in our beds!

EXTRA BONUS: KTVZ, our local Bend, Oregon television station posted my photos on their website and on their evening news. Thanks, KTVZ!

Moon shots in preparation for the 2nd Lunar Eclipse this year

The weather wasn't the clearest (lots of smoke and unstable air) but was enjoying the late views of the moon before it went full and Wednesday's early morning lunar eclipse.
Photos at 800 iso, Celestron C8, prime focus, 1/30 sec exposure.

Clearing skies...but soupy viewing still

Though the skies have cleared the viewing is so poor that i didn't bother breaking out the cameras. I did test my video setup on the Moon, however. It should work well when I have several visitors at the observatory.

Modified Canon XS and sample photo

I have always struggled with trying to image reddish nebula...never could get enough red to make it look natural. Of course there is a reason. Digital cameras are made for "normal" daylight exposure, what the human eye naturally sees. What is interesting is that digital camera manufacturers have to place an infrared (ir) filter directly in front of the imaging sensor (CMOS) to PREVENT it from capturing the near infrared, because the CMOS is naturally sensitive to the near infrared!
So to capture the near infrared of nebulas in space it would be necessary to REMOVE that filter.
Of course, if you remove that filter the color cast of normal photography will not be "natural" to the human eye. It is, however, possible to compensate for that, to good degree, with the "custom white balance" feature in the camera.

In searching the internet I found a site that gives a clear step-by-step on how to disassemble a Canon DSLR to be able to remove that ir filter, http://dslrmodifications.com/rebelmod450d1.html
Since I own three Canon DSLR's I choose to try this modification to the least valuable camera, my Canon XS. Trust me, I was fearful of making a big mistake and ruining the camera for good. But to my happy surprise it was not as difficult as I imagined! True, one needs a good tiny Philips screwdriver (don't compromise here!) but the instructions are so good that only someone with all thumbs need worry about making mistake.

Modification accomplished! Camera tested! Ready to head out to the observatory!

The night was clear, the temps rather warm (didn't put on a light jacket until almost 11 pm), I did a few exposures to see how it works. The images were much red-er than they were before and my technique still needs improvement but I was able in post-processing (using Lynkeos, Preview, and GIMP) to produce this image of the region of the Milky Way north of Cygnus (the Swan constellation) which included the "North American Nebula" and the bright star Deneb.

So if you have an extra Canon DSLR laying around and you really want to do astrophotography of the night sky then this modification is absolutely essential! You can do it yourself or send it in to the guy who runs the above website and he will do it for you for a fee.
When I get a newer Canon DSLR someday I will do this modification to my Canon t3i or t2i, for sure!

Observations of the Moon after raising the telescope pier 9 more inches

Ah, the wonders of hindsight! After nearly a year in my observatory it came time to make some more adjustments to the concrete pier that my orange Celestron C8 is mounted to. By raising the height of the pier 9 more inches I am able to view more objects than before and yet be able to roll off the roof without fear of hitting the telescope.
Of course that meant having to realign the wedge and angle of the telescope to polar north. To my surprise it was relatively easy to get really close!
Saturn is just too low now in the southwest for any decent observing but the scope tracked really well.
And though the Moon was going to shorten any observing I went ahead and took some images with my Canon t3i at prime focus in the movie mode, both full screen and digital zoom (maximum to look for any discrepancies in my polar alignment. Here are the results...

The following image is of the crater Copernicus:

Typically I use Lynkeos and let it choose the best stills from the movie but as of late it seems to want to choose some stills that are less than the best. So I hand picked the stills (about 6 of them out of 50) and produced this image, final editing in Mac OS-X Preview.

17 Visitors to the La Pine Observatory tonight

The Primetimer's of Grace Fellowship Church of La Pine, Oregon visited the observatory tonight.  Viewed were Sataurn, Mars, the crescent moon, double and triple star systems, the Ring Nebula,  M13 globular cluster,  the Andromedia galaxy, the Milky Way, etc. Thank you all for coming and viewing God's creation!