Pembrokeshire Astronomer

" It was a most clear and frosty night, enough to make Mark haul out the telescope... and it was so worth it.  He saw the dales and vales and snow caps of Mars..... "  From the journal of Mrs Pembs  25th January 2010 I make no apology for droning on about Mars...now is the time to drag out those telescopes and feast your eyes on the wonderful world we call Mars... Observing Mars has dominated all my astronomy spare time of late, and for good reason. The planet Mars is currently at opposition , and as such it will allow us our best chance of viewing Mars for the next 40 or so days...after that time...as far as good viewing is concerned, Mars and our planet Earth say goodbye to each other for another 2 years . My attempts at photography:  What can I say  !!!!! As you can see from these photos, my Martian photography skills leave a lot to be desired... :0) I tried to connect our Nikon D50 via a x3 Barlow to the eyepiece holder of the Tal..... It didn't t

Saturday's initial sketch of Mars Saturday Evening: Last Saturday evening I was all set up in the observatory to take some photos of Mars. The Nikon D50 camera was ready, the x3 Barlow was in place, the Tal clock drive was ticking away, the skies were crystal clear. Also my quarry had not long risen over the edge of the easterly wall of my observatory.... I good nights viewing was ahead..... PERFECT.....!!! Perfect that was until I actually tried to image this little red beauty........!! It quickly became apparent that my planetary photo imaging left a lot to be desired..... I wasn't having much luck capturing my images.....then it struck me....!!! Why am I trying to capture mediocre Mars photos on such a beautiful night. These nights of steady seeing are so few from here in Pembrokeshire that it felt right to put the digital imaging equipment away and employ the old fashioned analogue photon detectors, namely my eyes. Out came the pencils....

I thought tonight would be a no go for astronomy as the clouds were back, and they covered much of the darkening sky.  I managed a quick photo of the Moon before it disappeared into the bullying clouds.. By the look of those clouds it seemed better to head indoors and sit by a warming fire. I happened to go outside about 11.00pm and was greeted with a beautiful smiling Moon looking down at me from a completely cloud free sky . Coat,hat and scarf on... and quickly out to the observatory and roll back the roof. The Moon was about 98% illuminated so many of the stars were washed out by the radiance of the bright moonlight... But I was able to make out a a few of the main constellations. The one that caught my eye was Leo the Lion  which was positioned right next to the Moon. Considering the proximity of Leo to the moon Gamma Leonis " Algeiba" was easily resolved with a x3 Barlow and both the 25mm plossl and the 15mm plossl. These two little beauties are said

It was cloudy all day today...... with the odd shower thrown in for good measure.  According to the weather forecast website that I follow there was to be a break in the clouds around teatime....   They were thankfully right!!!  :0) Like magic the clouds parted.... and as the days light faded I was greeted with the the Moon and Venus dancing above the trees at the end of our garden....   PERFECT !!  :0)   I was using our Nikon D50 camera with a 300mm lens set up on a tripod.  For the above shots the camera was set up at 1/13 of a second ISO at f9. Also I was able to capture a bit of the Da Vinci Glow (Earth Shine)... and you can also see from this photo a bit of glow from some passing clouds. I noticed Jupiter was almost due South and I was wondering if the 300mm camera lens would be able to pick out any detail of the Jovian Moons...   I aimed the camera and tried a two second exposure...    This was the result........Jupiter's satel