Pembrokeshire Astronomer

It's been a while since a put a post on here, thought it time to remedy that. Whilst looking through my astronomy logbook I found this picture of the Venus transit back in 2004.  This photo was taken in  our back garden. The day started badly, with cloud cover looking to spoil the event of a lifetime. Luckily about 9.00am it cleared up and we had beautiful blue skies for the remainder of the transit.                    This photo was taken with a Canon EOS1000 on something called "film emulsion"              Some post imaging has been done to the picture, in other  words I fiddled with the contrast 

Regulus...what a poetic star. Here is a poem I found recently by the Greek astronomer-poet Theodore Stephanides.... "I teach Man with the atom of his brain to weigh a flaming sun in wisdom's scales, to gauge the Galaxy from pole to pole, to read the secret of each starry train; and in the Infinite's unwinding trails, to lose mortality and find the soul." Such poetry and dreaming these stars do bring.

Taken by Helen with Nikon D50 70mm lens 1.6 sec ISO 800

Venus - Skywatcher 150mm/f8 refractor. “For me, it is far better to grasp the Universe as it really is than to persist in delusion, however satisfying and reassuring.” ―  Carl Sagan ,  The Demon-Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark

I lost this picture many months ago. Luckily I found it recently, hidden on one of our cd disks!!

I sat outside, early hours of this morning waiting for the total lunar eclipse. Huddled sitting on a rug, with blankets and warm clothing, hoping the clouds would move away. Luckily they did long enough for me to capture these images. I spent a lot of the time leaning against my chair nodding off....or using the binoculars to view the totality. It's wonderful to see stars in such close proximity to a full moon, the blackness of space around that shining lunar disk is a sight not often seen.. I took full advantage of it.