Gibbous Moon and Chasing the ISS

 

 

This evening I took the Schmidt outside to spy the gibbous moon.

I wanted to have a good look at the Moon Maiden and Gassendi before they slipped behind the trees at the end of the garden.

After about ten minutes of viewing the moon slowly but surely slipped behind the blasted trees.

Never mind.... across I went to my favourite double Albireo.

With the 20mm Erfle in place I was able to distinguish the blue and yellow of this lovely double.

By defocusing the image the two stars exhibited an even stronger yellow and blue colour contrast.

Copernicus and Gassendi

Plato and the Moon Maiden

 Chasing the ISS

THEN..  in the west I noticed the International Space Station racing towards me.

I wondered if I would be able to capture its image in the Schmidt?



After a bit of frantic repositioning I centred the ISS in the field of view.. for about a SECOND!

I quickly tried to manually keep up with the ISS.

For several seconds I managed to see a decent image of what looked like two long horizontal bright bars, connected to a much shorter vertical bright bar.   

Did I see the space station, or was my brain playing tricks with me? 

I'm not sure, but at least what I saw was not the usual star like point of light, as seen through my binoculars.

Misty Solar Sunrise.

Up at 5.45am ...just missed the Sunrise.

 

Captured a few shots of our mist shrouded village.

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Last night we slept in the shed again. 

Around about midnight I spotted a lovely meteor trail.

The meteor started its journey around Vega and continued over towards Altair.

 

 

At around 02h30m I was awake again and watching a gibbous Moon as it perched itself on some nearby treetops. 

The air was still, no cars to be heard,  a beautiful calm morning.  

Spying on Venus.

This morning whilst waiting for the sunrise I spotted Venus shining brightly over towards the Haverfordwest area...  it looked amazing.

 

 

 

From the front garden it looked even better as it hovered above the rooftops.... 

 

What a beautiful start to the day.

  

iPhoto Solar Projection

 

Today I managed a quick solar projected image...

After a bit of processing using iPhoto software I was able to obtain this final image..

 

Clear Solar Skies

 

Mark

 

Astronomy from our garden shed.

 

Tonight the skies were beautifully clear. I decided to give the 40mm refractor a bit of an airing.

The crescent moon looked amazing as it hung over the nearby rooftops.

I was able to capture a few shots afocally with the digicam.

It was so warm that we decided to sleep in the garden shed, with our heads peeping out of the doorway.

 

The stars after midnight looked amazing, and thanks to the street lights being switched off we could easily see what looked to be Noctilucent clouds way out to the north.

 I haven't seen NLC's since July of 2009......!!!

No Schmidt telescope for me tonight, just the naked eye, a sleeping bag, a heart full of poetry and the stars above....

Clear Skies

Mark....