I ran through some of my captures from this morning and wanted to share the results. I awoke at 3am, a startling 15 minutes before my alarm went off, but since I hadn't imaged through my telescope in almost a year it took me nearly an hour to figure out how to hook everything up. So these images are a series from when the moon is in the penumbra all the way to totality. Shortly after the last shot the moon was enveloped in thick clouds so I was forced to pack everything up. Enjoy!






























For what it's worth, totality is the only time you can successfully image the moon and background stars at the same time. I'm sure that some of those specs are hot pixels, but I'm still pleased with the results.

did you use a filter?

nope, no filters.


4467....

Damn, that's AWESOME ted.
And info (like a link) on the telescope?

I love the stars in the background.

The only thing I wish could be different is in this one:


if the super bright part still had a tad of detail in it and the dark side wasn't quite so dark...
*cough* HDR? *cough*

Great work.
I didn't even get to see the damn thing.

Originally Posted by jacobsen1

Damn, that's AWESOME ted.
And info (like a link) on the telescope?

I love the stars in the background.


if the super bright part still had a tad of detail in it and the dark side wasn't quite so dark...
*cough* HDR? *cough*

Great work.
I didn't even get to see the damn thing.

Sure, the scope is an 8" Meade Shmidt-Newtonian with corrective optics, 800mm at f/4 sitting on an LXD75 mount. Images were focussed with the aid of a moonlight crayford focusser and captured on my laptop with DSLRfocus through my Rebel.

Here is my imaging rig:
[img width=533 height=800]http://tardypizza.com/Images/Astrophotography/scope.jpg[/img]




And I might play around with an HDR later today. But I kind of like how the exposure progresses from emphasis on the light to the dark side with that shot's subject being the Earth's ozone color. But we'll see how an HDR looks anyway.

holey fricken lens batman!

Wow! I just got this email:

Love your photos from the eclipse! Nicely done...and thanks for sharing with spaceweather. We look at their site often, and it's great to see local contributions.

Best regards,
Burton

Burton Fitzsimmons
Chief Meteorologist, News 8 Austin
1708 Colorado
Austin, TX 78701

Apparently they accepted my shots on spaceweather.com
http://spaceweather.com/eclipses/gal...ug07_page2.htm (about halfway down on that page)

Originally Posted by jacobsen1

holey fricken lens batman!

Yeah, not exactly portable in the normal sense. But there is nothing quite like an 800mm f/4 lens that has built in tracking and can be controlled from a laptop. I should do some terrestrial shots someday just for fun.

Originally Posted by tardypizza

Apparently they accepted my shots on spaceweather.com
http://spaceweather.com/eclipses/gal...ug07_page2.htm (about halfway down on that page)

Nice.

You need to do something like this with your shots:
[img width=800 height=554]http://spaceweather.com/eclipses/28aug07b/Morris-Maduro-Maduro1.jpg[/img]

All in good time....


Too bad I didn't see the end of the eclipse.

They're using my shots in tomorrow morning's news broadcast

Damn dude, you're like famous and stuff.

that is an awesome setup.

Originally Posted by jacobsen1

Damn dude, you're like famous and stuff.

I wouldn't quite say that....yet.

Originally Posted by tardypizza

They're using my shots in tomorrow morning's news broadcast

Great pics, better than any I have seen on other sites even if they had more shot in the sequence.

You must record and post video being that we can't buy a copy and send it to you


Scott.

Thanks! He said he would try to send me an mpeg of the broadcast. If he does I'll host it to show off for you guys.

That would be an awesome thing to have for you website portfolio.


Scott

Originally Posted by tardypizza

Originally Posted by jacobsen1

Damn, that's AWESOME ted.
And info (like a link) on the telescope?

I love the stars in the background.


if the super bright part still had a tad of detail in it and the dark side wasn't quite so dark...
*cough* HDR? *cough*

Great work.
I didn't even get to see the damn thing.

Sure, the scope is an 8" Meade Shmidt-Newtonian with corrective optics, 800mm at f/4 sitting on an LXD75 mount. Images were focussed with the aid of a moonlight crayford focusser and captured on my laptop with DSLRfocus through my Rebel.

Here is my imaging rig:
[img width=533 height=800]http://tardypizza.com/Images/Astrophotography/scope.jpg[/img]




And I might play around with an HDR later today. But I kind of like how the exposure progresses from emphasis on the light to the dark side with that shot's subject being the Earth's ozone color. But we'll see how an HDR looks anyway.

Those pics are inspiring.

So do you attach your camera body to the telescope where the black part is at the front, over the Meade lettering?

I don't quite understand how everything works together...

Thanks.

Originally Posted by Algonquin

Those pics are inspiring.

So do you attach your camera body to the telescope where the black part is at the front, over the Meade lettering?

I don't quite understand how everything works together...

Thanks.

Exactly, although I have a fancy new red-anodized focuser with a 10:1 reduction gear to really nail the fine focus. I've got an adapter that attaches to the camera just like a lens would. It's essentially a 2" barrel that fits perfectly into the focuser. Once the camera body is plugged into the focuser, the telescope acts just like an 800mm f/4 lens. I then run everything from my laptop. I can use a planetary program to point the scope, another program that uses FFT analysis to aid in getting perfect focus, and a third that guides the scope if I'm doing long exposures. I'm my own observatory!

So does that track the moon too?

IE "a planetary program to point the scope"
does that point it once, or keep moving it realtime?

How much $$$ is something like that anyway?

Originally Posted by jacobsen1

So does that track the moon too?

IE "a planetary program to point the scope"
does that point it once, or keep moving it realtime?

How much $$$ is something like that anyway?

Yeah, you can set the tracking to sidereal (normal star tracking), lunar or solar rates. There's even an option, that right now is still over my head, that will track fast-moving satellites if you give it the right ephemeris. A long term goal of mine is to image the ISS or Hubble. The scope is always driving in right-ascension at whatever rate you tell it. Once properly aligned (which is a whole other headache) it will keep a start in the field of view all night long. If I put a guide camera in the guide scope (the little black one on top) it will make constant corrects to compensate for minor perturbations in the worm gear. It will also do its best to compensate for any mis-alignment, but in long exposures you'll start to get field rotation so its best to make sure you nail the alignment.

I have Starry Nights, which is an awesome awesome planetary program. It interfaces with the go-to capability of the scope so I can just point and click on my laptop and remote control the scope. With long enough cables I could set everything up outside and then do everything from my desktop if I wanted. They even make motorized focusers that I could control as well if I wanted to dump my money into one. A lot of guys will convert a shed into an observatory, complete with a roll-off roof, and then image while 50 feet away in their house enjoying a beer.

Here's a link for the scope. clicky It's actually a bargain for what you get, especially when compared to Canon's L glass. I don't even want to think about how much more I've spent on accessories and software for the thing, though. In fact, with the amount of money I've dumped into all of my camera and imaging gear I could....*shudder*.

Damn, I love this hobby.

Wow, that's not bad at all. I figured 10 times that much.

So <$2k with all the bits to make it work?
Oh, and we have starry nights on the boat for figuring out which constellations we're seeing. It's amazing to see what you can see 100+ miles from any sort of light pollution.

Awesome shots man!

Stupid news guy won't email me back.

What is it with people that can't even reply to a simple email? First it was the Rolling Stone tease, now this guy. Dammit, I want some attention!! :angry:

Ted, those pictures are awesome!

Just remember us little folk when you get all rich and famous...

-K

So Mr Meteorologist Guy just emailed. He was sick the last few days so he skipped work. He's airing the shots in the next few days.

Nice! Congrats.

bump for people to see Ted's shots from last time.
At least this time we can all play (weather depending of course).