Saturday, November 2, 2013

Six Constellations

Last Christmas I purchased a new camera to replace my old Sony that died suddenly.  This one was a low cost Canon SX150 point and shoot but had manual settings which I wanted.  I've been trying to take night sky photos without a great deal of luck.  Last Wednesday 30 Oct 2013 I teamed up with El Caballero (an Austrian guy living in Guatamala) to watch the ISS pass over.  We were both on the same ground track and managed to log an ISS waypoint from our adventure.  We also got pretty good pictures of the pass.
Tonight I decided to try to get some decent star pictures with my newfound knowlege of the SX150.  It worked out pretty well and the picture is included here.  If you look carefully at the photo you should be able to see at least parts of six constellations.  Delphinius (lower right) the Dolphin and Equuleus are both entirely visible along with most of Pegasus, parts of Andromeda, Cygnus, and Lacerta.  The latter is a very dim constellation and I could only make out Alpha Lacerta a magnitude 4.6 star.  Stars brighter than that are easier to see.  The foliage at the bottom (facing south) is the top of my grapefruit tree which catches street light (ugh).  By the way, the grapefruit is looking very good this year after lots of rain this summer.  The settings on my camera are included in the photo properties but are: 15s exposure, f/3.4, ISO400 taken 11/2/2013 at 20:54 CDT.  I put the camera on a 2sec self timer, clicked the shutter, and laid it down lens up on a small stool.  I'm pleased with the results! The field is about 40°x40°.