December Updates - Part 2

It was a fascinating night last Friday, with one of the clearest skies we had at SCOB in several weeks. A large patch of cloud drifted by in the early evening but towards the end of the session, things cleared up again and, with no Moon around, many of the familiar December stars were free to shine as best they could in our light polluted sky.

Photo of the constellations Orion (top), Canis Major with Sirius (right), Canis Minor and Procyon (below in cloud) and parts of Gemini (lower left).

Initially, most of our attention was focused on Jupiter. During the most crowded period we were watching as Jupiter's moon Io gradually appeared out from the giant planet's shadow.
Didn't have a camera handy at that point but after closing time I took a few snaps of the Jupiter and the surrounding area of Taurus, including the Pleiades (M45) star cluster.

Long exposure photo of Taurus (v-shaped) with Jupiter (brightest object) and Pleiades Star Cluster (centre).

To finish the evening we had a last look at the great Orion Nebula (M42). I attached the camera to our main 16 inch telescope but didn't manage to reach the correct focal point, so switched to the 6 inch refractor for a "quick" 30 second exposure before the battery went flat. Next time, must remember to be more prepared and get all this photograph stuff ready early. I'm still new to astrophotography and with all the other things going on it tend to be last on my mind.

Orion Nebula M42 through 6 inch refractor telescope using a Nikon D70s camera.  The central collection of stars is known as the Trapezium, because of the four brightest stars but if you look closely there are actually 6 stars. 

The central collection of stars is known as the Trapezium, because of the four brightest stars but if you look closely there are actually 6 stars. Many visitors often confuse the three stars at the bottom with Orion's Belt. I guess its easy to form a connection between the two as the telescope is roughly pointing in the same direction as the belt, which makes it harder to grasp the concept that what we're looking at only occupies a tiny speck of sky and cannot be fully observed by the eye alone.

At one point that night we tried pointing our telescope at the Andromeda Galaxy M31, with an experienced eye I could make out the faint glow of its core but to many of our visitors it was almost invisible, I recall seeing a few blank expressions as I tried to explain about using averted vision :/

That's all for now!