My subscription with SLOOH is still active and I thought that I will shoot through it while the monsoon season is over in Sri Lanka. My target of choice this time was the Pleiades (M45). The Pleiades, also known as Severn Sisters are an open star cluster. While it is a "cluster" the distance between the stars are massive. If ...
As I mentioned in one of my previous posts, I got the entry level subscription to SLOOH. The "Student" level subscription at SLOOH costs you 50 USD per year and allows you to piggyback on 5 separate "missions". You can also choose 5 missions from the SLOOH catalog instead of piggybacking as well. However unlike higher level subscriptions, this does ...
Merge of multiple frames - Saturn (L) and Jupiter (R) on 25th December 2020. The angular separation is about 25'. Shot with a Canon 450D on a Nexstar 6SE. Equipment courtesy of Eranga Ganegala,The year of 2020 was not a great year in many ways. But it was not without its own silver lines. Back in July 2020, we saw ...
Disclaimer: I didn't do anything other than clicking a few buttons to get this photo. But this is the kind of photo you can get by using SLOOH's remote telescopes.M42 - Orion Nebula. 3x5min via SLOOH Chile Two (17") telescopeFollowing through my hunt for telescope-as-a-service offerings, my next evaluation was SLOOH. Originally started back in 2002, SLOOH's telescopes became available ...
For 2 years now, I've been postponing the decision to buy a telescope. My reluctance was based on two things; the nearly 1500 USD cost that I would be spending on it and the really sketchy weather that we have in Sri Lanka which makes it very difficult to get clear skies. The more I read and researched about how ...
Comet NEOWISE became a pretty popular name among stargazers as well as non-stargazers in 2020. One of the main reasons why it was so popular was that it was one of the brightest comets in about 13 years (since the comet C/2006 P1 (McNaught) - which was a daylight comet as well). Unlike for example the 9 comets that turned ...
When I covered the 21st June solar eclipse, I took 19 photos over roughly 3 hours to create a montage of Moon's path across the disc of the Sun. There were some private queries on how it was done, so I figured might as well explain it all in a post.The shoot - Date, time and location:Selecting a date and ...
Thesolar eclipse of 21 June 2020 appeared to Sri Lanka as a partial eclipse. The timing of this wasn't that great given that the area I live is under the monsoon season and there is absolutely no guarantee of clear skies. The day before the eclipse however, it was extremely sunny. But things got complicated when two different weather sites ...
When I planned the year, I planned my vacation travel to be in June so that I can stop over in Oman to view the solar eclipse that is happening on 21st June 2020. While the eclipse is viewable in my own country, Sri Lanka, we can only see a partial eclipse, whereas in Oman you can view an annular ...
It's the traditional new year time here again in Sri Lanka. I find this new year celebration fascinating because it is celebrated at a particular time of the day (which changes every year) as opposed to midnight. The tradition is celebrated among Budhhists as well as Hindus in Sri Lanka. You can read more about how the timings are calculated ...
No, that was not a spelling mistake. It is actually part of the partial-shadow of the Earth.During a lunar eclipse, the Moon travels through the shadow of the Earth. If we manage to catch the entire movement of the Moon along with the shadow Earth casts on it, we can get something quite amazing, the actual shape of the Earth.Part ...
With the very first full moon of the year 2020, we were lucky to have a partial lunar eclipse. However, if you were a casual observer who sat up late to watch the eclipse, your response to this probably would have been "disappointing".Partial Lunar Eclipse at maximum - 10th January 2020Canon 550D, 70-300mm at 300. F5.6 1/1000 ISO200Penumbral lunar eclipses ...
On 26th December 2019, we witnessed an annular solar eclipse. Almost always, a solar eclipse doesn't come alone; it comes along with a lunar eclipse. And sure enough, nearly two weeks later, we have a penumbral lunar eclipse. Like the solar eclipse, this too is visible to Sri Lanka.In a penumbral lunar eclipse, the Moon goes through the penumbra, or ...
Ever since my NexStar 4SE broke down irreparably my astrophotography work came to a standstill. While I could've continued a little more with my 400mm telephoto lens, a particular problem I met with it meant that that's also out of question.When I learned that there was a solar eclipse on 26th of December 2019 and that it is visible to ...
When I was processing the photo of the Magellanic Clouds, I noticed that four of the photos had a light trail going across it. As these are long exposure photos, a light trail means a travelling object. The light streak - Composite shot of 4x10s There are many types of illuminated travelling objects in the night sky. They can vary ...
Magellanic clouds are two irregular galaxies that were once thought to be the closest galaxies to the Milkyway. The two galaxies are situated in the southern hemisphere and may have been first observed by the Khosians. However, the first written evidence of the two clouds appears in 964AD in a book by Abd al Rahman al Sufi. The Large Magellanic ...
I've been using a Celestron NexStar4SE for about five years now and have tried photographing various types of sky objects. The best photos I have so far have been of planets.My rig for these have been the following:Celestron NexStar 4SECanon 550D unmoddedCelestron 93635-A T-Adapter for NexStar 4GTCelestron T-ring for Canon EOS cameraSamyang 2x teleconverterAlong with these and shooting on 640x480 ...
Supermoon was a term that turned up in various social media news items in the recent past. While obviously sparking an interest among the general public, it drew some criticism from prominent figures in astronomy like Neil deGrass Tyson (http://time.com/5046984/neil-degrasse-tyson-goes-on-epic-rant-about-tonights-supermoon-calls-it-an-embarrassment/) on how the term is a major exaggeration of reality.What does supermoon mean? The term supermoon has turned out ...
In the recent times, the term "blue moon" has come to mean having two full moons in a month. The term "once in a blue moon" implies some kind of a rarity. The year 2018 is in that sense even more rare in the sense that there are two blue moons in the same year. But is it that much ...
The entire last year has been a disaster on this blog. For the entire year I managed only one post and that too thanks to an accidental spotting. While I am determined to make at least one post per month this year, I am not entirely sure how the weather would work out.Thankfully, the year started with multiple events of ...
