This is a good month to spot the planets, the whole five of them which are visible to the naked eye.As soon as the sun sets, check the western skies and you will see a very bright star very close to the horizon. This is in fact not a star but the planet closest to the sun, Mercury.Mercury - Evening ...
JupiterAbout a week and a half back, I was trying to capture the Geminids. Given the awful location I live, it was a complete no-joy. However, just scanning the skies, figured that Jupiter was actually visible and decided to have a shot at it.Photo above is a single shot of Jupiter with Canon 550D, prime-focus on a Celestron 114EQ with ...
The year 2014 started off with a discovery of a giant sunspot group later named AR1944. NASA stated that the group was one of the largest seen in the last nine years. Out of pure coincidence, I managed to capture an image of the group on 5th Jan and I repeated the exercise today after learning that I caught an ...
Moon and Venus - 06th Dec 2013This was the view from my balcony when I returned home today, and that is what prompted me to take the next photo.The photo above, is very unlikely to be what you think it is. No it's not the Moon. It is in fact the planet Venus.Sometimes called the twin sister of Earth, Venus ...
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 ...
During a failed attempt to observe and photograph the Camelopardalids meteor shower, I found out that the finderscope of the 4SE was not working. If you have not done this, try doing it, it is ridiculously hard to successfully aim the telescope at anything if your finderscope is not working.After testing with multiple batteries, my immediate worry was that the ...
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 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 ...
It seems like my last post was more than 11 months ago. Due to my job change and severe weather in Sri Lanka (more specifically Colombo), I have not been able to get in to astrophotography much. I had dropped my expectations a bit when we started getting freak showers last week (again) but then I noticed that towards the ...
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 ...
On 30th May 2016, Mars had a close approach to Earth (being only 46.8million miles from Earth). The photo below was taken few days after.Mars - 04th June 2016. Nexstar 4SE, Canon 550D with 2x barlow (Samyang mirror lens accessory)The photo is a result of stacking 25 frames of a avi made in 640x480 60fps movie crop mode. Since the ...
The Saturn opposition took place on 3rd June 2016 and was incidentally having a close approach with Earth. Tried my luck a few days after and it didn't turn up too bad.Saturn - 6th June 2016. 4SE and Canon 550D with 2x Barlow (Samyang). A stack of 150 frames on 640x480 crop mode.An opposition does not always mean that the ...
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 ...
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 ...
As usual my sense of timing seems to be impeccable, I decided experiment with image stacking for deep space imagery when the monsoons are about to start. Ever since I made the decision, it's either been raining or completely overcast. I even had some difficulty in trying to do solar photography.Luck turned my side when I went on a trip ...
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 ...
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 ...
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 ...
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 ...
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 ...
