Darkness but lots of Cloud!

Well we had the darkness as the moon moved into the umbra of the Earth's shadow but the good ol clouds blocked our view here in Launceston.

We will have the another chance to see a full lunar eclipse on December 10/11th this year (Midnight). A bit less bitter as it will be summer and not an early rise needed, just a late night/early morning to bed.

For more info on upcoming lunar eclipses see http://eclipse.gsfc.nasa.gov/lunar.html.

Cheers

Michael

Prelude to the the Lunar Eclipse June 16th 2011

Full totality of a previous Lunar Eclipse on August 28th August 2007 taken at Royal Park Launceston.

Just Before totality!

Halfway to totality

The intitial darkening of the limb of the moon which will begin around 4am Thursday Morning (tommorrow).

Here is a short summary on the Iceinspace website for basic information about tommorrow's Lunar Eclipse.

http://www.iceinspace.com.au/63-618-0-0-1-0.html

If its clouded out here in Northern Tasmania you can try a live upload to u tube at

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UgUieQsR4YI

Here's hoping for clear skies wherever you are observing the eclipse.

Michael

Home from Snake Valley now with a Canon 350D and loving it!

M83, Southern Pinwheel Galaxy.

Sombrero Galaxy

Centaurus A Galaxy

Omega Centauri Globular Cluster

Jewel Box, Open Cluster

Eta Carinae Nebula

Tranquility Base, Blackstone Heights

Snake Valley March 2011

Images of and taken at the Snake Valley Astronomy Camp March 2011

Skywatcher 10 Inch Reflector Arrives!

This is the latest addition to the Family. I got home at 11pm last night and got it straight out of the box and set up in the backyard on my EQ6 Mount. As Jupiter is the flavour of the week with Anthony(Bird) Wesley's discovery of an impact scar I went straight there. I didn't see the scar but I was treated to an Egress of presumably Io from transit along with it's shadow still about half through it's transit.

Must be the week for black marks on Jupiter, only positively speaking that is!

Sword Of Orion Wide Field with DSI C and Pentax Zoom Lens

Some time ago I had a bit of a muck about with my DSI colour with it coupled by a Steve Mogg adapter to a Pentax SLR Zoom Lens and took this wide field shot of the Sword of Orion.

I did dark subtraction, allignment and stacking and post processing in Nebulosity including , stretching,sharpening and noise reduction among other things.

I captured the raw data in Envisage consisting of 8, 1minute exposures.

Not too bad for a first effort. I didn't quite have the heart to setup the autoguiding and do drift allignment tonight so no closeup shot yet anyway.

This post is really just a test post for future shots, hopefully when it starts to get warmer and less cloudy around Launceston Tasmania here where I live. I'm not winging or making excuses but when the weather is like it is you somehow just can't seem to lug all that gear outside. I'll just have to start making plans for an Observatory.