Astronomy on eBothy Blog

astrophotography with a wee camera

Thu, 11 Oct 2012 00:00:00 +0000

I've been messing around with the Sony DSC-HX9V in anticipation of the northern lights reappearing and took it out last night to get the exposure for photographing stars. Seems the best setting is ISO 800, 30s and f3.3 (the widest angle), with a 2s self timer to make sure the camera doesn't shake when it takes the picture. Going above 800 makes it more grainy so you have to reduce the exposure time. 1600 at 10s seemed to be good for picking out the brightest stars but 800@30s gave the most pleasing pictures. Not too many stars. Just about right. The first pic shows Cassiopeia high above Perseus with the Pleiades just coming up above the horizon. The second pic is the Plough.

hunting the hunter

Fri, 08 Jan 2010 00:00:00 +0000

Inspired by Steph’s picture of Orion and prodded by him to get out and do something, I headed out into the frozen night to track down An Sealgair Mor (The Great Hunter), Orion. First I needed to find out how to set the long exposure on the camera, a simple Canon PowerShot A560, using this page. So following Steph’s 10s exposure, I caught Orion rising over the distant glow of Mallaig in the SE. Back inside I messed with the lighting levels in Photoshop Elements to come up with this:

the moon joins venus and jupiter

Tue, 02 Dec 2008 00:00:00 +0000

Just got back in time to get a couple of shots of the Moon, Venus and Jupiter over Sleat:

venus and jupiter over sleat

Sun, 30 Nov 2008 00:00:00 +0000

It was a very cold and clear night last night so I took the tripod and digital camera out for a few pictures of Venus and Jupiter, floating above the Sleat peninsula. Venus is the lower, brighter object, at -4.0 with Jupiter at -1.8.

certificate on the way

Mon, 16 Jun 2008 00:00:00 +0000

It was tough year least year, what with ML assessment, work commitments and OU courses but I’ve just heard from the OU that my certificate in Astronomy and Planetary Science will be winging it’s way northwards sometime after the next conferment in August, so it’ll be on the wall in September. Conferment, sounds awfully posh! Perhaps I’ll start a new Astronomy category at the eBothy. Astronomy and Gaelic, now there’a a thought. Did you know what the Gaelic for the Pleiades was? Well, it’s a fascinating tale. One that I’ll blog I think. Watch this space (ho ho!)