Leonid 2009 from Lonavala - Nov 17-18

The Most awaited Meteor SHOWer of the year "Leonids" was here !!!

We decided to avoid Suburban light pollution and go somewhere dark sky location. Our Old-Time friends Girish & Swapnil invited us to join them at Lonavala at their place; which we readily accepted.

Me along with my wife & our friend Ganesh Kale left from Thane by 17th evening. And were joined by Nilesh Desai & his wife at lonavala ST stand. From there we moved to our observing place. we reached there by 11:00 PM.

The Sky condition were not good at that time its was clouded with lot of moving clouds. The Sky as we can see from open patches was very good though.

We spend some time inside waiting for clouds to clear. around 1 AM its started to clear out. We started setting up our photography setups. By the time we were ready the Sky was completely clear & we were already seeing some meteors here and there.

I had Canon XTi with 18-55 lens setup at 18mm to cover max possible field. I decided not to guide but keep camera stationary on Tripod. Took many photos of 2min & 3min exposure times.

As usual Meteors always fall in the portion of the Sky where my Camera is not pointing !!!

Some 4-5 Meteors fall just outside of my Camera Frame Area !!!

And one actaully passed through exactly center of my Camera Framed Sky !!!

But ahhh !!!!

That was the time my Camera taking break of 7 secs between two consecutive shots !!!!

And finally I caught One, Not a Big one, but I have something to show at least !!!

But my happiness did not last even for a minute !!! within next 1 min another Dazzling Fireball passed from my Frame !!!

it was almost -6 or -7 magnitude. Blazing with green / orange color, trailed almost 15-20 degrees across sky & its Smoke-Trail lasted for 15-20 secs !!!

But...

but it started from the point in my Frame portion of Sky and moved OUT !!!! :(

I captured just initial 1/4th trail and the blazzing show was outside of my Frame Area !!!

Here is the Pics... [Click on Image to open Large Size in order to meteors clearly.]



here is the link to tagged photo where I marked meteors on Photo...

http://www.flickr.com/photos/thakursam/4116156019/

Hope next time I get better images (With Meteors :P )

Have a Clear Sky Always
Sameer

Moon and Pleiades on 27 April 2009

This came to me as surprise !!!

On 27th Evening I was taking a walk in park with my wife, when we spotted thin Lunar Crescent. It was quite thin than normally we saw after new moon. So we rushed back home to pick up camera.

I shot few photos and didn't do anything even not dowloaded to pc !!!

After few days I saw Moon and Pleiades occultation photo in My Friend Mandar Potdar's Orkut Album !!!

I downloaded photos and found M45 (Pleiades) Faintly visible in photos. It was quite bright sky by that time as Day is quite big here (in US) now.

Here are the pics ... Click photo to see big version.
Canon XTi , ISO 100, Canon 70-200mm L @ 200mm - F/4 : Expo - 2 sec


Canon XTi , ISO 100, Canon 70-200mm L @ 126mm - F/4: Expo - 2 sec

Comet Lunin and Behive Cluster

Hi All,

Here is Today's conjunction of Lunin and M44.

Clouds spoiled the game and i got just 2 frames of 60sec each, But decided to use those.

Taken using 135mm JCPenny lens @ f/4 @ ISO 800
Canon 400D unmodified, Astronomic CLS, manually guided on EQ-2.

Cropped to central 60%.

Click on image to open



Thanks for looking...

Comet Lunin meets Saturn

On 23rd Feb 2009, just one day before its closest approach to Earth, Comet Lunin visually passed by near Saturn. Its fun to observe both most attractive celestial objects so close by.

I tried to capture this occasion, though sky was quite cloudy here y'day but I managed to shoot through 20 min open window. Though I did not get enough data to produce attractive image, but enough to show Comet and Saturn together...

Thin layer of cloud gave soft look to starts and Saturn :)


- Canon 75-300mm UMS III zoom @ 75mm F/5.
- Canon XTi - unModified
- Astronomic CLS - EOS Clip Filter
- Tracked on Orion EQ-2 mount
- 5x60sec and 2x30sec @ ISO 800 - captured using DSLR Shutter

Comments and suggestions welcome !!!

Have a Clear Sky
Sameer

Comet Lunin on Feb 21, 2009

Here is the photo of Comet Lunin !!!



:: Image Details ::
- 11 x 30 sec = 5.5 min total
- Canon XTi with Canon 70-300mm UMS III lens @ 140mm - f/5.6
- Astronomic CLS - EOS Clip Filter
- Tracked on EQ-2 mount

Have a Nice Day
Sameer

Orion Wide Field

This is my test with tripod mounted Shot

Following Photo combined from 44 X 10sec exposures with Canon Xti, 18-55mm zoom @18mm F3.5.

Vignetting corrected in PS, Combined in registar, Light Pollution corrected in PS and Black Point & Curves adjusted in PS.

Though I did not get any nebulosity in it but overall nice stars in light polluted sky of Woodbridge, NJ, US...