I thought I’d look through the telesocpe tonight, as the Clear Sky Clock seemed to be in my favor. But–it was so hazy I could see very little. I tried something “easy” (M13), but couldn’t find it. So I used my binoculars….I couldn’t find it there either! It has to be a bad night if I can’t find M13 in binoculars. In very dark skies, it is a naked eye object (globular cluster). So, instead I tried mounting my digital camera to the scope to see if I could take pictures of Alkaid, Vega, and Arcturus (all of which were visible). That is my first attempt at astrophotography. Now, I didn’t mount the camera to the “visual back” where the eyepiece goes; that’s an advanced topic for me. I just bolted it onto the tube and used the mount as a very expensive tripod for the camera. I selected “A” mode (I forgot what it stands for…I couldn’t find a time-release mode or “bulb” mode to control the exposure time) which did 10-second exposures. I used my Sony DSC F717 which is not really an astro camera, though it is a very good, easy to use camera for the usual purposes.
Here is the page of pictures (Alkaid is not there because it turned out to be out of focus).
Notice that color is evident. The telephoto lense of the camera split the double Epsilon Lyrae next to Vega (on a good night in a dark sky, it can be split by the unaided eye). Notice also that I took the picture of Vega through the top of a tree.
Now, since I mentioned M13, I decided to add an older observation of M13.
