Photos

2003-09-01

Mars made its closest approach to Earth within the last several thousand years this month. I took the opportunity to purchase a 2× Barlow (which should be very good for Jupiter and Saturn later this year).

Unfortunately, I couldn't get the telescope to focus very well with the Barlow in place - it was right at the very end of the travel of the focus mechanism. There was also a lot of chromatic abberation.

Mars. Single photo, 1/20sec, levels stretched (brightened).

2002-01-12

These photos were taken with my Casio QV-3000 digital camera held up to the standard (for the NexStar 4) 25mm eyepiece. The camera was zoomed right in (3×, giving an effective magnification of 159×) and set to shutter priority. The camera selected an aperture of F2 for all the photos. Histogram levels were adjusted in Paint Shop Pro to improve the brightness.

Jupiter. Made up of four photos with shutter speeds 1/80, 1/50, 1/50, and 1/100.

Saturn. Made up of three photos with all shutter speeds 1/10.