Lunar Eclipse

This past weekend we (as in all of us on Earth) were treated to a lunar eclipse.  At least those of you who lived in a non-cloud infested city were.  The eclipse started at about 4:45 am and ended about 6:30 am in Vancouver.  Unfortunately from the vantage point I chose I only got to watch it for about 25 minutes before clouds rolled in a covered the entire sky.  Its actually doubly sad because this is the last lunar eclipse until sometime in 2014.

Despite the poor seeing conditions I did manage to see about 1/4 of the eclipse and I'm thankful for that.  I set up my telescope and camera in Terra Nova park in Richmond. I was planning on taking a nice mosaic of the eclipse at different times but this was thwarted by the clouds.  And my poor choice of cameras.  Out of haste I grabbed my modified T3i which has the IR filter removed.  The result is a noticeable reddening of the moon even though it should be a nice off white until totality (which I missed). Anyway since I missed the majority of the eclipse I've only included one of the unedited pics I took just after the eclipse started.  Enjoy!

Second take at Orion

Orion Nebula, Year 2.

Last year when I seriously started astrophotography the Orion nebula was my first real target.  Its bright.  Its easy to find.  And it looks really cool.  However its also really hard to get a decent image of.  Mostly because the stars that make up the Trapezium (the bright central part) overwhelm the more diffuse, dim outer layers.  This was my second attempt, and due to a malfunctioning autoguider, shifting tripod and really cold temperatures it was limited to about fifteen 30 second unguided exposures.  Still, its worlds better then last years shots. I've put the two shots side by side for easy comparison.