Draconids

Draconids

Well, the weather was uncooperative for the first meteor shower of the fall.  On the seventh, completely overcast and on the eighth the clouds did not clear out completely and only obtained one meteor photograph.  However, the sunset was beautiful and I obtained a small video as the sky darkened.  The weather was cool with no wind, and it was still nice just watching the sky.

Night Sky with Clouds and Andromeda

Sunset

Jupiter and the Moon

Night sky with Jupiter and the Moon

Today January 21, 2013 in event will occur that will not be repeated until the year 2026. The event is Jupiter being the closest to the moon. I would love to photograph it then tonight, however here in southeastern Massachusetts it will be snowing, so the skies will be obscured by clouds. On the 19th, I did go out to Lake Rico and photographed the sky to show Jupiter closing in on the moon.

Night sky with Jupiter and the Moon - Labeled

Perseids Yes-Photos, No.

We returned Sunday evening into Sunday night to try to obtain photographs of the Perseids meteor shower.  The night started out with almost completely clear skies and occasional cloud.  We saw a number of meteors, however, were not able to capture them in the camera because of three reasons.  The first reason, we were not photographing at the time they occurred and secondly, as it got later in the night and the temperature dropped the camera lenses fogged up due to the amount of water vapor in the year that condensed on them.  The final reason was just when the show was going to get great clouds and fog came in and obscured the sky.  We waited for a half-hour and it did not clear up.  In fact, when we arrived back at the house, the skies were clear, we could see some meteors, but because of the ambient light from the street lamps and house lights made it difficult to obtain a photograph.

I had a 2nd camera set up with a fisheye lens to obtain an hour exposure and create star trails.  Because of the fogged lens and then the clouds I only captured a portion of the trails. I did not expect the fogging, so I didn't use the trick that might friend Roman taught me.  The trick is to utilize hand warmers attached to the barrel of the lens to prevent fogging.

Oh well, there are more meteor showers coming during the rest of the year and we will try again.  Never Say Never!

Allens Pond, Venus, Pleiades, and the Moon

25 second picture with Venus showing through the moving clouds

My plans were to go and photograph Venus and it's conjunction with the Pleiades, on the evening of April 3, since this is when Venus will be in the middle of the Pleiades.  My grandson, who was going to go with me, was over, his uncle's house doing some work for him, so, I plan to pick him up and travel out to Allens Pond Massachusetts Audubon Sanctuary, where we were going to do our photography.  When I left the house, the skies were absolutely clear with no clouds in the sky.  We ate supper at my son's house and when we went to leave and looked at the sky, it was full of clouds.  We still decided to go out to Westport/Dartmouth to observe if there was any possibility of photographing the event that was occurring in the sky.
At the field station, there was intermittent clouds, and Venus was visible when the clouds were thin.

Field Sation and  Venus

Venus Pleiades taken at the Stone Barn

The sky did clear and we took some photographs at the field station, and then left to photograph at the Stone Barn.  The sky did clear for some periods of time and did allow the capture of the event that we wanted.

Moon and clouds over the Stone Barn

The Moon, which is in the waxing gibbous stage (the full Moon will be April 6) was in the clouds and gave the Stone Barn, a ghostly appearance.

Waxing Gibbous Moon and Clouds

This is a stitched sequence of three photographs of the moon with the clouds as they moved over it.
If tonight is clear, I probably will go back out and take more photographs of this event, which only occurs around every 8 years.