Being blessed at Seattle Astronomy headquarters with the rare-for-December occurrence of consecutive clear evenings, I ventured out again last night with the telescope to see what could be seen.
My prime objective was Mars. Seeing and transparency were somewhat better than there were on Monday evening. While the view of Mars through the telescope was much more stable, there was again very little detail to be seen. I've come to the harebrained conclusion that Mars may simply be too bright! This is seldom noted as a problem in astronomy. Usually things such as galaxies and nebulae are too faint to be seen, especially in a city where light pollution is an obstacle. I have, however, noticed with other planets such as Jupiter that the best views may be in twilight when the contrast between the object being looked at and the sky is not so great.
 |
| The Moon from Seattle Astronomy headquarters on Dec. 1, 2020. Photo: Greg Scheiderer. |
There was better luck with the Moon, which being a couple of days past full was still pretty big but clearly on the waning side. I managed to capture a nice (by my standards) photo of the Moon using a handheld iPhone camera. I always have trouble finding the exit pupil with the smallish lens of the phone cam, but got a decent one after a few tries this time. I always use a disclaimer that I'm not really an astrophotographer, but do like to grab the occasional snapshot, just to prove I was there!
I'll be out again tonight if the weather forecast proves true!
No comments:
Post a Comment