Early Monday morning I went to HJRO and shot a photo of mars and the beehive cluster

I woke up early Monday morning and noticed it was still clear outside, but hazy. I went outside to see if I could view Mars and the beehive cluster. I used my vixen binocular telescope which isn't really a wide field telescope, but should offer 2 degree field of views pretty easily. They were to far apart, so I pulled out an f4.2 four inch telescope. With the 32mm both were barely inside the field of view, a 40mm eyepiece worked a little better. The Canon t1i on the Meade with the t mount seemed like it might get the teo objects in. Maybe the beehive and mars were to far apart. I decided to give it a try.

So I quickly loaded up and headed to the observatory. The inside of the dome was moist. There was a lot of haze and moisture in the sky. I was able to get a photo, but had to turn the camera so the 3/4 frame sensor could get both objects in the field of view.

There are some flaws in this photo.

And I'm not even trying to edit or tweak this photo, because of it's flaws.

There are some halos around mars, like spikes that may look like a diffraction pattern exists.. It's as if the side of the telescope was blocked by the part of the shutter or something. Perhaps causing the spike. The stars might be a bit out of focus as well I didn't have much time and was in a hurry as I got there late in the morning.

Mars in in the top right hand corner. The beehive cluster also called M44 is near the bottom and partially cut off. The beehive cluster and Mars will get closer and closer until mars will appear in front of the beehive cluster next Saturday morning. You have to be up around 4am to see them both as they rise very early in the morning.

Right now, if it was clear out you could see these in wide field binoculars or a wide field telescope. Something like an f4 reflector with a 40mm eyepiece. This photo was shot with a Canon t1i Eos camera mounted on the Meade 80mm f6 refractor with a t mount. A wider field telescope or a camera with a bigger full frame sensor would have shown a wider field of view. By the end of the week if we have clear skies we will have a better view.




- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad