Venus on its way to Transit!

The sequence of setting Venus was taken on May 15th, 2012 between 8:00pm to 9:00pm. The Image of the Crescent Moon was added later and the stars were erased by Photoshop except the last picture to make the final image appear like Venus is on its way to transit!

The Transit will occur on 6th June 2012. For more info on transit, visit the following link:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transit_of_Venus,_2012

SUPER MOON 2012

The biggest and the brightest moon of the year arrived during Saturday, May 5th 2012. It created great opportunity for many photographers among the world to capture the beauty of the full moon by keeping some lovely foreground objects. I also attempted to capture the Supermoon on the 5th and the 6th May as the minimum distance from earth was at 9:00am IST. 

Supermoon with HDR processing

Date: 5th May 2012

Camera: Canon EOS 550D

Telescope: 10" f/4.7 Dob @ prime focus

Exposure: 1/1000 sec @ ISO 100

Processed in Picasa image editor and Photoshop

Rising Perigee Moon sequence during 6th May

Taken on 6th May 2012.

5 images combined through star trails software

Camera: Canon EOS 550D

Lens: 55-250mm IS set @ 84mm

The Supermoon and Aina Mahal of Bhuj

Date: 6th May 2012

A composition of two images stacked with startrails software.

VENUS PAYS VISIT TO M45!

Planet Venus was just within 27' from Alcyone on the evening of 3rd April. I wanted to test my new Single Axis Motor for my EQ5 mount so I decided to photograph it. After roughly polar aligning the mount I switched on the hand pad controller and clicked on the camera. I set the exposure time to 20 seconds, ISO to 3200 and F/5.6. I used the 55-250mm IS telephoto zoom lens and Canon 550D body. I set the focal length to 250mm and started to take photographs of planet Venus. I took 18 JPEG images and then stacked them using the Deep Sky Stacker software. The stars showed no trails!

MESSIER MARATHON 2012

Kutch Amateur Astronomers' Club held this year's Messier Marathon on 24-25 March 2012. The site was Makanpar-Dhosa, the same we conducted our last year's Messier Marathon. This time the sky was very dark but we missed the first and the last sessions completely. Overall our score was 95 objects out of 110. Above are some pics we took during marathon. 

URBAN STAR TRAILS!

I just attempted to shot my life's first star trails. I captured 70 images and then sorted them by star trails software. I shot from my balcony and the final image is satisfactory! This was shot from my home's balcony. I gave 17.5 minutes exposure (70 images with 15 sec exposure on each) to create this final image. All images are sorted with Startrails software. 

JUPITER-VENUS CONJUNCTION MARCH 2012

stack of 7 light frames

showing the beautiful pair through binoculars

captured the pair of two bright planets with the Sun just above the horizon!

Here I have shared some pics of conjunction of two bright planets Venus and Jupiter that I captured through my Canon EOS 550D Camera.