Venus, Jupiter and the Moon

Poststructural Pub
1

Both of these pictures were taken about 6:00 PM Central Standard (U.S.) Time, 01-Dec-2008, facing southwest.

2

Nice!

It did quit raining long enough for a tub…sat and watched the light pollution off the cloud cover :sniffle:

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I took a picture of the grazing occultation at much the same time, but, as usual, can’t upload it! Photobucket hates me! It is a bit shaky anyway, due to my shaky hands, but it is visible! I tried!
Lesley

5

Nice pictures all around! :slight_smile:

I have a question…what type of camera do you need to take crisp pictures at night like these? Mine just can’t do it, and I’m sure it has something to do with megapixels or something like that; at least something that my camera doesn’t have in abundance or doesn’t have at all.

6

You need a solid tripod for one I’d think. You also may need to alter the exposure : I had mine set to 1.7 stop below what the camera intended to do on it’s own, to make for a black sky and to avoid completely burning out the lights while retaining a bit of detail in the shards of cloud.

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http://search.live.com/images/results.aspx?q=Nikon+Coolpix+L11&FORM=BICP&adlt=strict#

I set mine on a tripod, used the auto focus and white-balance, and set it for a 10-second delay.

8

If you have not got a tripod handy use a wall or a dustbin. Anything solid will do. A delay is essential to avoid any camera shake.

Here’s a few using the “Wall” tripod.


Pics


Slan,
D.

9

I was pretty bummed about the cloud cover, but it broke at just the right time and I was able to see the night sky. It was beautiful!

10

Neat! :smiley:

I like that one of the “Eye”.

I was worried as well, because at 5:00 and 5:30, there was a persistent stratus deck to the southwest, right where I wanted to look. Fortunately, it blew off right after sunset.

If you look very closely at my first photo, you can probably still see a few clouds.

11

In other words, you had your camera propped against a wall? Interesting…and exposures. I would assume that this is something I can alter on my camera, yes? And yes, I really am that clueless about the use of my camera. It’s even worse than my clueless-ness concerning my computer :wink:


Sorry about hijacking the thread, btw. I did get to see Venus, Jupiter and the moon last night as I drove home. Very beautiful! :slight_smile: