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Night Sky Picture Gallery

One of the things I enjoy about astronomy is taking images of the night sky. I'll be blunt: I'm not terribly good at it, and people with a lot more money and a lot more equipment will always manage better shots than me. But that doesn't discourage me. I just do my best with what I have, and what I can afford! So here's a few pictures of the night sky that I've taken. Hope you enjoy them!

Above is a picture I took of Comet Hale-Bopp when it graced the skies of Earth in 1997. I honestly don't recall what focal length lens I used, but I imagine it was probably the 35-70mm lens I owned at the time. Camera was my Ricoh XR-10m SLR, and I'm sure the film was Fuji 400 speed (since that's all I used at the time). The picture is a little grainy, and I don't recall what exposure length or aperture I used, but I'm sure it was under 16 seconds, and probably around f4.5.

The Moon and Jupiter

This picture was taken on November 4, 2008. It shows the Moon in a waxing crescent stage with earthshine visible, along with Jupiter, in front of the silhouette of a pine tree. If you look very closely, you can see 3 of Jupiter's 4 moons! Picture was taken with a 400mm lens at f6.3 on Fuji 400 color film. I don't know the exposure, because I was taking as many pictures as quickly as I could before I lost the Moon behind the tree, and didn't keep track of exposure lengths. I'm guessing this was a 1 to 2 second exposure, but it might have been a longer one.

Double Cluster in Perseus

This picture was taken on November 3, 2008. It shows the famous "Double Cluster" star clusters in the constellation Perseus (these look great in binoculars!). Picture was taken with a 135mm lens at f2.8 on Fuji 400 color film. Exposure length was 60 seconds. This is a single, unstacked picture, though it is cropped for a better close up view.

The crescent Moon - tree in foreground

This picture was taken on November 3, 2008. It shows the Moon in a waxing crescent stage. Picture was taken with a 400mm lens at f6.3 on Fuji 400 color film.

One last thing: Please be sure to turn off your outdoor lights, or if you must have an outdoor light on, be certain it is a full cut-off fixture, and the minimum wattage required. No sense in lighting the underside of planes at night - it just ruins the night sky for everyone else! Besides, doing so really will save you money on your electric bills. For more information about light pollution, please visit the International Dark Sky Association.