Submitted by: Dave Wallace (d_wallace@ecrm.com) [25 Aug 05]
If you got up before sunrise this morning and looked south, you could have seen this. The image is the Moon and Mars separated by about 3.5 degrees. It was taken at approximately 4:17 local time (08:17 UTC). I had to do some serious photoshoppery in order to compress the gamut -- the Moon wanted about 1/60th at f/5.6 and Mars wanted about 1/5th. So to manage the three stops worth of dynamics, I took the photo and made two layers from it. One layer was left as-is; the other was "pushed" by using the "levels" tool to salvage the dark end of the scale. The image of the Moon from the un-processed layer and that of Mars from the "pushed" layer were then merged. Finally, I applied unsharp mask sharpening to improved detail and re-sized the image to fit a 1024x768 screen.
Submitted by: Dave Wallace (d_wallace@ecrm.com) [12 Aug 05]
(I'm a bit late with this, I know; it's taken me a month to get around to my last set of vacation photos and this frame is near the end of the lot.) This is Mercury, Venus and the crescent moon, taken 08-July-2005 at about 0300 UTC (07-July-2005 at 1900 local time) from Hawaii Volcanoes National Park. Shot with a Canon EOS Digital Rebel using a 55 - 200 mm zoom at about 100 mm focal length. Down-sampled and enhanced a bit in PhotoShop. The view in the other direction was even more spectacular, as there were three streams of lava coming down the cliff that day. :)
Here was the view looking the other way. :)
Submitted by: Rick Kindelberger (rkindelberger@yahoo.com) [8 Aug 05]
Just thought I would share a picture of the Milky Way I took at the Shingletown, CA Star Party on July 7, 2005. I used a Nikon Coolpix5000 digital camera piggybacked on an ETX-125, f2.8, ISO 800, 2 minute exposure with noise reduction on.
Submitted by: ughbug@adelphia.net [8 Aug 05]
thanks for a great site. I continue to learn so much from it. I took this shot last night and thought you might like it. Minolta DiMage 7i, 10 second exposure, manual focus set to infinity.
Submitted by: Rick (stankiewiczr@nexicom.net) [8 Aug 05]
Image from Sunday night's beautiful conjunction with Venus only a degree from the waxing crescent Moon. As they sank into the twilight is was as good as it gets. Taken near Keene (south of Peterborough), Ontario, Canada, using a Nikon Coolpix 995 (ASA 100, f/5.1, 4 sec.).
Submitted by: geheniau@xs4all.nl [25 Jul 05]
I took the Milke Way in Portugal with Piggy Back on my ETX90 (with equipment also attached). Hope you can place this one in the 'sky department'.
Submitted by: millers18@att.net [18 Jul 05]
sky shot taken with my Nikon CoolPix 4500 of the Saturn, Venus & Mercury grouping on June 24, 2005 from Barstow, CA. This is a totally manual shot-- I didn't even have a tripod with me, so I had to prop the camera up on a dumpster to keep it steady. Specs are as follows: 1/2 second exposure at f/5.1, ISO 100, full zoom, no lens converter. Mike here: I adjusted the levels slightly.
Submitted by: Mat Little (elicitbmx@insightbb.com) [11 Jul 05]
Thought i would send you 2 pictures of the northern lights that me and my brother took one evening in northern kentucky. When driving home i spoted a deep red color in the sky, and by the time i got home the whole sky was lit up. Not sure on the time (somewhere between 04' and now) and not sure on the exposure, probably was like 10-20 seconds. The pic title chrisandmattnorthernlights features me (in front) and my brother (behind). The pic labeled northernlightscorn shows corn in the front and the sky in the back. Hope you enjoy, and will post on your website :)