The dwarf planet 1 Ceres photographed early on the morning of 1 May 2013 using the University of Iowa Rigel Telescope in Arizona. Ceres is the brightest object in this image, in the centre of the frame. It’s so bright compared to the many background stars that it’s actually over-exposed here. A composite of three stacked 150 second exposures without filters taken with the 31 cm robotic telescope, over the Sierra Stars Observatory Network.
DATE-OBS= ‘2013-05-01T03:25:00.311’ / UTC, start of exposure
LST = ’10:39:31′ / Local sidereal time at exposure start
POSANGLE= ‘ 70:48:39’ / Position angle, degrees, +W
LATITUDE= ‘ 31:39:56’ / Site Latitude, degrees +N
LONGITUD= ‘-110:36:05’ / Site Longitude, degrees +E
ELEVATIO= ‘ 38:22:26’ / Degrees above horizon
AZIMUTH = ‘283:31:10’ / Degrees E of N
OBJRA = ‘ 6:39:18.3’ / Target center J2000 RA
OBJDEC = ‘ 28:48:59.6’ / Target center J2000 Dec
Jupiter and the Galilean Moons, photographed 7:28 PM EDT, 2 January 2013 from a sidewalk in Dundas, Ontario, with an older 80mm f/15 achromatic refractor and Nikon D5100 at prime focus. Left to right are Ganymede, Europa, Io, Jupiter, HD27639 (a star, noticeably red), and Callisto. This picture is a montage of two frames: the best of image of the moons (at 1/8th second) and of Jupiter (1/125th second) combined. Although they are the same aperture, the achromatic refractor was far better for photography – and for observation through an eyepiece – of Jupiter than was a spotting ‘scope (below).
Jupiter and the four Galilean Moons (L-R: Callisto, Europa, Io, Ganymede), photographed from the Sydenham Road Lookout over Hamilton, ON, 8:15 PM, 8 Dec 2012. Captured with an 80 mm Baush & Lomb mirror spotting scope (61-8080) & Nikon D7000 body. 1/4 sec, ISO 6400. This is the best of about 2 dozen shots. Focus very difficult in this application. Cropped and sharpened with Photoshop elements; reduced to monochrome.
© 2013, David Allan Galbraith
Pine River Observ-atory 