These two fantastic photos of Jupiter were taken early morning August 8, 2009 by Frank Stone at 0430 GMT (12:30 AM Local). He used the 8 inch Schmidt Cassegrain Telescope. Repositioning the telescope and making adjustments makes a difference in the second photo.
It is inevitable that Joe WBFMT and Frank AC3P bring along astronomy gear to the AERO Club Field Day events. Here is a great shot showing a large Lunar crater field during Field Day 2009 (June 27, 2009).
Latest capture of Saturn by Frank Stone and Joe Miko on February 25, 2009 at 0316 UT. Take a look at Saturn farther down on this page taken last year at about this time. Saturns rings are almost flat on the other side.
Here is a great photo taken of Venus at 23:46 UT (18:46 Local Time) February 21, 2009. The telescope used is a Celestron 8 inch SCT at F6.3.
Venus February 21, 2009 using Celestron 8 inch telescope
Taken by Frank Stone at 0530 UTC on August 12, 2008 is the planet Jupiter showing it's brightest Moons--Callisto, Europa, Ganymede and Io. Although it doesn't show in the photo, Ganymede is in transit across Jupiter near the upper belt. There are a total of 63 known moons around Jupiter.
Jupiter and some Moons August 12, 2008
The 2 photos of Jupiter to the right was captured by Frank AC3P at 2300 EDT on July 28, 2008 (0400 GMT July 29, 2008)
Jupiter below was captured by Frank at 2054 EDT on July 31, 2008 (0454 GMT August 1, 2008). Notice the moon Europa is transiting (near the top band).
Below center is Jupiter captured by Frank at 0002 EDT on August 2, 2008 (0402 GMT) using a 2X Barlow lense.
Jupiter July 29, 2008-0400GMT
Jupiter July 29, 2008-0400GMT
Jupiter with Europa tansiting 0454GMT August 1, 2008
Jupiter 0402GMT August 2, 2008 using 2X Barlow
E-Mail from Greg K3ANG October, 2007 These photos were taken by Joe Miko and Frank Stone of "Mount Essex Observatory". Actually these were taken at Frank's house in Essex, MD. Joe works at the Science Center at the Inner Harbor on weekends and works full time at the SSA. Frank just retired from the SSA and is able to enjoy amateur astronomy in his spare time. They have been amateur astronomers since the early 1960's and we are all friends since 1975. The best I could do last night was look at it through my 10X50 binoulars. It was a nice white dot. About the photos...... The Camera used by Joe and Frank is a Canon EOS Rebel Digital using a 25 mm eyepiece A-Focal. Using a 8” Celestron Telescope CAT at F 6.3
SKY and TELESCOPEMagazine: Amateur astronomers the world over have been stunned and amazed by the weirdest new object to appear in the sky in memory. And it's one of the brightest, too — it's easy to spot (Sky and Telescope) with your eyes alone if you know where to look. Observers worldwide had no trouble spotting Comet Holmes through the full moonlight on the evening of October 25, 2007.
On October 24th, periodic Comet Holmes NASA SITE brightened dramatically — by nearly a million times — virtually overnight. For no apparent reason, the comet erupted from a very dim magnitude 17 to about magnitude 2½. Within a day its starlike nucleus had expanded into a perfectly round, bright little disk visible in binoculars and telescopes. It looked like no comet ever seen. Its startling outburst, however, has a precedent. The comet was also in a major eruption 115 years ago, in November 1892, when English amateur Edwin Holmes was the first to spot it. It reached 4th or 5th magnitude, faded in the following weeks, and then underwent a second eruption 2½ months after the first. (Gary Kronk provides full details in his online history). The comet was given the designation and name 17pHolmes.
Comet Holmes 29 Second Exposure
Comet Holmes 60 Second Exposure
Comet Holmes 64 Second Exposure
Frank AC3P took the photo below of Saturn in 2008 using a Celestron C-8 Powerstar 8 inch-SCT at F/10 with the Celestron NextImage Webcam to a Compaq Armada Laptop. Software was AMCAP to capture the image and Registar for processing.
The capture settings were 1/500 sec exposure at 5 frames per second for a max of 50 frames.
Check the PDF file below the 2008 photo which shows the change in Saturns tilt between 2005 and 2008.
