Clear skies!
The Lovell telescope with Orion overhead CREDIT: Megan
Last night was the December workshop of Macc Astro, it also happened to be a very clear night. After most of the members had gone, out came a telescope and a couple of us spent an hour or so looking at various objects.
Mars was very impressive high in the South and the double cluster (NGC884/869) in Perseus provided an interesting challenge (polar mounts are not very good at pointing at the zenith!).
As I was leaving the site at midnight I decided to test out the capabilities of my little digital camera. I left my bike by a tree and wandered across a field so that Orion was positioned above the telescope. Unfortunately I didn't have a tripod with me either, so the camera was balanced on my rucksack on the ground. A lot of the shots didn't work as the camera was pointing to one side or it slipped and the image is blurred. One shot did come out quite well and you can see it on the left. The contrast has been adjusted slightly to bring out the stars but nothing else has been done to the image (click on it for a larger version). Not bad for a two megapixel camera with no proper exposure control!
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