A Little Astrophotography

I spent about an hour and a half last night in my frigid backyard attempting to see and photograph some of the astronomical events going on: the Quadrantid meteor shower and comet 8P/Tuttle. Despite the some of the clearest skies we've had in Houston in a while, I saw neither.

Along with feeling cold I also felt like a perv. I was half afraid that one of my neighbors would see me out there with my cameras and think I was attempting to photograph them through their second story windows. Worse yet, I was afraid the older, overweight lady next door would turn exhibitionist on me and show me something I'd regret seeing. Maybe my imagination is just too active.

The shot of Mars is a 100% crop, and was taken with a Canon 40D. I stacked two 1.4x t.c.'s onto my 400mm f/5.6 lens. The exposure was 1/60 sec. using ISO 1600 (and with the special high-ISO noise reduction turned on). The disk of Mars is blown out, and I was quite surprised to see that. I'll have to try again with a faster shutter speed. You can see a bit of red/magenta chromatic aberration on the lower edge of the bright disk. I used the Live View feature of the 40D to focus. When zoomed in at 10x, it's quite easy to see the target and fine-tune the focus.

The other two shots were taken with a Canon 5D and a 17-40mm lens. The shots were both at 17mm, f/4, ISO 800, and 15 sec. Yes, it's really that light in Houston, even with mostly clear skies. I pointed the camera ENE and repeated several long exposures, hoping to catch a streaking meteor or two. I only caught planes streaking across the sky.

I was disappointed not to see the comet. I just couldn't find it in the sky with camera or binoculars. I guess there was too much light pollution. I did manage to photograph the 17P/Holmes comet last November when I was up in the Texas hill country: