Moon-Jupiter Occultation

18 Feb 2013 Moon-Jupiter occultation. Was very windy which made it difficult to get good shots. Taken with 10" LX90 and Canon 550D. Didn't have any chance for wide shots

Fluro Lemon Fun Time

 

Was hoping to capture an hour or two of the comet tonight but only ended up with a couple of minutes, was just one of those nights. 

Got to the look out on dusk and waited for full darkness while I setup up the gear. There was some patchy cloud around and the wind was still blowing. When it did eventually calm down the dew very quickly came in and made it's evil presence known. Had some collimation issues with the RC8 that took ages to rectify and as I forgot my head lamp this was all the more frustrating to fix. Took for ever to get the guiding to work too, it just didn't want to co-operate, when it finally did work it wasn't working the best. Just to add to the fun and games this night seemed to be the most popular place for people to drive up to, hang around for a few minutes then drive off again. When I managed to start imaging, the Moon had just popped it's annoying head over the horizon but I thought I would at least get 20 or so minutes in before it got too bright. Just as this thought had finished firing in my brain 3 cars decided to come up to where I was and with no regard to what I was doing they left their lights on while they stuffed around. So that was the end of that!

Not going to be any more chances soon with very strong winds and cloud forecast for the next week or so just as the new moon is coming up too...Sigh :(

Comet C/2012 F6 Lemmon

Comet C/2012 F6 Lemmon is starting to brighten up nicely and has now developed quite a nice tale. 

You can easily spot the comet with a pair or binoculars but you need to photograph the comet to see it's brilliant green colour. 

Below is a short and dirty shot I took tonight at Cape Burney and I noted the current location of the Comet. I intend to take a close up shot in the next few days hopefully. 

 

Even with a quick and dirty single 30sec shot the green comet and it's faint tail going off to the top left can easily be seen. Why not have a go and bag your self a comet :)