If there was a theme to my early morning observations this year, it was “space junk.” Effectively ideal conditions were soiled by the incessant amount of satellites that come and go from all directions. But I did observe meteors and captured at least one with my iPhone.
It was finally time to photograph Venus once again, close up. Over the past several years I have posted Venus “cameos” where the planet was a dot in the sky, maybe next to the Moon, for example. But here, finally, I used my Mak-Cass to pinpoint on Venus and nothing else.
The sky was still not ideal, with a Full Moon. And with Mars almost due above, I had difficulty manually nudging the telescope. The focus wasn’t quite right. Despite all this, one set of my Mars videos was passable.
The Mars opposition is days away, and though I have been watching the planet night and morning, this was may first take at it in over two years.
I photographed the eclipse this morning 4 a.m. I used my iPhone 14 Pro with “Night mode” for the final image, through 127mm Mak-Cass telescope.
It took weeks trying for the right chance, but I finally was able to decently photograph Jupiter and its Great Red Spot this year.
After Jupiter opposition this year, I started using my MacBook as a camera screen extension. In this article, I show results from over a week.
I detail my process for finding the planet Neptune, using Stellarium, binoculars, and finally sketching through my Dobsonian telescope.
On the morning of 9/1, I shot the videos which made up his image of Jupiter, likely the best I can do with my entry-level DSLR camera.
Under less than ideal circumstances, I attempted to observe and photograph the Perseid Meteor Shower. The near-Full Moon did not help.
