Tai's Astrophotography

This page will chronicle some exploration of cheap and nasty astrophotography. I am neither rich nor smart. :)

Remember to click on the image to see it full-size. The wee camera shoots at 1600x1200, producing approximately 400 kbytes of data per image at normal compression.

From the evening of 20 Apr 2002 (EDT) from Toronto, latitude: 43.70770, longitude: -79.4005
Photographic equipment is a tripod and a Nikon Coolpix 950.

The moon overhead at 20:45 EDT, with full zoom.

Range	377 406 km
Diameter	31.66'
Illumination of disk	48%

Moon view data from Heavens Above, my location

Venus in Taurus at Sunset at 20:57 EDT

Right Ascension	3h 27m 13s
Azimuth	+19° 8.7'
Range	1.519 AU 227 million km

So, I conclude I have 51 pixels per degree at this zoom and full resolution. (Click on the image below to see full resolution; it has been shrunken for your screen.)

Ursa Major overhead.

Using My Sky.
Aim point RA: 12h 30m 56s Dec: +55°55'32"
Sun 2002 Apr 21 1:05 UTC
30 degree field of view in diagram.
Stars brighter than 4.5 magnitude are shown
Image has been rotated 95 degrees counter-clockwise to match photo.

Wondering about the funny letters? See later.
Mizar actually has a very nearby, dimmer neighbour named Alcor, which a good human eye can see separately from Mizar. My wee camera is not a good human eye. :)

Jupiter below the twin stars of Gemini.

Castor and Pollux are the twins' names. Like anyone, twin or not, star or not, they have their own identity. :)

Taken at 20:56 EDT Jupiter is 822 million km away from us in this photo, or about 44 light-minutes. The Twins are 34 (on the left) and 45 (on the right) light years away.

Below, you see a simulation of the Twins-Jupiter triangle above, gleaned from Your Sky. Fourmilab man John Walker made the images public domain, so I can use it here with pride. :)

The program tells me: Aim point RA: 7h 7m 2s Dec: +26°1'44"
Sun 2002 Apr 21 0:56 UTC Diagram field of view is 17°54'36"
Image has beeen rotated clockwise 48 degrees to match photo. Stars brighter than magnitude 4.5 are shown.

Why the greek letters?

They are called the Bayer numbers for the stars. The brightest star in a constellation is Alpha, the second brightest, Beta, and so on. They aren't always actually correct. for the well-known constellations, the Bayer numbers were chosen long ago, and either more careful measurement has changed the order of the stars, or the actual brightness of the star may have changed, leading to the order being wrong. If a star doesn't have a (usually) cool Arabic name, like Mebsuta or Wasat, it is just called by its Bayer number and the constellation name. So the bright little fellow with no name and just the greek 'iota' (looks like an i) is called "iota Geminnorum". Wait, why Geminnorum and not Gemini? Well, you are really saying 'iota of The Twins. In Latin, from which the constellation names are taken, you don't say 'of'. Instead, you change the case of the thing or person that is belonged to. The genitive case is used to show possession, and genetive form of Gemini is Geminnorum.
Who knew astronomy was such a hodge-podge of languages! The alphabet is Greek, the stars are Arabic, and the constellations are Latin!

I used Chart 18 in Terry Dickinson's Nightwatch to help me get the labeling right. Wow, amazing book.

Greek letters are easier to figure out if you recently took physics or Google your way over to The Greek Alphabet.

Toronto at dusk

It's not a star, but it's bright and pretty.

File: http://www.eastpole.ca/astro
Created: Sun Apr 21 01:26:28 EDT 2002
Updated: Sun Apr 21 07:09:50 EDT 2002