The cool part of astronomy is all the great things you get to see. The hard part is sharing it with friends who don’t have the same interest. Yes, at times they’ll humor you and stand outside for a while but the bugs, cold, time of day or many other factors limits them in seeing those amazing starry sites. So, the next best thing is having pictures.
Now, Hubble has made sharing what you see a whole heck of the a lot easier. But, that is cheating it really isn’t what most of us get to see. So, why not take a picture! After all how hard can taking a picture be, right! But, we know better than that, imaging is a lot of work. But, there has to way to take pictures that isn’t complicated, right.
Well, the first is trying hand held shots. It works if you have a steady hand, which I don’t but my view partner does. So, that what we, or should I be honest and say he did. This is a sample of the early results.
Please note that this is an unedited photo. My partner in crime has steady hands the type of which that cuts things to save their lives, whereas the folks like me cut things that dead or soon will be dead. None the less, it certainly gives one something that can be shared with! But, what about more!
Well, knowing that a CCD offers even more possibilities, it was the next logical step. It certainly has its’ share of challenges. And yes there is one we are playing with, but so far the images are not anything great.
But, there is an alternative to those fancy CCDs; a plain old webcam produced this image of Jupiter. Once again a bit of creativity leads to some nice results!
One day there will be images from the CCD but in the short term this is great!
These photographs were taken by Belinda Lee and Robert Ebling.