Last year after getting a Canon DSLR camera, I spent as much time as I could doing some basic astrophotography. I took photos of stars, planets, the Moon, and even did some star trails. One thing I quickly realized is that there are limitations if you don’t have a tracking mount or a telescope adaptor. The tracking gives you a method for taking longer exposures, and the telescope adaptor as expected gives you the ability to zoom in on distant objects. Even with these temporary limitations (I hope to invest in them someday) there are still a lot of options...
This weekend will be a great chance for me to enjoy the change in season. I’ll be up north in Ontario’s Algonquin Park, to do some photography of the autumn leaves. If weather permits, I’ll definitely be aiming to do astrophotography as well. I grew up an hour north of Toronto, in the farm country outside of Barrie, Ontario. Every time I go home for thanksgiving in early October I am amazed at the changes that can happen only an hour north. Algonquin park is a good 3.5 hour drive, and will provide a stunning look at the seasonal change...
After an epic weekend of eclipse talk, NASA came out with a press conference that overshadowed much more than just the Moon. The announcement, as many had speculated, revealed that conclusive evidence shows there is flowing water on Mars. Like seasons on Earth, warmer conditions cause water to flow down steep hills and into valleys. The speculation came due to the invitation of Lujendra Ojha of the Georgia Institute of Technology to the NASA panel. Ojha noticed strange features on Mars as an undergraduate student in 2010, while looking at images from the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO)’s High Resolution Imaging Science...
A few days ago we passed the Autumnal Equinox, and said goodbye to Summer in the northern hemisphere, as the southern hemisphere welcomed Spring. This is all due to the tilt of the Earth’s axis at 23.5 degrees. As it orbits the Earth, the tilt alternately points the hemispheres toward direct sunlight, bringing summer during that time and winter 6 months later. But what about the North and South pole? What happens there? In summertime, because the North pole is actually tilted toward the Sun, the region receives direct sunlight for 6 months! The Sun just never sets! Check out...
It’s been cold lately. The temperature has fallen somewhere between Hoth and Pluto, and it doesn’t look like it’s going to change any time soon. It seems we complain about the weather no matter the season. It’s too hot, too cold, too wet, too dry, too bright, too dark. We do have a lot of variation in the seasons, but compared to some other planets, Earth is pretty mild in its climate. One such case is the recently discovered Kepler 432b. A massive planet six times heavier than Jupiter with a comparable size, it orbits closer to its parent star than Mercury...
Time to celebrate! It’s the shortest day of the year in the northern hemisphere, and the longest in the southern. The first day of Winter here, and the first of Summer down south. Although as a Canadian, Winter usually starts a lot earlier. Why do we have seasons? A common misconception is that the Earth is closer to the Sun in Summer, and further in Winter. Well I can tell you the Earth reaches perihelion (its closest point to the Sun) on January 3rd, and it certainly isn’t a warm day in Canada, historically speaking. So the reason for the...
If you guessed that I was referring to the Pleiades, you are correct. The small open star cluster, Messier 45, is about 440 Light Years from Earth, relatively close for a star cluster. We are able to see it with the naked eye in Autumn and Winter here in the Northern Hemisphere. The stars in the Pleiades are young and bright blue, meaning they are very massive and hot. By young, I mean somewhere around a hundred Million Years, about 40 times younger than the Sun. The smears of blue in the above photo show that the cluster is still...
