Its a Small World After All!

Here is one which is a little bit different. This one is from atop the building which houses the telescope at UVic - The Bob Wright Centere - and is a polar projection of a panorama. Just to the right of the dome in the foreground is actually a dome in the background which houses the old 20 inch telescope. This was taken at about 5:30am. I call it the Tiny Planet Projection.

A Dome in Action

I posted a panorama of the dome earlier, but this one is sort of an action shot. Here the telescope is pointing at Jupiter in the early morning sky.

Open to the Moon

Staring at a nearly full moon last night.

Plants...?

I know what you are thinking...No those were not put there by mistake. They are not astrophotos in anyway, and they are not even that good of photos besides that. The way that I took them is what makes them acceptable to put up here.

These were taken with my camera. The thing that sets them apart from any other photos I have taken is that there was no lens whatsoever attached to the camera. I was just holding the body. Normally there is no way at all to take a picture that looks like anything when you do that. There is however a way if you want to do it.

Here is a picture of what I was doing except replace my hand with the ccd in the camera.

It is a strange picture, but what is happening is that the image is coming through the telescope and being projected onto my hand. I think that is just the neatest thing! To do this, take the eyepeice out of the telescope, then move your hand back and forth until the image gets in focus.

As I said, not really astrophotos, but it is used in astronomy on occasion. I dont know if you recall the posts from the transit of Venus, but one of them showed a projected image of the sun.

There it is below. That is just the same thing, except all machined to work properly.

I thought it would be cool to try, and it turns out that it was!

I will get back to actual astrophotos tomorrow, this was just a fun thing that I thought I would show you.