Weasner's Meade ETX Guest Gallery

GUEST SOLAR ECLIPSE ASTROPHOTOGRAPHY

Last updated: 12 June 2003

Some ETX users have sent me examples of their astrophotography. If you have some examples you would like included here please send me a description of how you made the astrophotos and a copy of the images as GIF or JPEG files (due to internet email gateway issues, please send only one image file per message). Send to etx@me.com. Alternatively, if you have created your own web page with your examples please let me know and I'll include a link to your site.

rosen@pixmix.a.se (Peter Rosn) [12 Jun 03]

Last time I sent you my pictures of the Mercury transit we had a lot of trouble to get the attachments through. If we get the same problems this time, I will use your other address. I send you 3 shots of the solar eclipse of May 31 photographed in I used a digital Nikon D1X with a manual Nikkor ED 50-300 f/4.5 with a 1.6x teleconverter and no filter. At 300 mm, it corresponds to a 720mm lens on an analogue SLR (due to the size of the CCD there is a magnifying factor of 1.5x). [Top] At 04:44'. Exposure: 1/8000" at f/32. [Middle] At 04:45'. Exposure: 1/10,000" at f/32. [Bottom] At 04:48'. Exposure: 1/2,000" at f/32. (All times are local Stockholm time)
WolfDieter@t-online.de (Dieter Wolf) [12 Jun 03]

SONY Mavica MVC-FD95 digital camera 400-800mm focal length equivalent to 35mm film f/11 1/60 - 1/500s with and without Baader solar foil 18th roof of a building in the city all times in MESZ (UTC + 2h) Here in southern Germany sunrise was about maximum eclipse time. So driving to my observation place I saw it dawning and dawning and dawning but not getting brighter as the more the sun climbed towards the horizont the more got shadowed by the moon - interesting experience. As sunrise appeared with the 'dark side' it took two more minutes to see the first spots of light and one or two more to see the whole 'sunball'. Thanks for your site Mike, cuagn Dieter
erwin@matys.at (Erwin Matys) [8 Jun 03]

pls find attached a sequence of images of the 31 May solar eclipse Equipment: 300mm tele lens Filter: none Film: Elitechrome 200 Processing: Photoshop Location: 25km outside of Vienna, Austria Date: 31 May 2003 03:14, 03:16, 03:20 UT More at Nightflight: members.eunet.at/erwin/
GeeMackay@aol.com [4 Jun 03]

I'm sending a couple of photos of Saturdays Eclipse I think you may enjoy. The first is during annularity , you can only see the top of it though as the clouds and sea mist obscured the view, which was a pity and the second is of the partial eclipse, It looks as if you can see the crescent shape of the sun on the sand at the bottom of the suns reflection on the water. Both photos were taken from Durness, Scotland witth a Nikon CP 4300. I took my ETX 70 for viewing but decided against using it and just soaked up the experience and took photos instead.
oldwexi@aon.at (Gerald Wechselberger) [4 Jun 03]

This time i do have a picture and a link to my Eclipse homepage attached which shows a report and more pictures of the partial eclipse from last Saturday morning in Austria. All eclipse images have been captured with my ETX90 scope on a phototripod and the Olympus 2020 Digitalcamera connected with the 40mm Scopetronix eypiece to the ETX. The sun rise was captured without filters. This time the expedition to the exclipse was only a few miles into my neighbourhood but again we were lucky with the weather. Its very seldom in our country that you see the sun rise out of the horizon. www.werbeagentur.org/oldwexi/images/Eclipse%202003.htm Another issue. A friend of mine has bought a LX200 12"GPS. He cant speak english. Do you know a way to load the Autostar with a communication in German? Mike here: As to a German Autostar II, check out one of the Meade International sites; you might find one there.
geheniau@xs4all.nl [4 Jun 03]
Click the Play button on the lower left corner
Here's another (better?) one. Job Geheniau The Netherlands
geheniau@xs4all.nl [31 May 03]
Click for full-size image
We had beautiful weather here in The Netherlands for a good eclips viewing. Attached 3 pictures made with ETX90 and 2020Z (Expect flat.jpg, thats just a shot with the digicamera from the roof of the observatory building). I think you will have an apart site for the eclips where you can put these pictures. In the beginning I took some pictures without sunfilter but very soon I had to put the filter on the ETX. As you can see the eclips had already been started when the sun was finaly visible above the horizon at 5:33 am.
Click the Play button on the lower left corner
Here a mpg movie of the eclips in The Netherlands. I recorded it with my Sony digital camera without tracking.As you can see in the beginning I didn't use a solar filter (not enough light) but after a while I also put a little solar filter on the sony camera. So I had to make every frame the same size and put it in the middle and crop all done with Final Cut Pro. My ETX was used for pictures I send you before. Also attached a video still frame from my ETX setup at the suneclips (with 40 mm Plossl and 2020Z. Watch the green rubber for easier focusing :-) and my home made sunfilter. I know I send you lot of pictures, but this may 2003 month was a very good one for amateur astronomy (mercury, mooneclips and suneclips)
jjdemery@msn.com (Jonathan Demery) [31 May 03]

The photograph was taken at 04.24 BST from the Great Orme, Llandudno North Wales. Nikon Coolpix used afocally with an ETX 70 AT and 25mm MA eyepiece eposure = 1/500 sec at f7.2. I missed the start of the eclipse as there was a bank of sea mist obscuring the horizon.
kevin_howard@btinternet.com (Kevin Howard) [31 May 03]

My VERY first attempt at astrophotography, using the built-in camera on a P800 Sony Ericsson mobile phone, up against a Meade SP EP! The picture was took in the Worcester area, UK. Filter was a cell made with Astrosolar film, mounted on an ETX90-EC. Thanks