Mike's Astro Photos » Lunar

The right side of the Moon

Mike Hankey — Fri, 23 Dec 2011 16:26:56 +0000

Here’s a panoramic image of the moon. This is actually 4 pictures taken of different sections stitched together into one image. I think it would take 20 or more pictures to capture the entire moon with this method.

Moon Panoramic - December 12th, 2011

Merry Christmas everyone!

Lunar Eclipse Time Lapse

Mike Hankey — Fri, 27 May 2011 01:09:50 +0000

I just got around to making a time lapse video from last years lunar eclipse. I had taken a picture ever 30 seconds for the duration of the event. I lost a few frames due to clouds towards the final stages. The movement of the moon in the frame is due to imprecise polar alignment. I had to setup the mount that night and its alignment was slightly off. I remember having to baby sit it and correct the FOV every few minutes until the early morning.

Waning Crescent Moon and Venus

Mike Hankey — Sat, 05 Mar 2011 18:56:33 +0000

This past Tuesday evening was a great night for astronomy work here in Northern Baltimore County Maryland. With the new moon phase only two days away most of evening was nice, dark and clear. I had a pretty good session, started a final photography job and then went inside and dosed off. I woke up Wednesday morning around 5:00 AM, went outside to close up shop and was happily greeted with a waning crescent moon hiding behind a thin veil of clouds just above the horizon in the east. A bright Venus was a little higher in the sky setting the stage for a spectacular dawn. The morning was graced with a special moon phase as its the last visible moon of the last quarter. I was pretty tired and out of it, but felt compelled to capture the moment as this is a relatively difficult moon phase to shoot timing wise and you only have a max of 12 chances per year to get it and they are always at inconvenient times in the early morning and the window of opportunity is only about an hour or so each month.

So, I snapped two pics of the last Waning Crescent Moon…

Waning Crescent Moon - February 2nd, 2011

one with clouds and one without.

Waning Crescent Moon - March 2nd, 2011

And a few pics of Venus too.

Venus - March 2nd, 2011

And then I went back to bed.

Lunar Eclipse – December 21st, 2010

Mike Hankey — Wed, 22 Dec 2010 03:35:22 +0000

Total Eclipse - December 21st, 2010 3:17 AM EST

Today was a special celestial day here on Earth. In addition to it being the winter solstice there was also a total lunar eclipse. These two events had not coincided together in 372 years. I had been looking forward to the eclipse for several months, hoping for good weather and planning out my strategy to photograph the event. Photographing eclipses and timing everything just right can get a little tricky and having never done it before, I wasn’t sure what to expect.

I started to research and quickly learned I would need to baby sit the camera through the entire process (a 5 hour tour). As the eclipse progresses and regresses, the moon significantly looses light and gains it back and thus the camera exposure times need to be adjusted throughout the night. I was able to find a nice chart that illustrated the formula to determine exposure times in a lunar eclipse. I also found a time schedule for the different phases. I used these two documents together as a guide for adjusting my exposures, starting out at 1/1000 of a second for the full moon and working my way up to 2 full seconds for the totally eclipsed moon. We had a few intermittent clouds through out the night, but they didn’t last long. All in all it was a perfect evening and I couldn’t have asked for more.

Here’s a nice photo of phase 9 of the tail end of the eclipse. Its a combination of two exposures, one short to capture the detail on the illuminated surface and another long to catch the red hue of the eclipsed side. Blending the two frames together ads definition to the bright part of the moon and makes an interesting effect.

Lunar Eclipse Phase 9 - December 21st 2010 4:15 AM EST

I set up my second camera with the fish eye lens to photograph the evening, hoping we might get lucky and catch a meteor during the eclipse (that didn’t happen). It was really cool to see the difference in the sky when the moon was eclipsed.

Lunar Eclipse - December 21st, 2010 4:17 AM EST

The period of totality was calm, serene and surreal. It got so dark, the stars came out like a moonless night. At the end of the show I had a nice collection of images that documented the entire process. I had programmed my cable release to take a picture once every 20 seconds throughout the night and did this continuously from 12:30 – 5:45 am. I set alarms on my iphone to alert me with every phase change and at those points adjusted the exposure times up and down. I also had to periodically correct the tracking as my alignment wasn’t perfect and I wasn’t auto-guiding. There were times through the process where I would take multiple exposures, one short and one long. This would capture both the black gray and white red effects at the same phase of the eclipse. Both styles of these pictures are cool and both are available to the photographer throughout the process. If I had to do it over again I would have taken advantage of this more and manually switched the times more often.

I spent a good bit of time sifting through the images and thinking about the best way to present them. There are so many cool pictures throughout the entire process, but I can’t really post dozens of pictures on the site. I pulled out the key frames / phase change moments and went from there. I made an animated gif of the eclipse and thought about making a time lapse movie. Then this final design idea came to me, I sketched it out on a post-it note, liked the symmetry and wiped it together in photoshop. I think it might make a nice postcard.

Here’s a composite image representing the 12 phases of the lunar eclipse.

Lunar Eclipse - December 21st, 2010

This was really a great experience and it worked out better than I could have hoped. There are a few improvements I will make in 2014, and I’m looking forward to it already.

Beaver Moon in Lancaster

Mike Hankey — Sun, 21 Nov 2010 05:07:01 +0000

The November full moon is known in the farmers almanac as the Beaver Moon. This was a signal to let people know to set their beaver traps before the creeks froze. The Full Beaver Moon also comes from the fact that beavers are actively preparing for winter at this time of year.

I caught some nice pictures of the Beaver Moon while meteorite hunting in Lancaster PA.

Beaver Moon - Lancaster November 20th, 2010

Reddit, Am I doing this right?

Venus and the New Moon In June

Mike Hankey — Sun, 20 Jun 2010 20:49:22 +0000

Here’s a photo of Venus and the New Moon.

Venus and New Moon - June 14th, 2010

The yellow streak in the middle left looks a bit like a squiggly meteor or a UFO, but its actually a firefly.

Firefly

Here’s a closeup of the moon right before it set.

New Moon Setting

Full Moon

Mike Hankey — Sat, 01 May 2010 04:33:19 +0000

I got a new telephoto camera lens for birding and wild life photography. I thought I would give it a try on the full moon.

Full Moon - April 27, 2010

Waxing Crescent Moon

Mike Hankey — Sun, 21 Mar 2010 02:24:16 +0000

Here’s a photo of the Waxing Crescent Moon on March 20th, 2010.

Waxing Crescent Moon - March 20th, 2010

Here’s just the moon at full size cropped from the big image.

Waxing Crescent Moon - Full size

Jupiter, Moon and Meteor Update

Mike Hankey — Fri, 07 Aug 2009 04:23:16 +0000

Jupiter and Moon Aug 6th, 2009

It was a pretty clear night tonight. I saw Jupiter hanging out next to the moon and it looked like a good shot. My scope is not currently setup as I’m in the middle of construction on a new observatory, so I just snapped this pic with the tripod and camera lens.

I’ve spent most of my meteor time this week prepping for this weekend. I’ve reviewed and recorded all of the streets that cross the path. I found the PA land record website and with a little creative searching I’ve been able to get all of the property records for all of the potential estates. There aren’t that many of them, <30 tops. The records show pictures of the houses, acreage and obviously the property owners names.

I’m manipulating this data and prioritizing the targets and preparing a field agenda. I’ve found that lack of preparation before the field visits results in a lot of wasted time and effort. This weekend priority #1 will be making contact with as many land owners as possible the goal being to get permission to search the land.

I bought a hand held hikers GPS and I’m putting in coordinates of the high value targets. I’ve also teamed up with two different groups of meteorite hunters and we are coordinating our efforts and working together. I am also working with a group of friends so that while I’m off talking to land owners they are searching the streets and public areas.

Bahamian Moon

Mike Hankey — Sat, 25 Jul 2009 05:07:40 +0000

I took this picture on my last night in the Bahamas. I understand why they call it Paradise Island.

Bahamian Moon July 23, 2009

Quick update on the meteorite search. I have located 2 new security tapes that could be useful in the hunt. The tapes are not direct captures of the event, but they caught a bright light on the ground. I’m picking up the DVD tomorrow. I’m hoping I can determine the speed of the meteor at this location based on the number of seconds the light appears for. I should be able to determine relative direction as well. If there are shadows in the videos that could tell me even more. The most interesting thing about these videos is the location is very close to my estimated trajectory line. There are lots of hiking trails and public areas here so I will bring the metal detector and do a little hunting after I’ve reviewed the video and surveyed the site.