I N F I N I T Y…………becky ramotowski

Early Saturday morning…12:43 AM.  MDT

Position RA 19h 52m 36.5s    Dec.  +18 58 09

Comet C/2009 P1 Garradd was very near Messier 71…as viewed from Earth.  The comet is the little turquoise smudge on the left of center in the image above and M71 is the little golden wad of stars at its upper left.  There were some thin clouds fleeting by so the stars look a bit bloated and funky colored…but hey at least the comet showed through enough to catch on this image.

Nikon D70 on Losmandy mount  Nikon 180 lens

F/2.8   ISO 400  10 minutes

Tonight’s pass of Nanosail-D was naked eye bright, even through clouds.  Delphinus is at the upper right and the trail left behind by Nanosail-D looks broken because it was flashing.  Click on the image for a larger version.

Nikon D70 on tripod, ISO 400

F/4  60.3 seconds  24mm lens.

The Full Moon had a halo and a “MoonDog” tonight.

The MoonDog is the bright area at the Moon’s right.  They usually show up better in a photo than visually, but you could see this one!

So far, no Perseids….

Clouds and the Full Moon washed out the sky, but the ISS was bright enough to shine through it all!

Vega can be seen at the upper right of the frame.

Here’s another set of comet images.  Just like the set below, these were made about ten minutes apart to show how much this rascal is moving through the stars. ( click on the image to go to a larger file)

These were made an hour after the first set and each exposure was  five minutes long.

The sky cleared up a bit after I shot the first set so I wanted to try and get better images…..