Friday, October 12, 2007

Lunar Extravaganza



I'd thought I'd do something completely different with my Moon shots this time round and completely saturate them, it seems to be the latest fad. I have millions of Moons shots, some saturate a little, some a lot, some not at all.

The above image was taken 10 days ago, the Lunar Terminator was framing 4 high profile lunar craters, thought it was a perfect photo op took advantage, took the pic. Plato Crater named after the famous Greek philosopher Plato is the dark crater situated top middle of the image. half in the shadow of the terminator. Copernicus is the light crater right of centre of the moon in this shot, named after the Polish astronomer Nicolaus Copernicus. Copernicus advanced the Heliocentric theory of the solar system where the Earth revolves around the Sun, not the other way around. Kepler is the crater just down and to the left of Copernicus, I like to call it paint ball crater because it looks like someone shot the Moon with a paintball gun. Kepler crater was named after Johannes Kepler, German astronomer and mathematician first to discover that planet orbit's are ellipses not circles. Finally Aristarchus is the small bright white crater up and to the left of paintball. Aristarchus was another Greek philosopher which among other amazing discoveries was the first to come up with the Heliocentric theory of the solar system over a thousand years before Copernicus. Well that's it, you now know the locations and names of 4 major lunar craters which will help you if they where to casually come up in conversation someday.

All these craters have something special in common, they all have had a number of Lunar Transient Phenomenas or LTP's for short. LTP's are any kind of short-lived activities or events seen on the Moon, over the years they have included red glows, flashes, obscuration and abnormal shadow effects. I belong to the LTP Research Program as an observer one of my duties is to observe the high repeat offending craters such as the ones above and report any unusual events using special report forms. There is a hot line number on their website I linked to above , write it down, you just never know when your going to spot an occurrence.




The Japanese Space Agency's Lunar Orbiter Kaguya is now confirmed orbiting the Moon and has sent back a picture of the Lunar surface from 800 kms high. The picture was not taken with its Hi Def cameras so future images will increase in quality substantially when the cameras are set up and running later this month. When the pictures come through I will post them, they should be pretty awesome. Kaguya's main mission is to understand the Moon's origin and evolution. It is the most comprehensive lunar mission since the Apollo program.


My 3rd. attempt ever of Saturn, getting bigger and a little more detail, still need it to get a little higher up in the sky and once it gets warmer I'll be able to use my electronic microfocuser, nearly impossible to manually adjust focus at 650x which is what the above Saturn is. I'll leave you with one last color saturated Moon pic, enjoy.


24 comments:

MYM said...

Cool post as always. I just awarded you ... drop by my blog & pick it up!

p said...

I like the saturation job, heck the japanese photo look heavily saturated in my opinion!
I'll be able to use my electronic microfocuser I dont even know what that is but I want one.
good picture, the saturn far away pic. was exciting, to think YOU took/saw that. Not something I've ever seen i tell ya that!

kml said...

Bob your Saturn pics just keep getting better and better!

Bob Johnson said...

It is a honor to recieve this award from you, thanks drowseymonkey, love that name.

Bob Johnson said...

lol, thanks Paula, the microfocuser, does just that adjusts the focus in microamounts, can't see it working, you just know when something is in focus, but alas it just makes strange noise right now, too cold, took it out of the loop so to speak. If you want I can check into getting you one on the cheap, lol.

Bob Johnson said...

Thanks Kathy, thats the final size I want, now just have to pull in some more detail and get the proper focus and it will be good to go.

S-V-H said...

Hi Bob,

I think a little bit of pink looks good on the moon! I like it.

malawika said...

Fantastic photos! I love your blog :) I've added your url to my photoblog.

Amazing!

And thanks for the visit :)

Bob Johnson said...

Thanks Susanne!, A little color goes a long way. Some of my lunar images have blue, red, ect, I think it has something to do with the amount and type of Earthshine, which I will post about on a future post, cool stuff.

Bob Johnson said...

Wow thanks malawika, appreciate the link, love you photos and your cat blog, I have one by the way, cat not cat blog

franx said...

Bob your picture is awsome. I don't know how you catch the picture. Do you count the age of planet ?
Thanks for all your comment in my blog, Bob

p said...

oh.........i think i have a similiar problem with my camera. i notice when its cold out i can't get in focus sometimes. is that it?

Bob Johnson said...

Thanks franx budi, the piture is taken with a special camera that takes and stacks the images, get a nice finished product, this camera is put into where my eyepiece would go in my telescope, before I do that I stick a 3x multipyler lens called a barlow lens just before the camera so it mulitiplies the built in power of the camera 3X, on my scope the combined magnification is 650X. Saturn is around 4.5 billion years old.

Bob Johnson said...

Hi Paula, if you have an autofocus mech, it probably is doing the same thing my microfocuser was doing, not working properly, if it is realy cold out, for me it was below zero your focuser will not perform properly.

Nature Nut /JJ Loch said...

The saturation looks great!!!

Great post. :D I love visiting.

Hugs, JJ

Rick said...

Nice shot of Saturn; can't wait until it gets into focus with your microfocuser!!

Bob Johnson said...

Thanks JJ!

Bob Johnson said...

Thanks Rick, if we get warmer and dryer weather I should have a good chance of getting a good pic before April.

myonlyphoto said...

Wow, Bob you know a lot about the Moon, it almost like you been there, but then with telescope like yours you probably experience that every time. These are very cool photos of the Moon, something different. And yeah you are getting better with your Saturn photos. As always, cool stuff, Anna :)

Anonymous said...

I really like the second image there Bob. By the way- did you know when you upload photos to Blogger they are hosted at Picaso?

Bob Johnson said...

Hi Anna, I wish I came from the Moon, lol, thanks.

Bob Johnson said...

Hi Rose, thanks, I wasn't aware that the pics were hosted anywhere actully, I'll check it out.

Lynda Lehmann said...

Great photos of the moon and Saturn. I can't believe you can actuallly see that with your own eqipment! So much in this post! I didn't know there was someone before Copernicus who came up with heliocentric theory. And what cause all those wierd moon events? If they're caused by the flare or explosion of gases, what provide the energy? Is the moon very active at its core, or don't they know?

Great post, Bob. And congrats on your award!

Bob Johnson said...

Thanks, Lynda, the moon is totally dead, I'm figuring the cause of the color is regular Solar activity, or even Earthshine, which I will be talking about in my next post on Saturday.