I've been celebrating International Observe the Moon Night since 2012, and even if I don't have it marked on my calendar, I've coincidentally been observing the night sky on the observation of this day every year. I think that's the point, right? It motivates you to get out there and do some observing, or in my case astrophotography.
Tonight, I tried to do a quick prime focus shot using mirror lock up with my Canon T5i. The problem with mirror lock up is that it takes so long between frames, it confuses Registax. The good thing is that the mirror doesn't shake my telescope on this ancient (15 year old) EQ mount.
Here's my best attempt in about an hour while dinner was being made. Everything from focusing to cropping in Camera RAW, to stacking, to Photoshopping all in a short amount of time.
Canon T5i 14 frames stacked in Registax, ISO 400, 1/125 sec, prime focus Meade 285 900mm
Chris asked me, what would happen if International Observe the Moon Night fell on a new moon? Well, my guess is that it doesn't, the date seems to change to make sure that the first quarter moon is high in the sky.
InOMN is usually held in the fall, when the Moon is around first quarter. Fall in the Northern Hemisphere is generally a good time for InOMN, because of school schedules and the weather, and a first quarter Moon is visible in the afternoon and evening, a convenient time for most hosts and participants. Furthermore, the best observing is typically along the dusk/dawn terminator, where shadows are the longest, not at full Moon.
This day has only been celebrated since 2010? I say let's keep it going! Great excuse to get outside or to hold an event for the public!
I've been seeing more and more articles about this 'rare' lunar event creeping into my newsfeed. The black moon! Rare black moon this Friday! A rare lunar event is happening tomorrow! What the heck is a black moon? Is it anything like a blue moon, a supermoon, or a strawberry moon? Let me explain...
What does the rare black moon look like? Nothing!
First of all, I'm not going to do what all the otherblack moon articles do, and I'll tell you the most important piece of information first: You can't see a black moon. No really, you can't see it, it's literally not going to be visible. A black moon is the 2nd new moon in the same month, and a new moon is not observable. For all intents and purposes it might as well be invisible. Don't worry about waiting up for the rare black moon to appear because it won't.
Also, since the black moon occurs at 8:11pm ET on Friday, September 30, 2016 the moon and the sun will both be below the western horizon (at least from my location here in Indiana). For those in other areas, the new moon is always right next to the sun so you can't see it anyway.
Looking at this diagram from Stellarium, the black moon will be well below the horizon from Indiana at 8:11pm ET. In other areas, the moon will be obscured by the sun, and lit from behind so there's really nothing to see.
A new moon happens when the moon and the sun are on the same side of the earth. The far side of the moon is lit, and the side facing Earth is completely dark. Not to mention, the Moon is so close to the Sun that the light will completely obscure the moon. The only way to see a new moon from Earth is during a solar eclipse where the moon passes in front of the disc of the sun.
My rough diagram of a new moon (not even close to scale) but you get the idea
Now, the day before or the day after it might be possible to see a very very slim crescent moon, which is really cool, but this technically isn't a new moon anymore. Speaking of moon phases, check out my composite of moon phase photos that took me 3 months to photograph.
So what is a black moon anyway? Apparently it's the 2nd new moon in a calendar month (sort of like a blue moon's invisible friend). From what I can tell, it's another in a long line of terms local news anchors borrow from astrology or the Farmer's Almanac and report it as a rare celestial event - when in fact there is no such term in astronomy, nor do these events warrant special acclaim or attention.
Remember when Neil deGrasse Tyson ranted about how the Strawberry Moon is completely meaningless? In this clip from the Late Show, he admits the fun names are kind of charming, but offers an explanation of the special attention paid to not-so-special events:
"Most people want something in the sky to be special and unique to their lifetime on Earth, an Earth that has been here for 4 1/2 billion years, so this is evidence of a delusional state." Neil continues "Something can be rare but uninteresting, because of how common its rarity is."
At least with a Blue Moon or Hunter's Moon or Strawberry Moon you have something to look at! This is a new low for celebrating meaningless moon phenomena because you can't even observe it!
So there you have it! Enjoy the blackness of the night sky without light from the moon just like every other month, or any other night before the moon rises or after the moon sets.
I don't have many prime focus attempts under my belt - in fact if you search for "prime focus" on this blog, you'll only come up with 3 posts of the moon at prime focus, and a couple Jupiter, and a couple double stars. In fact, I don't believe I've even attempted the moon at prime focus since I upgraded from the Canon Rebel XT to the Canon T5i. After some major issues a while back, at least now I have my go-to prime focus attachments using a T-ring --> T-thread to .965" --> .965" threaded collar setup.
As I've noted before, the hardest part of photographing the moon at prime focus with my Meade 285 refractor is the clunky focusing wheel on the telescope. The focuser is plastic, and there is no fine focus adjustment. So, as you can imagine, when looking at the LCD screen on the back of the camera and adjusting the focus, it's nearly impossible to tell when I'm actually in focus... Whenever I touch the telescope the image jumps all over.
With all that in mind, the advantages to prime focus are that you get a much larger image (and therefore higher number of pixels in the diameter of the moon) compared to just a 300mm camera lens. Prime focus definitely has the potential upper hand, but a major handicap when it comes to focusing - whereas the camera lens has incredible hands-free focus, but the moon is only projected onto a tiny area in the center of the image sensor and thus a smaller diameter in real pixels.
I took the images below on Sunday, September 11, 2016.
Click to enlarge, prime focus vs 300mm camera lens
Now many it's not completely fair, the 300mm moon on the right is far from my best attempt. I only stacked 10 frames in Registax, which was having a rough go of it on Windows 10. When I finally got it to stack without crashing, I noticed the alignment wasn't quite right, but it still does a nice job showing the huge difference (3x the diameter) in relative size.
Stack of 10 frames, Canon T5i at 300mm, ISO 100, f/9, 1/160 sec with High Pass layer in Photoshop
Stack of 17 frames, Canon T5i prime on Meade 285, ISO 400, 1/250 sec, 900mm with High Pass layer in Photoshop and Exposure +1.0 in Adobe Camera RAW
From my perspective on the patio
During my observing session, I also saw the rings of Saturn through the Meade 285, which is always a treat - even though it is insanely frustrating to try to position this old mount that doesn't want to stay put once you have your target. I also tried several times to get my iPhone mounted on the eyepiece to take a video of Saturn, but the mount is just too finicky and shifty.
Finally, I took this quick timelapse video of my prime setup using the app Hyperlapse, which is convenient when you don't know how much you will want to end up speeding up the final video. Unlike the other timelapse apps where you have to set the speed at the beginning.
This
new iOS 10 feature lets you filter your iPhone screen with different
color tints. A red tint throughout the entire phone is a quick trick for
astronomy and stargazing to preserve dark vision. Previously, individual astronomy and stargazing apps would let you tint the screen red for night mode, but now you can change the tint of the entire phone with a red filter using accessibility features that are brand new in the latest iOS update.
Red color tint accessibility feature in iOS 10
I'd love to show you a screenshot of the new feature, but it's actually a color overlay so the screenshots show up the original colors. This makes sense, because that's the only way it could work across all different apps without adjusting each individual app features. This also means that it's not necessarily optimized for all of the apps you might use, but it's a quick and dirty trick to make everything tinted red.
Go to General > Accessibility > Display Accommodations > Color Filters > Color Tint
General: Accessibility: Display Accommodations
Display Accommodations: Color Filters
Color Filters: Color Tint: Hue all the way to the right: Intensity all the way to the right
Similar apps are available for Android devices, but like I said iOS apps were limited to the ones that already included a 'night mode' such as StarWalk.
Night Mode was already available within certain apps, such as StarWalk.
Previously, iPhone users would get an evil glare if they pulled out their phone during a star party, camping trip, or meteor shower - even with the brightness turned all the way down, when your eyes are dilated the screen still appears rather bright. I'd suggest turning the brightness down AND tinting everything red just in case.
Items that were previously red might disappear completely!
You can see that it is a quick and dirty option and can actually make items disappear if they are normally red, like all the little badge icons. Oh well! Neat trick, I'll have to try it out sometime. The nice thing is that it lets you use red filter through the entire phone and not just in some apps. I know sometimes it's nice to just whip out the calculator or something while I'm observing, which involves leaving the apps that have red modes built in.
This past weekend I was in Tippecanoe, Indiana at Camp Tecumseh. I took advantage of the dark skies and brought along my camera. Just like previous years, I was at a Peer Education retreat, and went out later at night for some shots away from the light pollution in Indianapolis. Unfortunately, this year it was extremely humid and I had to wipe the lens every 30 seconds, re-focus, and try to get a quick photo before condensation would creep in again. All of this on top of the heat which adds to the image noise.
Nevertheless, it was worth a try, and I got a much better photo than I can achieve from my own back yard. I came away with ONE decent image out of the whole lot, but hey I can say I tried!
Milky Way from Camp Tecumseh, Indiana, single frame, Canon T5i at ISO 6400, 24mm, f/4, 13 seconds, heavily adjusted in Photoshop
I had my EyeFi memory card with me, and was able to Instagram the photo before I even got home! I transferred it from my camera to my iPhone, and edited it in Instagram - which actually wasn't too bad. EyeFi lets you transfer files over a short range WiFi connection that the card puts - no internet provider needed. It's not like you can surf the net on it though, haha, but you can get your photos to post them immediately. Note: RAW files don't transfer to switch to JPEG or do what I did and use the JPEG + RAW shooting to save both to the card at the same time.
Below is a comparison of the original file, my Photoshop edits, and the in-app edits in Instagram. I think Photoshop is still a lot better, but Instagram is definitely getting better especially for convenience of doing it all from a cabin in the woods.
Side by side comparison with original file from camera (ISO 6400, 24mm, f/4, 13 seconds) edited in Photoshop vs. in-app edits in Instagram transferred to phone with EyeFi.
Here are a few more photos from the night. I was only out for 15 minutes or so. You can tell the humidity was just unbearable.
Cool lens flare, but not what I was going for...
Big dipper and hazy humid parking lot
Weird color balance aiming the camera straight up
Larger version of the original photo
I had this whole room to myself at the training retreat!
