Neptune, Uranus, Saturn, Jupiter, Mars, Venus, Mercury, Moon & Earth.
Taken by Dennis Simmons on June 24, 2022 @
Toorbul, QLD, AUstralia
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Camera Used: Unavailable Unavailable
Exposure Time: Unavailable
Aperture: Unavailable
ISO: Unavailable
Date Taken: 2022:06:25 19:06:42
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Details:
I woke up at 2:00am on Friday morning 24th June and looked out of the bedroom window and saw that it was clear. In less than 1 hour, I had the car packed with camera gear and my Tak EM200 Mount and headed off to find skies a little darker than those of suburban Brisbane.
Just after 4:00am, after an 85 km drive, I found myself on the Esplanade at Toorbul and began to set up 100 metres or so from the car. It took me a while to figure out how everything fitted together again, then polar align and I was off.
I fitted a Canon EOS R5 with RF 15-35mm F2.8L lens and began a series of test shots and alighted on 30 secs, F5.6 at ISO1600. The lens promptly dewed up, so I went back to the car for the Pocket Powerbox Advance (PPBADV – USB & Power Hub) and a 12V DC SLA battery and fitted a dew heater, managing to plug the 12V DC IN to the IN Socket (physically it is a 2.1 mm DC input female socket, just like the 4 x 12V DC Power outlets and the Adjustable Out as well). Wouldn’t do to get this wrong in the dark…
Remarkably I had everything I needed as I didn’t have a plan as this was an impromptu decision to go for it, so I just began shooting using the built-in Interval Timer of the EOS R5.
I used the Focus Assist “Green Triangles” to manually focus, but when I checked again after a few shots, I noticed that the images were OOF – probably a result of the dew strap tugging on the lens, as it was fitted over the focus ring, as I had nowhere else to position it.
Part way through the session, the PPBADV Blue LED began blinking (undervoltage warning) so I went back to the car for the back up 12 VDC SLA and fitted that. I took this opportunity to point the camera up and grabbed a couple of shots towards the Zenith. Luckily, these came in use later as in those 3 images, I had also picked up Saturn. Sadly, Pluto was behind the trees by this stage.
PixInsight did a fantastic job of aligning and stacking the disorganized, chaotic set of files I emptied into it, although I had to manually blend in those lucky shots of Saturn in PS CC.
I have included crops of each target to provide some more detail on these regions.
Earlier in the session, when taking test shots with the camera pointing at the Zenith, I managed to record Pluto. How do you explain to Clyde William Tombaugh (discoverer of Pluto in 1930) that using modern equipment, I recorded the position of Pluto with a 15mm wide angle lens and a single 30 sec exposure…
Cheers
Dennis
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