The Moon is up, the sky is hazy after the evening shower here in Subang Jaya, but it's better than having an overcast sky!

Will start observation at 12:30 am. But I intend to do a trial run with the camera at 11.00 pm - it's on the charger now. Keeping my fingers crossed. Good luck, guys!

Will do so if the weather holds.

Meanwhile, my test run is okay. Sky still hazy, but I'm getting pretty good resolution anyway. Check this out:


My streamyx connection is acting up again........

Info's in the EXIF. Unfortunately, LYN has stripped the data as usual.
I'll try to put a pic on photobucket instead. But the streamyx broadband is now narrowband (worse than dialup); curses!

Finally got it uploaded to photobucket. Took more than 30 minutes to log in!

http://i22.photobucket.com/albums/b349/Mar...41hrs060907.jpg

Starting of Penumbral at 0052 hours.


Eclipse becoming visible at 0139 hours.

The haze is playing havoc with the exposures......

this one at 0212 hours.

The eclipse is now very evident to the naked eye. And we're even not at umbral contact yet!

Mr.LKM, it is not easy to keep shooting at regular intervals...... The haze and clouds are interfering...

I'm shooting these at 7.2 MP and downscaling them to 800x600 (that's 0.48 MP).

The problem I'm facing is getting the exposures correct. The haze keeps changing the lighting levels and I have to constantly fiddle with the speed and ISO settings to get it consistent. This means I can't concentrate on the interval....

Near the time of greatest eclipse....0249 hours.


BTW, I'm getting all messed up with the clock. In my post #941 (2:36 am), I said we were not at umbral contact, but umbral contact was already over at 2:05 am. My bad.

Last post for tonite (or before dawn).

Out of the umbra at 3:37 am.


Saying goodbye to the biggest Full Moon of 2006.......

Finally got my eclipse sequence done:


Sorry, no time to add in the time of each frame.

This post has been edited by March05: Sep 9 2006, 01:55 AM

I tried to upload a medium sized one but both LYN and photobucket bounced me out.
Only 6000x400 pixels also cannot.
Imagine if I tried to upload the full sized one..........

Need to find another free image host. Any suggestions or introductions, please?

Thanks! Done, didn't know that it was so easy.

There will always be better stuff.....the idea is to do your best with what you have, and to enjoy the process of photography (in my case, plus feeding the mosquitoes as well!)

BTW it is possible to shoot with binoculars using an adapter, but I think not much point due to the limited aperture and short focal length. Binoculars are meant to be a portable, direct eye viewing aid.

I've reworked the orientation of the frames to approximate the path of the moon moving across the Earth's shadow.


BTW,the moon moves right to left......

Mr.LKM, the original full resolution shots are rather large for me to upload - over 260Mbs (~90 frames) and frankly, quite crabby before correcting for color, and contrast - no thanks to the haze.

Can lah. But I think there are much better shots out there......

This simulated animation by Larry Koehn of Nashville, Tennessee can explain better:
As shown on www.spaceweather.com

blueye, the binoculars are very useful in astronomy because it is not as limited in viewing angle as a telescope. Take a look at the Pleiades through it, and you will enjoy it better than through most telescopes. Likewise, a lot of other star clusters are more impressive with binoculars than through the limited view of a telescope.

And if you want to do some comet hunting, binoculars are better.

Think of it this way. Binoculars are similar to the wide angle lens on your SLR camera. Just because you have a 300mm telephoto lens does not mean you don't need the 28mm lens anymore.

I will never go out star gazing without my binoculars, even though I sometimes go without a telescope.

The CCD is merely an imager, and with new developments in CCD/CMOS technology, we will change our methods in using them for astrophotography. But nothing beats seeing astro objects with your own eyes. Like seeing a real sunset, compared to looking at a picture of it.

Do you know what CCD chip it uses? Unless it has a much improved sensor over the 840K it would not be worth trying out.
On paper, the 99 fps does look impressive.......

If you just plan to do this one project, I guess any cheap soldering iron/gun will do. I just picked up one from the new MYDIN hypermart in USJ for RM12.90.
But have you got all the components for the mod yet?

I'm curious about the 99 fps versus the 60 fps of the old 840K. This could be quite good for reduction of blurring due to upper atmospheric turbulence. But is it at the expense of higher noise levels? The specification for low light sensitivity unfortunately still seems to be the same @<1 lux - which could mean it's the same CCD with a different DSP.

Any recommended links, DAViS?

It's the same CCD (Sony ICX098)with different DSP to enable the higher fps.
Check out the link here: http://www.astrovid.com/prod_details.php?pid=50

However, the eyepiece adapter for this seems to be slighter cheaper than for the previous 840K. For those who are still looking for the discontinued 840K, this will be the new model to acquire.

Your problem is, DAViS, you have been TOO successful in selling the 840K in LYN. I think everyone who really needs this Philips Webcam has already bought one from you!

Maybe blueye and julchin_09 might be interested?

This new Philips is an extremely good webcam for the money!

You still don't have one yet? I thot you got it already eons ago.