Wednesday, June 19, 2013

Observing Saturn and the Moon


This is Christina and her mom, the two newest members of our astronomy club.  They showed up about a month ago, and I was thrilled to hear that Christina wants to be a scientist. They haven't had a chance to come to an observing session, so tonight I brought one of my telescopes, and instead of attending the meeting, I set the telescope up in the parking lot, and showed them craters on the moon and the planet Saturn.  They were both thrilled and amazed!

2 comments:

Dean said...

I've tried evening portraits at the telescope before, but this composition and lighting is just about perfect! Don't think I've ever seen better! -Dean

Ken Spencer said...

Dean: Thanks! I have tried this before, and have not really been that successful. The thing that makes this shot is that we were in a parking lot, with the lights on, so that's what lit the two subjects well. We were only looking at the Moon and Saturn, so having lights on was not that distracting. I have set up portable strobes before to cross light people at the eyepiece, but the background goes completely black, and the resulting photograph is not that pleasant looking. I am still working on this problem... :-)