November 30, 2019 Planetary Conjunction and Moon

The sky this evening after sunset is very hazy and partly cloudy. My son and I were able to capture the latter part of this conjunction due to traffic and was not able to image Jupiter on the image :( We literally had to scramble to a nearby mall open area outside parking to take a quickie shot of it before losing Venus as well to obstruction. Image was taken using a Canon EOS M6 mirrorless camera with EFM 15-45mm f/4.5-5.6 IS lens set at 15mm f/5.6 with 2 sec exposure at ISO 400.

November 29, 2019 Planetary Conjunction with Crescent Moon

The sky after sunset is clear so I use my Canon EOS M6 mirrorless camera on tripod with EFM 15-45mm f/4.5-5.6 IS lens set at 15mm f/5.6 with 1.6 second exposure and ISO 400 to capture the beautiful planetary conjunction of planets Saturn, Venus and Jupiter with the Crescent Moon.

Solar Imaging Session - November 28, 2019

The sky this afternoon is slightly hazy but mostly clear. I did another test shot of the Sun using my EOS M6 mirrorless camera on Borg 76ED refractor at f/6.5 with Baader 5.0 solar filter mounted and expose for 1/2000 sec exposure at ISO 100. I also test use my other Baader 3.8 solar filter and image is overexposed even at max exposure of 1/4000 sec! The framing on the Sun is optimal with some ample space for the solar image to be still inside the field of view and can later be cropped for optimal size after processing. I would think even adding an extra 2x EF converter is still OK at 1000mm f/13. On that I can probably use the Baader 3.8 solar filter instead but I'm happy on the no 2x converter image FOV.

Solar Imaging Session - November 27, 2019

The sky this afternoon is cloudy but as it nears sunset time, the sky opens up a bit so I use this opportunity to test image the Sun in preparation for the upcoming December 26, 2019 Annular Solar Eclipse using my very old Thousand Oaks Type 3 using a Celestron C90 Maksutov-Cassegrain at prime focus of f/13.8 with Canon EOS M6 mirrorless camera. The image scale of the Sun is huge in this setup as the C90 has a native 1250mm focal length and adding it to a APS-C crop sensor camera, the focal length increased to a 35mm equivalent of 2000mm f/13.8! At this focal length,the Sun almost fills up the entire field of view. I use a Nexstar motorised altazimuth mount to lock the Sun in the field of view. The Sun was imaged using a Canon EOS M6 mirrorless camera on Celestron C90 f/13.8 Maksutov-Cassegrain at 1/1000sec with Thousand Oaks solar filter.

Solar Imaging Session - November 19, 2019

The sky this morning is cloudy and I had a hard time doing any imaging of the Sun as it was a wasted effort but didn't regret doing it. But after lunch, the sky was pretty clear and seeing condition is good. I also had a good laugh when I found out I was wearing my collar shirt in reverse :) LOL Maybe that help breaks the bad spell I had this morning :) LOL Remnant of AR2752 Sunspot Group can still be seen although starting to mellow down. Not much bright solar prominence visible on the limb except for a few faint ones only.

Solar Imaging Session - November 18, 2019

The sky this afternoon is very cloudy after I setup :( I almost gave up the session and opted to persevere a little more and I was able to image the remnants of AR2752 Sunspot Group through thin haze before I got obstructed by plants and trees on our roof deck :( I use only a light setup mount this afternoon using just the Borg 76ED refractor on Celestron Nexstar mount.

Solar Imaging Session - November 17, 2019

The sky this morning is partly clear and seeing condition is fair. Remnants of AR2752 Sunspot Group can still be seen on the solar surface as well as a large , faint eruptive prominence can be seen in the NE limb.

Lunar Imaging Session - November 12, 2019

The sky this evening is very cloudy and I have to wait for more than 1.5 hours before I got to image the Full Moon through a small cloud opening! I used again my Canon EOS M6 mirrorless camera on Celestron C90 f/13.8 Maksutov-Cassegrain at prime focus with an exposure of 1/500sec at ISO 400.

Lunar Imaging Session - November 8, 2019

The sky this evening is partly clear and seeing condition is good. I setup again at the roof deck to image the Waxing Gibbous Moon using Canon EOS M6 mirrorless camera with Celestron C90 f/13.8 Maksutov-Cassegrain at prime focus mounted on Vixen Porta II mount with exposure of 1/250sec exposure at ISO 400.

Lunar Imaging Session - November 5, 2019

The sky this evening is partly cloudy but my son Kendrick and I were able to image the waxing gibbous Moon using Canon EOS M6 mirrorless camera on Celestron C90, a 90mm f/13.8 Maksutov-Cassegrain at prime focus mounted on Vixen Porta II mount with exposure of 1/60 sec at ISO 400. Hard rain fell upon us after we pack up our setup at our roof deck. Lucky us :) LOL