G’day sky watchers,
In a bold move for a blog which only about 4 people read (including myself and the Mrs), I purchased the domain name backyardnasa.com from the good folk at wordpress.com and I’ve decided to redesign the site and make it better.
Stay tuned.
Jim
Hello space folk,
Today is an important day for Backyard NASA. After a hard day at work, I was having a beer outside and noticed how clear the sky was (compared to recently anyway) so I grabbed my telescope, hooked up the camera, pointed it at the moon and took some photos for you guys (mainly for my own enjoyment but I hope you guys like it too). Anyway, here are some pictures of the moon.
Those last 2 pictures had their brightness and contrast altered slightly.
I might post some more pictures later with some information on the camera settings used etc.
Anyway, I’m sure all 4 of you are waiting for me to post this so I’ll let you go and click the publish button.
Cheers,
Jim
Hey folks,
Here is the first picture I took of a star that actually came out half decent! As you may have got from the title, the star is a big red/orange one called Anteres.
I know that’s pretty underwhelming to look at but the weather has been against me and I did t even use my DSLR, just the little 4MP Fugi.
Hey guys, here are some older cameras that my dad owns. Apart from the Pentax, I’m not sure what’s working or not, anyway, here they are.
Here above is a Pentax MX-7.
Above is an ancient Aries Automat 6×6 TLR. I’m pretty sure it doesn’t work.
Above is a Russian Lubitel 2 TLR.
Here are a set of bellows! I might play around with these later.
Here are some pics of what I use to look at (when its not raining) and (when I’ve get my camera set up correctly) eventually start to take photos of the stars.
Pentax K200D
Sigma Zoom 18-55mm 1:3.5-5.6
Sigma Zoom 28-80mm 1:3.5-5.6
Rexatar 400mm 1:6.3
Bintel t-piece adapter
Super 25mm wide angle long eye relief*
Super 10mm eye piece*
SR 4mm eye piece*
The thing that goes on the end of the camera, I can’t remember what it’s called. Anyone?
*came with telescope
That’s it for now. If I get more than 5 mi items of clear sky, I’ll put this gear to work and take some pics for you guys.
Cheers,
Jim
This was going to be a big thing about the Transit of Venus but it was too cloudy where I live to see it long enough to photograph so instead, I’ll show you how to make your own pinhole camera/telescope thingie so you don’t miss out on the next solar event.
To make a pinhole telescope, all you really need is your hands, but to make one like this (it can be/should be smaller) all you need is a pin, some foil, a tube and a surface to project on.
The following pics pretty much show you how it’s made and what it does “so without further Apu” – (Simpson, Homer), here they are.
Wrap a single layer of foil over a tube, tape it on and poke a hole in it… that’s pretty much it.
This is the finished product. It’s needlessly long but once I paint it black and set her up properly, it will look pretty cool.
That’s the image I got projected on to a price sign for a 6-pack of Melbourne Bitter stubbies from 1998… $7.99.
So there you have it. It wasn’t the Transit of Venus but next time there is a solar event and you dot have a pair of welding glasses handy, this is better than missing out, because that sucks… I wonder when the next TOV is… 😦
This is my telescope. It’s a Saxon 909eq2. Follow the link for more information on it. It’s been too cloudy to use it much lately. I will post some pictures when I get the chance to take them.
Backyard NASA 