Well this has been a long time coming… It’s been over 4 months since my last planetary image!

A combination of bad weather, bad seeing and very low motivation for astrophotography (mainly the latter) has meant I just didn’t have my telescope out for literally 4+ months.

I’m trying to force myself back into it, and with Mars almost at opposition (although still very small at 14 arcseconds and very low in the north) I figured now is as good a time as any to get the scope out and take some images again.

So here is a very ugly Mars from Friday night in typically below average seeing and with the planet under 30deg in altitude.

Mars - 22nd Jan 2010

I didn’t really forget anything, but it did feel a bit clunkier – everything took a little longer to get going and be up and running.

But anyway, it’s a start. It’s ugly, but it’s Mars all the same. And hopefully the motivation can climb a little higher and encourage me to get the scope out again the next time it’s clear (it’s been cloudy since then :)).

Thanks for looking.

No, this is not a joke. This is not april fools day!

I setup my telescope last night, first time in 4 months, and I actually used it! I took some video data of Mars at around 12:30am-1:00am, and got up again this morning to image Saturn at 4:30am.

Wow it had been a while.. I didn’t forget anything but everything just took a little bit longer and felt a bit more clunky. The seeing wasn’t horrible, which was nice for a change. But it wasn’t good either.

Unfortunately fog this morning prevented any useful Saturn data – it was really dim even at 7.5fps, so I just captured 1 dim red channel and packed up. I couldn’t believe how high Saturn is already! I was looking for it lower on the horizon but it turned out to be just a star

Anyway I’ll process the Mars data later and see what comes of it.

Once I got into it, I was enjoying it enough – but it didn’t start out that way. At the start, I had the usual thoughts… “please be cloudy”, “please be horrible seeing” – anything to turn around and crawl back into bed.

But I fought through those feelings, and this morning I have that tired, gritty-eyes feeling that I remember.. LOL.

A few readers here may have also used IceInSpace from time to time, so this message is for you.

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We want to make sure we’re providing you with the right content, the right features and functionality, and ensure we provide you with what you need to get the most of our your IceInSpace experience.

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Over the 2009 Christmas Holidays, my family and I again headed up to Birubi Beach for a 7 night camping trip, after making a similar journey at the end of 2008. After beautiful weather last year, unfortunately this year we were subjected to terrible weather. Cloudy with not a hint of sunshine for 6 out of the 7 days.

On the last day we were there, my son Jacob and I headed out on the sand dunes with the Port Stephens 4WD company for their 3-hour shipwreck tour – taking in some sand boarding, the Sygna shipwreck, Tin City, a few other local attractions and the Tank Traps.

Click the images for a larger version.

Tank Traps on Stockton Beach Sand Dunes

The image above was taken with my Canon 40D and 24-105mm L IS lens. Please continue reading for more story and images.

Read the rest of this entry »

I was thankfully sent an email by someone this morning who recognised a photo on someone’s flickr stream as a crop of my Smiley Face Conjunction photo. The photo on flickr is called Clouds, and you can clearly see it’s a crop of my image.

I posted a comment demanding that the photo be removed, but the user deleted my comment and blocked me from posting further comments. I also sent them an email demanding it be removed. I have reported the copyright infringement to the Yahoo Copyright Infringement people, and hopefully they will do something about it.

I’m very disappointed and angered that someone would do this. I wonder what other photos on this users stream are stolen!?

Have you ever had this done to you? What other action can you take?

If you’re a member on flickr and you’re as outraged as me, perhaps consider leaving a negative comment. It will probably get deleted but it might help all the same.