Astronomical Society of Greenwich

	The Astronomical Society of Greenwich	BruceMuseum.com
	The Bruce Museum, Museum Drive Greenwich, CT 06830 (203) 869-6786, Ext. 338 Astronomical Society of Greenwich info

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Stan's Big Mavica Experiment!!

On Wednesday, June 7, 2000, I brought my Sony Mavica FD88 digital camera to the special meeting at Bowman Observatory. I had figured on getting some shots of some of the ASG members and their telescopes to put up here on our website. As none of the members that showed this night brought any equipment other than binoculars, I had to turn my sights elsewhere. I started taking some shots of the main scope and setup at Bowman when Rick suggested trying a few shots through the scope itself.

What followed was accomplished by nothing fancier than by holding the camera right up to the eyepiece and seeing what I could get. The rest as they say "is history" and it turned out to be a really fun and exciting night, as you shall see with some of the following pictures taken that night...

TO VIEW THE FULL SIZE PICTURE, JUST CLICK ON ANY OF THE IMAGES BELOW.

Here is my first shot through the main scope. It was still not yet twilight, with still some color left to the sky.

Here is a shot of the moon without going through the scope. This was taken shortly after the shot shown above, so sky conditions were the same. This is using just the zoom features of the camera itself. (8X manual zoom with the 2X digital zoom feature active, giving me a total zoom of 16X)

Here is a another shot of the moon through the scope. This was taken later, after sky conditions had darkened considerably.

Here is a closeup shot of some of the craters on the moon. This was taken through the scope and utilizing the cameras zoom features. (This shot was brightened slightly afterwards.)

While we were there, Mercury payed us a visit. Here is what happened when I tried to shoot it through the scope and utilizing the cameras zoom feature.

The last usable shot of this night was of the double star Albireo, located in the constellation Cygnus. This was shot through the scope and using the cameras zoom feature only partially. Even though I could get a bigger image of this on the cameras display screen by going for a higher zoom, I could not hold the camera steady enough to shoot a picture at the higher zoom without the double star images being streaks or blurs. Even though I had to compromise on the size of the observed image, it still ended up to be a nice shot...looking closely, you can even detect some of the individual stars color.

NONE OF THESE IMAGES, UNLESS OTHERWISE NOTED, WERE RETOUCHED OR ALTERED FROM THEIR ORIGINAL STATE FROM THE NIGHT THEY WERE TAKEN.

TO VIEW THE FULL SIZE PICTURE, JUST CLICK ON ANY OF THE IMAGES BELOW.
Here is my first shot through the main scope. It was still not yet twilight, with still some color left to the sky.
Here is a shot of the moon without going through the scope. This was taken shortly after the shot shown above, so sky conditions were the same. This is using just the zoom features of the camera itself. (8X manual zoom with the 2X digital zoom feature active, giving me a total zoom of 16X)
	Here is a another shot of the moon through the scope. This was taken later, after sky conditions had darkened considerably.
	Here is a closeup shot of some of the craters on the moon. This was taken through the scope and utilizing the cameras zoom features. (This shot was brightened slightly afterwards.)
While we were there, Mercury payed us a visit. Here is what happened when I tried to shoot it through the scope and utilizing the cameras zoom feature.
The last usable shot of this night was of the double star Albireo, located in the constellation Cygnus. This was shot through the scope and using the cameras zoom feature only partially. Even though I could get a bigger image of this on the cameras display screen by going for a higher zoom, I could not hold the camera steady enough to shoot a picture at the higher zoom without the double star images being streaks or blurs. Even though I had to compromise on the size of the observed image, it still ended up to be a nice shot...looking closely, you can even detect some of the individual stars color.
NONE OF THESE IMAGES, UNLESS OTHERWISE NOTED, WERE RETOUCHED OR ALTERED FROM THEIR ORIGINAL STATE FROM THE NIGHT THEY WERE TAKEN.