Paul Cézanne's Astronomy Observing Reports

Most astrophotographers don’t take pictures of the Full Moon, quite frankly because the partial moons have such interesting shadows along the terminator. But after I shot the moon rising over the Pilgrim Monument I set up the telescope to both observe Saturn and shoot the Full Moon once it got higher in the sky.

I’ll say I got lucky on this one. I noticed what compass point the moon would rise it, saw where I wolud need to be on the road in the dunes to see the moonrise and the Pilgrim Monument (yes, the Pilgrims land in Provincetown before moving onto Plymouth!) and then I headed out since [...]

I read in Astronomy magazine that Ceres was close to us, an easy target. I think they said it was magnitude 7. But part of the challenge of observing Ceres is that it looks just like any other star. So you must observe it multiple times, taking careful notes, sketches, or photographs each time to [...]

I had a good night collect subs for another M42 attempt (not processed yet) and the forecast was clear for the next night so I left the scope up using its Hibernate mode so I wouldn’t have to realign it. I considered waking up at 5AM to try and get some waning crescent photos. Well, [...]

It turns out that once you stop shooting your astrophotography images that your task has only begun! You now get to process the images and it turns out this can be a lot of work and there is a lot to learn.
The first thing I tried was to just take one of the 2 minute [...]

So I decided to shoot the Orion Nebula. Although it is a popular, and beautiful target, it wasn’t one that I initally wanted to shoot. The center is so bright that it makes it difficult to get a good image that both shows details in the nebulosity without blowing out the stars. You solve this [...]

I’ve processed the 14 I took of the ISS passing near Orion on March 15, 2009 as covered in this blog entry. The result is visually more interesting since you both see more stars and you see all of the tracks superimposed.

But there is more than just pretty pixels!

Jeannette and I drove to Marconi Beach this evening to try and watch the space shuttle launch. It is amazing that it goes from Florida to off the Massachusetts coast in about 8 or 9 minutes. Intellectually I know it goes that fast but having just driven that distance spread out over three days, I’m [...]

I’m not a big lunar observer. I’ve got nothing against it, but it hasn’t yet fascinated me. Part of the problem is that there is so much there, but much of it, at first glance, is similar to the part right next to it.
Anyway, I was still testing the Burgess CED1 diagonal, this time on [...]

If you are really into astrophotography you should just click away. Here I’m documenting my first real forays into astrophotography and the results are pretty awful. I know a lot of stuff I can do and I probably will do some of it. But I have no real desire to dive into that world, I [...]