Tag Archives: Moon

Full Moon in May 2012

Posted on May 8, 2012 by Julian Kay

There was plenty of talk in the news of the “supermoon” phenomenon, which meant that the full moon appeared to be visually larger and brighter in the sky than usual. Here’s a picture of the moon taken on Saturday night in Thorner just outside of Leeds.

As you can see there was just enough cloud to stop a clear shot, and on Sunday night it wasn’t much better.

Though to be honest I didn’t mind the cloud, as I really like these pictures of the full moon rising through them in the distance, as taken from The York Astronomical Society‘s observatory just outside of York.

The problem with the moon being so bright (and orange when rising) is that you don’t get much detail, but by putting the shutter speed down you can pick up much more detail on the surface.

While I was at it, I also directed my camera towards Venus to take this rather cool photo of it directly below Alpha Arietis.

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The York Astronomical Society 40th Anniversary

Posted on May 7, 2012 by Julian Kay

This last weekend marked the 40th anniversary of The York Astronomical Society, and what a weekend it was – action packed with no less than six talks and plenty of fun.

On Friday night we had the company of Dr. Allan Chapman talking about Johannes Hevelius which was absolutely fascinating, then on Saturday morning we had Prof. Monica Grady, talking about how science analyses the materials brought to earth via meteorites to build models on the creation of the solar system, then Martin Dawson shared a brief history of YAS which included lots of information about previous observatories.

Saturday afternoon included cutting of the cake, and three more talks including Paul Money on his favourite images of The Space Shuttle, Nik Syzmanek with some amazing astrophotography and Dame Professor Jocelyn Bell-Burnell on the story of gold. As a space flight fan, my favourite talk had to be Paul’s, however I found all of them extremely interesting.

To finish off the weekend, the faithful returned to the observatory on the Sunday night to do some real astronomy in the cold. I took the opportunity to capture a few photographs of a very impressive looking moon like the one shown above (and more to come!)

I’ve been a member of The York Astronomical Society for a few years now, and I thoroughly enjoyed the celebrations.

Many thanks to everyone who was involved in making it all happen.

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New Moon in March 2012

Posted on March 25, 2012 by Julian Kay

Last night I went to Scarborough for some Astro Dog Astronomy and took these lovely pictures of the New Moon in March 2012.

This photo was actually taken with a lens borrowed from Annette Newby – thanks! It looks great, and you can see a close up below.

As well ask the new moon, Jupiter and Venus were pretty close by giving us the fantastic view of these two great planets that we have been used to for the last few months. Venus is on top in this photograph…

And how could I resist getting a close up picture of Jupiter with three of its largest moons in view.

I had a great night, and I also managed some firsts. While I had seen the phases of Venus before, I’d never seen them with such clarity, and a definite first was seeing detail on Mars (including ice caps and dark features!) Very impressive.

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Mars and The Moon in March 2012

Posted on March 7, 2012 by Julian Kay

Just a cheeky little picture of Mars and The Moon taken in Thorner.

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Jupiter, Venus and The Moon in February 2012

Posted on February 25, 2012 by Julian Kay

I took this picture last night at Clifford’s Tower in York, it shows Jupiter, Venus and The Moon in a line from left to right.

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The Moon, Jupiter and Venus in January 2012

Posted on January 2, 2012 by Julian Kay

As the sun was starting to set this evening, I thought I’d quickly pop out and take a photo of the Moon and Jupiter next to each other. Jupiter is the few pixels of light in the bottom-left of this photograph.

While I was out there I was also on the lookout for Venus – which is a little more tricky to spot so early in the evening, but once you see it it pops right out at you.

Here’s a photograph of Venus with an aircraft flying under it. There’s no way I can get any detail from Venus with just my camera, but it’s a nice sight to behold at sunset.

Venus is the couple of pixels of light in the top-left of this photograph.

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Half Moon in August 2011

Posted on August 10, 2011 by Julian Kay

As my last couple of attempts to take a photo of the moon ended up with cloud, I thought I’d show what my camera can get when there aren’t any.

And here’s a close up of the moon, shown at full resolution.

Not bad eh? I wonder what I can get with a telescope.

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The Moon with Saturn in August 2011

Posted on August 6, 2011 by Julian Kay

After my previous attempt was clouded over, I thought I’d try again to photograph the Moon (shown above) and Saturn together. Unfortunately this wasn’t meant to be – however I did manage to snap a photo of each separately, as well as a couple of rather nice sunsets.

Here’s Saturn (you might have to take my word for it) just before it set behind the tree line. I took this photo on the night of Thursday the 4th of August 2011, but I didn’t get any close-up pictures of the moon that night (even though it was clear!)

On Friday night I returned to photograph a better picture of the Moon itself. As you can see above, the clouds were back. But I didn’t mind too much, as having the clouds sticking around did result in a rather pretty sunset.

Here’s the Moon I was after, just peaking out from behind the clouds. I ended up with this rather pretty glow effect which you can see on the full resolution picture below…

As usual, I’ve uploaded the full resolution versions to Flickr.

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New Moon in June 2011

Posted on June 5, 2011 by Julian Kay

I took this photo the new moon the other night, rather pretty looking I must say.

And again, the same photo just a little bit closer so you can see the detail.

Oh and while I was at it I thought I’d take a cheeky photo of Saturn! Does make me wish I had a telescope… one day I will!

Until then I’ll just have to make do with my Canon 7D.

Update…

Check out the full version of this photo on Flickr.

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