This afternoon I received an email from an NBC Nightly News rep asking for permission to use my shot of Jupiter on a segment about Jupiter sightings. I said they could, as long as I was given credit.
Here's the short segment; my ~15 seconds of fame. :)
Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy
According to NationalGeographic.com, jupiter is the closest to earth since 1951. Mother nature cooperated and gave us a clear sky tonight so I decided to finally try out the T-ring adapter for my Canon T1i/500D.
I power my wife's laptop from my truck's cigarette light adapter and connected my camera directly to the laptop so I had a decent LiveView, rather than having to stare at the tiny LCD on the camera. This worked quite well.
I started with using just the T-ring adapter on the camera and fired off a few shots of the moon.
Next, I went looking to get jupiter in the scope. It was easier than I expected. Focusing, on the other hand, was not as easy. Lots of trial and error, but I did get a few decent shots.
I tried adding a 10mm eyepiece between the adapter and the camera, which turned out not to be such a good idea. I could't get jupiter in my sights, not could I even find the damned moon.
I then gave the 2x barlow lens a try.
I found the moon and got some good shots.
I then managed to find jupiter. Focusing was hell, but I ended up getting a couple of nice ones.
That shot is cropped, which makes it look a little larger than it was in the original shot.
Overall, it went pretty good. I would have really liked to use the 10mm eyepiece though. If we have any other clear nights this month, I might give it another shot.
Oh yeh, I was pretty happy about was the tracking motor. I managed to get the scope lined up pretty good and the tracking stayed pretty true which made it easier to tweak the focus on the telescope without losing jupiter.
