New Autumn Colour?

If "wet" was a colour, that would be the colour of autumn here in Ottawa. We're approaching a record rainfall for the month of September. *sigh*

I'm really hoping that the weather prediction for the weekend at least stays as is -- cloudy -- so we can take a drive up to the Gatineau mountains and visit the lookouts to enjoy the real autumn colours. Of course, I will be bringing my camera along.

Keeping fingers crossed...

My Jupiter on NBC

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

 

A visit with Jupiter

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.

DIY Lightbox Project

I picked up a pair of clamp-on desk lamps today from Canadian Tire for $7.99 each, along with two GE Energy Smart 26W Daylight Compact Fluorescent bulbs (equivalent of 100W each) for $12.99/pair.

I set up my lightbox in the basement and grabbed a few Hot Wheels cars to shoot. For my first attempt, I think the results were pretty good.

I'll take a little tweaking until I figure out the best location for each light, and possibly change the paper (or even remake the lightbox from scratch) Regardless, I'm happy with it and plan on finding more things to shoot in the coming weeks.

 

RedBubble

I came across another site that lets (i.e. helps) you sell your photography on different types of media: RedBubble.com

So, I thought I'd give it a shot. I uploaded some of my fav shots and we'll see how it goes.

You can find my "gallery" here.

Again, I'm not thinking I'll get rich off this. Just hoping to make a few bucks to add more toys to my collection. :)

On a different note, I built my light box last night. I'll post a pic or two of it once I start using it. First, I need to pick up a couple of small lamps for lighting. We checked them out at Canadian Tire this evening and I found one that I liked, but there was only one and it was an open box.

We'll have to try another location or see what other stores have to offer.

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