Thursday 1 March 2012

Doesn't happen often then...

The Safari was out on Patch 1 last night before we did the pic of Jupiter and its moons. On the small field a pair of Herring Gulls were making the last of the  light searching for worms and were quite unconcerned about our (fairly) close approach although maintaining a beady eye on us all the time.

We tried sneaking a little nearer but eventually reached the edge of their comfort zone and the both flew off, but not before we managed to get one of them to stay still enough for a reasonable-ish shot.
After the Jupiter pic we received an email from our Extreme Photographer with an attachment - a crackin digi-scoped pic of the moon. Not to be out-done  we rigged up the camera back on its tripod and went outside again. Not a bad effort but there is a little Colour Fringing along the perimeter of the moon - despite that we're quite happy with the result...best pic of the moon we've ever taken and to see it like this in its first full quater on 29th February again you'll have to wait until 2088...needless to say we won't be waiting with you or if we are we'll have just had our 128 1/2th birthday!!!
Our next astronomical quest is to try to get a pic of the Red Spot and bands of gas on Jupiter - will we succeed?
Where to next? A late evening/early night-time safari coming up in a couple of hours, but not for planetary reasons - more news tomorrow.
In the meantime let us know if 29-02-2088 is within your grasp. God willing - assuming there is one of course.

5 comments:

cliff said...

That moon photo is a cracker Dave, the craters show up really well. Was that just using the new camera or were you digiscoping?? Either way it's a country mile better than any I've ever managed. The gulls aren't too shoddy either.

Lancashire and Lakeland Outback Adventure Wildlife Safaris said...

New camera + 2.2x teleconverter = 66x mag, Cliff. Exif is telling me I took it at 1/100sec @ f7.1
Gulls woulda been better had it been a bit lighter!

Cheers

D

Anonymous said...

Yeah, a cracker of the moon, Dave.

cliff said...

66X mag - I don't know what that is in 35mm terms - but it sounds like you can reach out & touch things - you must have had the camera held rock steady to get such terrific details.

BTW - if you get chance to goto the Rufford Hide @ MSW it's Bittern central at the mo', with up to 3 of them very active close to the hide. In fact, you probably don't need to go there - just put your telecon on & you can snap them from the top of the tower - although it's probably cheaper to drive to MSW than pay to go into the tower.

Lancashire and Lakeland Outback Adventure Wildlife Safaris said...

1584mm equivalent Cliff

Cheers

D