# 29 | A Planetary Triangle
The planetary line-up continues to delight photographers and watchers of the nightsky.
The constant motion of the solar system can be observed nightly as the planets change position in relation to each other from our perspective.
On May 5th, Carl MacDonald took this shot of Mars, Saturn and Venus forming a triangle together. Faint Mercury can be seen at the bottom right.
Carl used Kodak Gold 400 film in his Pentax K1000 and a 50mm lens at f/2 to take this 10 second shot from his yard in Stockdale, Ontario at 9:00pm EDT.
# 28 | The Spectacular Planetary Line-Up
Skywatchers have been hoping for clear skies the past few weeks with the beautiful planetary alignment now taking place.
Looking to the west soon after sunset, all five naked-eye planets (starting from the top left---Jupiter; Saturn and Mars near the lower centre; Venus near the lower right and Mercury at the bottom right) can be seen.
On April 25th, Shaun Lowe of Halifax, Nova Scotia, piggy-backed his Kodak DX3900 digital camera on his 5" Newtonian. He took this shot with an expsoure 16 seconds at f2.8 from his front lawn at 8:30pm ADT.
# 27 | The Moon Over the Mountain
In March, 2002, Paul Greenhalgh caught the rising Moon as it began to peek overtop of Vedder Mountain near Yarrow, British Columbia.
Realizing that the trees at the top of the mountain would make for an impressive foreground, Paul held his HP618 digital camera up to the eyepiece on his SkyWatcher 8" dobsonian telescope and took a 1/1000th of a second exposure shot.
# 26 | Drawing Out the Details
While many an observer likes to photograph celestial events, there still are many who patiently sit at the eyepiece and sketch and make notes as to what they can see.
Les Dempsey of Belleville, Ontario observed the cresent Moon and Jupiter on April 18, 2002 through his Bushnell Voyager Newtonian reflector and made detailed notes and a sketch of what he was seeing.
Soon after finishing the sketch, Les retreated to the indoors and recreated his pencil sketch on his computer using Adobe Photoshop 5, adjusting and tweaking the colours and details until they matched his sketch and the notes he recorded.
# 25 | Comet Ikeya-Zhang
Comet Ikeya-Zhang, the brightest comet seen from Canada in the past five years, continues to be a spectacular sight, located slightly to the upper right of the "W" shaped constellation Cassiopeia.
On April 7, 2002 at 4:00am, Phillipe Mousette took this photo of the comet from Rivière à Pierre, Québec.
Phillipe used a Pentax ME 35mm camera equiped with a 400mm lens set at f5.6 with Fuji 800 film.
# 24 | Comet Ikeya-Zhang and the Northern Lights
Comet Ikeya-Zhang, the brightest comet seen from Canada in the past five years, has now become a morning object to observe, seen in the north-east at about 4:30am.
On March 31st at 11:30pm PST, Phil Hoffman took this stunning photo of Comet Ikeya-Zhang and an aurora gracing the nightsky over the Yukon.
Phil used Fuji Provia 400F film and a 50mm lens at f2 for this 30 second shot taken from near Whitehorse, Yukon.
# 23 | Comet Ikeya-Zhang
Comet Ikeya-Zhang continues to grace the western sky soon after sunset. When viewed with the naked eye, a small tail can be discerned but the view becomes even more impressive through binoculars or a telescope.
On March 13th, Phil Hoffman used his camera on a barndoor tracker to take this 5 minute shot of Comet Ikeya-Zhang.
Phil used Kodak Supra 400 and a 105mm lens at f2.8 for this 5 minute shot taken from near Whitehorse, Yukon.
# 22 | Comet Ikeya-Zhang
Discovered on February 1, 2002, Comet Ikeya-Zhang has been increasing in brightness the past two weeks much to the delight of all nightsky watchers.
On March 17th from about 50km north of Quebec City, PQ, Dominic Cantin mounted his camera with a 28mm f2.8 lens using Fuji 800 speed film on a barndoor tracker to take this 2 minute shot of Comet Ikeya-Zhang, which also includes M31 (the fuzzy patch on the right side).
# 21 | Digital Developments
Digital cameras are becoming the camera of choice for many people nowadays.
While astrophotographers mainly still prefer film or ccd imaging to capture the nightsky, some folks are having success taking astrophotos with digital cameras.
On March 2, 2002, Richard Fortier of Nanaimo, BC, used a combination of his and observing pal Ted McPherson's equipment to shoot this wide-angle image of Orion and Taurus with a Sony Cyber-shot DSC-F707 digital camera piggybacked on a 4" refractor. The digital camera was set at the 400 speed setting and an exposure of 30 seconds was taken.
Jupiter can be seen at the top left of the image, while Saturn is above the Hyades, the "V" shaped constellation on the right.
# 20 | Arctic Lights
Although there has not been any major auroras visible to most of us across Canada since fall 2001, those who live in the northern regions of Canada still see them with regularity.
Peter Tracy photographed this aurora on January 20, 2002 from near Arviat, Nunavut, overlooking Hudson Bay.
Peter used a Canon EOS Rebel X camera and a 35mm lens at f4 for this 30 second exposure using Kodak Supra 400.