Short observing break (partly due to camera defect)

Short observing break here. Several reasons: apart from it being overcast the past three days, it includes that;

- I am working on a double lecture (Friday on my own university, next week in York);
- and am having to deal with a camera defect.

The camera defect is small but fatal for shooting the night sky: for some reason (loose electronic contact?) the wire-release no longer works when the camera is pointed upwards....

So if I am able to observe early next week and after I return from York, it will probably be the good old visual way with the ETX-70 telescope and stopwatch for a while.

Iridium flare, and a new camera

Last 1.5 month has seen very little activity here. Reasons behind that were a period with a stationary occlusal front bringing lots of clouds (and rain); a period where I was physically not entirely well; and the very late time at which at this time of the year it gets dark at my latitude (after local midnight only), which combined with my work schedule doesn't allow much observing mid-week.

Yesterday I did stay up until after midnight though. Because a new "toy" has arrived at Cospar 4353: a Canon EOS 450D DSLR camera, result of the investment of a tax return.

Below is an image I shot of a mag. -0.5 flare of Iridium 8 I shot last night. I used the EF-S 18-55 IS kit lens for it, at 18 mm F3.5 and ISO 800 with 15 seconds exposure.

Another lens, an EF 2.5/50 Macro which according to my friends yields superb results with astrophotography, arrives somewhere this weekend.

(click image to enlarge)