The International Year Of Astronomy Is Here! To Celebrate, I’ve Used My New Canon 1000D DSLR To Take A Picture Of Orion!
by Kevin Brown : last updated: January 13, 2009Welcome back!
At last, the International Year Of Astronomy 2009 (IYA2009) is here.
Canon 1000D piggy-back on 80ED
After months of anticipation, I hope it will deliver the promised kick-start to the appreciation of astronomy, by the wider public.
To celebrate the first clear night (for me) of 2009, I thought I should do a first thing, too.
So I attached my newly purchased Canon 1000D digital SLR camera, to my Skywatcher refractor.
The Canon was not actually looking through the telescope – I need to buy a Canon T-thread adaptor before I can do that. This time it was just “piggy-back” (or afocal as the serious astronomers call it), to take advantage of the telescope’s motor-driven mount. I was using the 18-55 mm zoom lens, the camera came with.
The weather is freezing (-5 degrees C) tonight and this made it tricky, but I managed to take some images of the constellation Orion (the Hunter).
Constellation of Orion
It was splendid in the South.
I used a 30 second exposure for this shot (right). I’m still getting used to all the hundreds of settings on the Canon and I felt it was fighting back, once or twice! But I’m pleased with the results.
You can see the indication of the Orion nebula M42/43, below the three-star “belt” of Orion. Also, follow the line of the belt downwards and left to see Sirius, the brightest star in our sky (apart from the Sun). It’s barely above the horizon (and the hedge!) in the shot.
I will be giving a talk on the Winter night sky next Monday, to my local astronomy society. I hope to make good use of this image and the others.
