View From Earth

The Universe looks great from here!

 

Web Cam, film & digital camera images of the Sun, Moon, planets, comets, and zodiacal lights.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Jupiter is the largest planet in our Solar system.

 

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The zodiacal light from Mankins Texas.

This is a difficult phenomenon to capture. It is caused by dust in the plane of the Solar system (the Zodiac) to become illuminated by Sunlight.

 

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 A nice Sunspot group in the photosphere. The Earth would fit inside the area comprising the group with room to spare. Each granule of texture in the surrounding surface is the size of a large city.

 

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A Moon Dog and the star Procyon of Canis Minor (the little dog)

The moon is the bright Sun-like region and the star is in the rainbow about 20 degrees to the right.

The phenomenon is caused by the ice particles in the clouds much like a rainbow, except at night and the full Moon!


 

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Comet C/2002 T7 (LINEAR)

This was taken under the dome of Jack Newton in Portal, AZ through his 16" SCT and Finger Lakes CCD.

The spots are from moisture in the camera and the dark lines are cleaning streaks on the large CCD chip.

The comet was a good target in binoculars early in 2004 but was less of a good sight later that year.

 

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The Sun in Hydrogen Alpha spectrum.

This was also done through Jack Newton's 90mm Max View telescope using a Pictor CCD.

The view is of the chromosphere region of the surface. The prominence at the limb extends thousands of miles into the outer regions of the gas giant. The loops on the face are also prominence features.

 

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A Lunar sunrise ray in Rupes Recta. This occured during a Starlight Observers League Lunar meeting on December 19, 2004. Picture taken with Nikon E5400 digital camera and TMB 203.3mm f/9 refractor.

 

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Jupiter during a rare double transit of it's moons.

Taken with a webcam and stacked from many images.

The great red spot is visible above the shadows of the moons.The moon Io is emerging from in front of the disk.

 

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Anti-crepuscular light rays.

These beams of light are created when the sunlight is broken by high clouds while the Sun is low at either sunrise or sunset.

The light rays are coming from behind the scene to the west at sunset and are converging in the east all the way across the sky.

The clouds are lit up by lightening as an approaching rain storm comes in from the north.

 

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Star trails about Polaris the north star. Simply seting up a camera and opening the shutter for 3 hours can yield such a photo.

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A flare occured at the face of the disk on November 4th, 2004. A shot through the MaxScope 40 BF10 and Russell Horn's Nikon D100.

 

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Limb Prominences on December 19, 2004. Starlight Observers League had a Solar gathering while this was happening.

 

 

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Jupiter is occulted by the Moon. December 7th, 2004. Nikon E5400 through Stellarvue SV78L.

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Comet Q2 Machholz and the Pleiades (M45) in Taurus on January 7th, 2005. This close conjunction was spectacular and was visible to the naked eye under dark skies.

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A wonderful Flare on September 8th 2005. This M-class flare lasted many hours.

 

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Some prominences in the Calcium/Potassium band of Sunlight

 

 

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Mars at close opposition on November 1, 2005.

 

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The 99.7% full moon on April 12, 2006.

 

 

 

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