Reports

I continue with my experiments in afocal astrophotography. This is the moon taken with my DSLR, but photographed with the lens on the camera and held up to my binoculars. Yup, that's right, I held the camera in my hands and pointed it at my binoculars. You can try this yourself and amaze your friends. I took three shots and this was the best of the three. Afterwards, I converted it to a black and white image (that gets rid of the obvious chromatic aberation) then I adjusted the contrast and cropped it to fit on the blog properly. Just some quick and easy astrophotography! 15 minutes ago I was on my deck with the binos and now here is a picture of the moon on the blog. Who says you can't have fun with the full moon?

The afocal moon through my binoculars

Late this afternoon I stepped outside and although there were no signs of halos or parhelia (sundogs) there was a beautiful circumzenithal arc. I ran in for my camera and by the time I returned it had faded considerably. I had time for one photo and then it was gone.

The circumzenithal arc appears high in the sky, and you really have to crane your neck up to see it. Perhaps for this reason, it is often overlooked. Les Crowley, the British meteorologist known for his study of atmospheric optics, describes the circumzenithal arc as "an ethereal rainbow fled from its watery origins and wrapped improbably about the zenith."

An atmospheric treat; the circumzenithal arc over Hamilton.