Evening rainbows

This week one evening rainshower offered a possibility to photography. FMI testbed map provided radar data to follow movement of rainshower, useful application indeed. Most importantly, it is free !

First image was taken with Sigma 4.5/2.8 lens, attached to Nikon D200. It was difficult to get the composition as you want it to be...
The image below, is taken with same D200 and diagonal fisheye (10.5mm/2.8 Nikon). This is the image I like most...
Soon the whole rainshower has passed by, and only parts of the bow are visible...

Nikon EH-6 secrets, part3

Status update: Nikon announced two new DSLR bodies, updated D300s and entry level D3000. Both of them are not compatible with EH-6 supply, instead EH-5 is required (4 pin connection to camera).

Atmospheric photos, exhibition at Tampere

Today I spend a warm summer day at Tampere -city. My main goal was to visit at Särkänniemi adventure park, to see what local photographers have collected for photo exhibition.

Nice images indeed, very nice... The bigger size in prints (usually above A3) makes a good photo, to really stand out from the mass. Intense noctilucent clouds on sky, calm water surface on lake. Contrast for every occasions.

If you have visit to near Tampere, I recommend to pop up at Särkänniemi, for this atmospheric photo exhibition. It is located there, in the hallway of the planetarium premises.

EdgeHD: New SCT line from Celestron

Some preliminary information came into discussion forums already one month ago... Specs were not precisely published, by it now seems Celestron has added this EdgeHD line to their web pages.

Shortly, following changes have been done to redesigned tube:
-field flattener
-mirror locking
-tube vents
-white paint surface

Full moon imaging

Yesterday was not a successful day, clouds blocked visibility at southern Finland. So no photographs then... Next possibility for full moon is on 6th August 2009.

Here's my last image of full moon at 9th May 2009. Moon is distorted by mirage effect (different temperatures at air layers). This I consider my best image of full moon.

In couple of weeks I should get some detailed explanation of this mirage effect, and some comments what I heard - it was not so typical to see distorted moon at relatively high altitudes like in this case. When I have feedback, I'll get back to this...

I made also a composite image, to clear out how moon shape was distorted. It was interesting to follow...

Saturn imaging (12th April 2009)

One image from the archives... I shot Saturn -at Vesanto in central Finland- with my C8 OTA & 2x Barlow lens. Used camera type was Philips SPC900NC. I had a lot of interference lines visible in stacked image. Periodic noise was needed to be removed with IRIS, postprocessing was done at Photoshop CS2.

Unsuccessfull moon imaging

This time I did not had a good luck... According to yellow almanac, full moon today was rising at 23:23 (in Helsinki region). I checked skies, but too much clouds on distant horizon to see the moon. I am going to attempt photography of "low moon" again, at 7th July 2009.