Monthly challenges

[Adrena1in]

Hi all,

A lot of you will probably be familiar with the CloudyNights.com forums, which are an excellent resource for anything astro-related. In the imaging sections there are monthly challenges, where a target is chosen and people try their best to image that target. The images are collected and people vote on the best. The winner then gets to pick another target.

It's only for fun, but I've found it quite useful to help me learn my way around the sky. As a beginner I tend to get a bit blinkered into only trying to shoot targets I'm familiar with. The challenges have made me branch out a little and shoot things I've never heard of...NGC 7331, Stephan's Quintet, M52 and the Bubble Nebula, as some examples, all quite prominent at the moment at my location, but which I had no idea were there.

I've just found out that the moon, Jupiter and Venus are all going to be very close to alignment on December the 1st, early in the evening, just after sunset, so I thought about making it the first challenge target. Take the best picture you can of all three in the same frame, then we'll vote for a winner, and the winner gets to pick the next target.

At CloudyNights.com they have challenges for bright targets, (moon, lunar landscapes, planets, etc), and deep space objects as well, but they tend to be quite tricky, and requiring semi-decent kit and tracking mounts. At least everyone with a camera can photo the moon and the two planets without much effort.

What do people think?

Tim.

[Celestron]

Providing i have nice skies and a clear horizon i'll join in unless something keeps me from doing so :D .

[troypiggo]

Sounds good to me, but you have to wait until I get geared up :)

[MacDogg]

I plan on giving it a shot on the 2nd floor patio I have.

[Nighthound]

Great idea Tim. Hmmm, trying to think of a good location for the Dec. 1st challenge.

[renderwerks]

At least everyone with a camera can photo the moon and the two planets without much effort.



I agree, this can be shot with "normal" camera equipment. I'm there!
(my Celestron T-Adapter had to go back, got a bad one, wouldn't stay locked in position):(
Now, to come up with a clever location... (ooh, our local mountains will probably have snow)

[Celestron]

I agree, this can be shot with "normal" camera equipment. I'm there!
(my Celestron T-Adapter had to go back, got a bad one, wouldn't stay locked in position):(
Now, to come up with a clever location... (ooh, our local mountains will probably have snow)

I think a snowy mountain will make an excellent shot for sure !

[Nighthound]

I think a snowy mountain will make an excellent shot for sure !

Boy, that's going to be tough to find here. :D How about a sand dune with some frost on it?

[renderwerks]

Boy, that's going to be tough to find here. :D How about a sand dune with some frost on it?

A little trickery in PS and that sand dune can be a snowy mountain :rolleyes:

About where are you located Steve?

[Adrena1in]

I might have to make a drive somewhere "nice" for this too...assuming the weather's going to be favourable of course. A shot out over the sea perhaps...

[Celestron]

Boy, that's going to be tough to find here. :D How about a sand dune with some frost on it?

I know it's possible for you Steve :D ! You have that in your area so it could happen !

[Jeff]

I like the monthly timeframe. Bad luck with the moon and a few days of clouds can put you out of action for awhile.

[renderwerks]

Really looking forward to doing this. No snow in our local mountains yet though. Might have to find an alternate location.

I thought I would post a few images from Stellarium of Dec 1, at 5:30pm, 6:30pm and 7:30pm (when Venus & Jupiter will drop below the horizon).

This is about 45 minutes after the sun drops below the horizon:
http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3166/3047405774_ccc2e4ed03_b.jpg
One hour later, 6:30pm on the west coast:
http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3009/3046570447_a99a358508_b.jpg
Different landscape to see the horizon @ 7:30pm:
http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3032/3047405030_2053aa8e9c_b.jpg

[Adrena1in]

That Stellarium looks really useful. I've just noticed I bookmarked something similar recently.

Neave Planetarium (http://www.neave.com/planetarium/)

Similar sort of thing...just an on-line version.

[renderwerks]

Wow, that's cool. Thanks for the link.

I really like Stellarium (http://www.stellarium.org/), it's the first program I found when I started looking into astro. It's helping me to learn the sky, and the rendering looks nice.

[Sorarse]

As I am still standing on the sidelines, waiting to dip my toes in the pool of astrophotography, this sounds like something I can join in to get me started. Excellent idea.

[renderwerks]

Should we (someone) create an entry over on the competitions section for our first monthly challenge?

What about rules? Stick with the "standard" that most use?
Something like:


Images to be shot on Dec 1, 2008
PP is up to the photographer
Entry deadline is __-__-2008
Multiple exposures or "stacking" is allowed
Entry must show conjunction of Jupiter, Venus and the Moon
One image per entry
One entry per member
Maximum image size per forum rules


We could create a poll for voting on the entrys and have a cut-off date for voting.

The winner could be the one to pick what the next challenge would be.

What do you think? Any ideas or suggestions?

I know this is the eleventh hour, but I just got home from a weekend trip and have been thinking about it most of the weekend. Perhaps a more formalized outline could be put together by members for the next one we come up with.

I do think it would be helpful if the first few we have are reasonably easy as we have many members new to this type of photography (me too :)) and we want to encourage as many as possible to get interested in astro...

[Adrena1in]

Perhaps a more formalized outline could be put together by members for the next one we come up with.

I do think it would be helpful if the first few we have are reasonably easy as we have many members new to this type of photography (me too :)) and we want to encourage as many as possible to get interested in astro...

When I first mentioned the challenge I did hope that it might become a bit more formalised. I know at Cloudynights.com it's one person, (I think), who does all the monthly challenge threads, along with the polls, and I would be happy to take on that role here as long as there were set guidelines...I don't want to be posting things in places where I'm not meant to, as I don't want to annoy the Admins.

If anyone is allowed to post in the Competitions Forum then I think it's a good idea to put something in there, but if not for today then at least for the next challenge, whatever that's going to be.

And yes, it would be nice for the first few if we can stick with astronomical objects that anyone can shoot...no point the winner of the Jupiter/Venus/Moon Conjunction suggesting The Rosette Nebula as the next item. ;)

[Sorarse]

Damn, it's cloudy here. :(

[Adrena1in]

Was clear when I got home, but then my battery ran out, then by the time I got some charge into it the clouds had rolled in. I didn't realise the moon was going to occult Venus, otherwise I would've come home an hour early and taken my 1200mm telescope to the local field to take a shot of that. Happens very rarely, so I'm a bit piffed off at the moment. I managed to shoot the moon and Jupiter before it had got dark, but that's all. :(

[hollis_f]

Was clear when I got home, but then my battery ran out, then by the time I got some charge into it the clouds had rolled in. I didn't realise the moon was going to occult Venus, otherwise I would've come home an hour early and taken my 1200mm telescope to the local field to take a shot of that. Happens very rarely, so I'm a bit piffed off at the moment. I managed to shoot the moon and Jupiter before it had got dark, but that's all. :(
You were lucky. The clouds hit here at 15:20 and stayed all night.

[Adrena1in]

You were lucky. The clouds hit here at 15:20 and stayed all night.

To see Venus appear from behind the moon, (naked eye viewing), was quite lucky I think, yes...I don't know how far-ranging the occultation was, but at least I saw it. I'm going to go and buy myself a second camera battery though, in case this sort of thing happens again.

[renderwerks]

I didn't have occultation here (Southern California), but the skies were clear. You could see the triangular formation long before sunset.

Unfortunately, we don't yet have snow in our local mountains, so that idea got nixed. I still took a drive up there (about 6000ft elevation) and shot the conjunction across a local lake called Lake Arrowhead.

I've yet to get the images out of the camera, but I bracketed like crazy. I shot mostly on the wide end of a Sigma 17-70. I should get a chance to get the images into the computer tonight and have a look.

Keeping my fingers crossed...:lol: