5/21/2010 night sky?

Son is borrowing a LX-200 Classic with an 80mm guide scope. He is wanting to go camping this Friday (if the weather cooperates) to try out astronomy. I wanted get some ideas for photogenic celestial objects viewable from Colorado. I understand Saturn is not tilted right for that wow factor. Neither of us have any experience with astrophotography but have done some reading on the subject. We will be shooting with a 1d4 using a CCD with PHD to guide the scope.

Saturn is always great, but hard to photograph with a DSLR (it's really small, and you need lots of frames to make a good composite image). It's still definitely worth a look through the eyepiece.

M44, the Beehive cluster, is pretty high in the west around 9:00 PM, and doesn't set until after 1:30 AM now. It's not that great for photography because it's very large, over 1.5 degrees in each dimension, but it's very nice to view.

There are many, many galaxies up there now, but most are quite faint and would be a significant challenge for a first-time astrophotographer. The brightest galaxy up there now is M81, which is pretty high in the northern sky all night.

There aren't many nebulas visible now because the galactic window is going over us, but if you're up late try to catch the Ring Nebula (M57) after midnight. It's easy to see and quite photogenic.

There are quite a few globular clusters up now, the brightest of which are M5, M13 and M3. All are great photography targets, and all will be high in the sky most of the night.

If you're up just before dawn, have a look at the closest, largest and brightest galaxy - M31, the Andromeda galaxy. It rises around 2:00 AM, and will be high enough in the northeast sky to view between 5:00 AM and 6:00 AM. You can try to photograph it, but it will be a little low for optimum photography until after the sun rises.

Have fun,

Don

Oh, yes, and don't forget the moon! You won't be able to ignore it, as it will be high and bright for several hours after sunset. Since it will get in the way of photographing the fainter objects, you might as well take advantage of the opportunity to grab some images of it.

Don

Did you capture anything, friesr?