Timelapse through space no.2

Timelapse through space no.2

// Sunset behind trees, constellation Orion, Mars and Moon in the night sky//

Hello everyone!
I had fun putting all this together today.
Hope you enjoy as much as I do. 

You can watch more Timelapses from our Astronomy Club Toutatis HERE.

Stefan Lamoureux
Kustavi, Finland

Time Lapse Through Space: Pleiades Sisters chasing Jupiter in meteor shower

Hello everyone!
This time on Links Through Space we concocted a time lapse of the Pleiades (the seven sisters) chasing Jupiter in the night sky all during the Orionids meteor shower. You can see meteors, Jupiter and the Pleiades dashing through the sky! Many airplanes fly in the neighborhood too.
Video by Tapani Isomäki and music by Kevin MacLeod

This is best seen in HD. Switch to 1080p in the bottom of the video frame. 
This is a Time Lapse of 436 shots packed in 1:05 minutes of pure chase in the celestial vault. Look how Jupiter tip toes away from the following Pleiades.

Canon 550D/ tripod/ 18mm/ ISO 1600/ exp: 436x30s./ Interval: 15s. 
EOS utilities/ Resized and animated on Photoshop.

You can watch more Timelapses from our Astronomy Club Toutatis HERE

ORIONIDS METEOR SHOWER THIS WEEK END 21-22 OCTOBER 2011

Constellation of Orion

The Orionids meteor shower is this week end!

On friday October 21 around 24h00 Finnish time (21h00 UT) and on the dawn of Saturday October 22 (early hours of the morning) the Orionids meteor shower are expected.

The Orionids is an average shower producing about 20 meteors per hour at their peak. It is not the most powerful meteor shower of the year, but it is worth a look.
The radiant (direction from where they come) is just north-east of the constellation Orion. If you can find the bright orange star Betelgeuse, you are almost in the radiant. never the less, look at the entire sky for the meteors, if you catch one, the sight is pretty impressive!
The picture at the left is a meteor from the draconids meteor shower on October 8th 2011. It was a great feeling to capture one on camera...great!!!!
Remember the best way to look at meteor showers is to have a comfortable recliner-chair or simply a blanket (or yoga mat) on the ground and face up the sky. You dont really need nothing more than your eyes, little nocturne pic-nic and good company. Of course if you have a camera and tripod, it is worth to take it with you. 
Dark places like the country side or parks in your neighborhood is good places to go for these events.
I will be at home in the island of  Kustavi where our starclub is due this week end, and hope there will be lots of people participating. If you are in south Finland and want to join us, just contact us Here.
I hope you join the fun and good luck!

1ST PICTURE OF JUPITER with Meade ETX-70

1st picture of Jupiter with Meade ETX-70

Hello everyone!
Yesterday I gave it a shot and went to one of my favorite places to view the night sky near the city of Turku where i live when i am at work. At Haunistenallas (artificial lake Hauninen) the sky was clear and I had a chance to set up my Meade ETX-70.
I had it set up with my canon 550D for a positive projection type of astrophotography (camera connected to eyepiece in adapter connected to telescope). It was a real challenge but I manage to take a few shots and then just to see how far I can go I added a 3x barlow lens to the set up.

I have to say, the Meade ETX-70 is to small to have a heavy load like it. The clamps dont hold anymore. never the less, I took this image of Jupiter that I processed in gimp and enlarged at 150%. Not really a sharp picture, but you can still notice the bands on the surface of the planet.

All in all it was a good experience and I am happy with my first picture of Jupiter in my Meade ETX-70.

Here are the specs of the shot: Meade ETX-70/ Canon 550D (positve projection) 25mm/ISO 800/ exp:1/160/processed Gimp.

Tapani Isomäki
Kustavi, Finland

Poor Draconid meteor shower but wonderful auroras borealis!!!!!

Click on photo to enlarge

Hello everyone!
On october 8th me and a friend went outside to see the Draconid meteor shower. We stood there with our cameras in place and waited for the big light show. The cameras where on tripods and programed to take a picture every 10 seconds. The exposure time was 8 seconds to 13 seconds.
In two hours we saw about 20 shooting stars, and not really brights ones ether.
The Moon was in the south-east behind the trees, but still was bright. The sky was clear and the very close city lights did'nt bother us to much.
But still no meteor shower as we where expecting!

In the middle of a routine "dew off" of the lens on my camera, I noticed on the picture some faint greenish lights, i could'nt believe it, it was the auroras borealis that came to visit us here in southern Finland.

That made my night and i was very happy to have taken the risk to go out and see the Draconids and at the end to see the northern lights. It was simply amazing!
You can go see our astrophotos of the Draconids and of the northern lights on our FLICKR page HERE

Here is also a time lapse of the Northern lights, check it out its pretty cool!
If dont see the time lapse well, you can go and see it in FLICKR HERE

Remember to go outside and look at the night sky, you never know what you could see.

GREAT WEEKEND! GREAT NIGHT SKY!

Our Milky Way Galaxy

Hello everyone!
This weekend we held our astronomy club at a friends cottage.
The night sky was amazing, friday and saturday no clouds at all.
We had planned to look at the comet Garradd and photograph the Milky Way. At the end, we didn't find comet Garradd and we had problems with the milky way photos.
But nevertheless, we saw a very large meteor falling to Earth and we reported it to the Finnish astronomy society. The next day we saw in the news that a meteorite had fallen in Mikkeli eastern Finland.
We also took a glimpse at the Sun and saw its huge sunspots.
Take a look at the astrophotos here --->
Next month we are back in Kustavi for new thrilling stargazing.
Until then, remember to go outside and look at the night sky.