The Wine Commonsewer™

Venus Transits Old Mr Sol

Good Morning Gentle Readers,

My friend, Warren, got some stunning photos of Venus crossing in front of the sun on Tuesday. The shots were taken from City of Rocks in New Mexico.

Warren's Notes

Here's the scoop: I used my Canon EOS 5dMk2 camera body attached directly to the back of my TeleVue 76 astronomical refractor telescope..... this is called prime focus, as opposed to eyepiece projection. Essentially the telescope becomes a telephoto lens with a focal length of about 300mm. Technically it's f/0 (full aperture). Exposure times varied from 1/800 to 1/8000, most are around 1/5000. The objective lens of the telescope is covered by a Lumicon glass solar filter which lets roughly 1% of the sun's light through.

As Always,

TWC

Image used by permission and is copyright (all rights reserved)

Cassini Saturn Fly By Animation

Good Morning Gentle Readers,

Filmmaker Stephen Van Vuuren's breathtaking visual fly-by of Saturn isn't computer-generated or enhanced with CGI or 3D effects. What you see are a huge number of high-resolution still images animated in sequence to create full motion using a "2.75D" photographic fly-through technology.

It is awesome:

As Ever,

TWC