Venus Transit View From Bangalore - 2012 June 06

Update on 2012-June-06 08:15 IST

Now I got clear pictures of the Venus transit (2012 June 06) from the terrace of the building where I live. This time I used my tripod effectively. In these new pictures, along with the Venus on the top left corner, you can see many sunspot groups spread over the solar disk. All these photographs are using my old Canon PowerShot S2 IS with a tele-convertor TC-DC58B. I used couple of x-ray films to adjust the brightness. Many times it was too difficult to adjust the brightness and point at the sun at the same time to get it in focus as the clouds made sudden and a lot of brightness change. Here are the pictures with the time of capture as title.

07:28 IST

07:29 IST

07:32 IST

07:32 IST

07:32 IST

07:32 IST

07:35 IST

07:43 IST

I got these first pictures of Venus Transit of 2012 June 6th from Bangalore around 06:35 am IST. I waited from 05:45am and at last, the sun peaked through the monsoon clouds for a small moment, and I could capture only these shaky pictures, the wind was very high at the apartment roof, and I could not hold the camera and the x-ray film firmly to get a better focus, by the time I reach again with my Tripod, the clouds again obscured the sun. These pictures are taken around 06:35 am IST.

Sunspots on Christmas Evening

Enlarge the three smaller pictures to see the sunspot seen on the same spot on the sun.

Sunspots were seen during the last few weeks or in the last couple of months with the naked eyes during sunsets when the sun dimmed enough and reddened enough. The clear winter skies aided to get a clear view of the till the last minute. The blogger was able to see it from his hometown – Payyampally, as well as from Bangalore evening skies. The pictures posted here are those one he seen during the Christmas Evening of 2011 from Hyderabad. He went up to the terrace of his brother’s apartment where he spent the Christmas of 2011 to get these photographs. After reading some articles in internet, the blogger confirmed that sunspots are something that can be viewed occasionally with naked eyes also. When he saw one, he was not sure whether he was seeing a bird flying away or towards him as spot on the sun, he continued watching it for a few days where a clear sunset was visible and confirmed that what he was seeing are indeed sunspots. He took multiple photos and examined then to discover that the dark spots are indeed at the same spot and therefore are sunspots but not birds.

Sunspots seen from Bangalore

You can see a dark spot slightly towards the left of the center of sun and a group of spots towards the right of the center of the sun, further minute dark spots might not be a sunspots but noise in the image. Enlarge the smaller images to see the spots repeating at the same spot on sun.

Sunspots were seen during the last few weeks or in the last couple of months with the naked eyes during sunsets when the sun dimmed enough and reddened enough. The clear winter skies aided to get a clear view of the till the last minute. The blogger was able to see it from his hometown – Payyampally, as well as from Bangalore evening skies. These pictures are from Bangalore. After reading some articles in internet, the blogger confirmed that sunspots are something that can be viewed occasionally with naked eyes also. When he saw one, he was not sure whether he was seeing a bird flying away or towards him as spot on the sun, he continued watching it for a few days where a clear sunset was visible and confirmed that what he was seeing are indeed sunspots. He took multiple photos and examined then to discover that the dark spots are indeed at the same spot and therefore are sunspots but not birds.

Lunar Eclipse 2011 December 10 - A Video Footage

Photos are posted in the link below

http://deepugeorge.blogspot.com/2011/12/lunar-eclipse-2011-december-10th-view.html

Here is a video footage of the complete Lunar Eclipse that happened today (10th December 2011). It is shot from my home town Payyampally, where the clear sky of December without any light pollution gave a very good view of the milky way, and apart from this celestial event, I could also watch a very bright meteor falling towards the northern side which I was not at all prepared to capture. Jupiter and Venus ruled the sky apart from this grant celestial event of Eclipse. Payyampally is situated at the northern part of Wayanad and is still not too light polluted, but good places for star watching are very rare, and the sky gives a clear view during a short time span over a year. When I am editing this post, the eclipse is not yet over. The video is taken some were between 7:30 pm IST and 8:00 pm IST when Moon was about to be completely shadowed by Earth.

Lunar Eclipse - 2011 December 10th - A view from Payyampally

Videos are posted in the link below

http://deepugeorge.blogspot.com/2011/12/lunar-eclipse-2011-december-10-video.html

Here are few shots of the complete Lunar Eclipse that happened today (10th December 2011). These shots are take n from my home town Payyampally, where the clear sky of December without any light pollution gave a very good view of the milky way, and apart from this celestial event, I could also watch a very bright meteor falling towards the northern side which I was not at all prepared to capture. Jupiter and Venus ruled the sky apart from this grant celestial event of Eclipse. Payyampally is situated at the northern part of Wayanad and is still not too light polluted, but good places for star watching are very rare, and the sky gives a clear view during a short time span over a year. When I am editing this post, the eclipse is not yet over.

Parhelion

The Wikipedia definition says that “a sundog is an atmospheric phenomenon that creates bright spots of light in the sky, often on a luminous ring or halo on either side of the sun”. You can read more about sundog in http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sun_dog.This picture was shot from the terrace of the apartment in Electronic city phase 2 in Bangalore where I was living for a while. I noticed this when I was just walking on the terrace of the apartment on a normal evening. This was the first time I was witnessing this phenomenon, before that I had seen the pictures of sundog in the “Astronomy Picture of the Day” website of NASA. I ran back to my apartment to get hold of my camera so that I could take pictures before it vanished.

 

 

Solar Eclipse

Solar Eclipse that happened on 15th Jan 2010 was an annular eclipse. Scientists calculated that this is the longest annular eclipse of the millennium. The eclipse could be seen in its completeness from Dhanushkodi, the nearest place to Srilanka in India. It was a working day for me, and I went out to see if I can photograph the event. Since, the eclipse was partial in Bangalore; the sun was still brighter so that my camera could not get the actual shape of the eclipsed sun. It only gave the impression of a very bright ball in the picture. I tried with the minimum aperture and maximum shutter speed in my camera (Canon Powershot S2 IS). Still I could not get the actual view. Lot of people assembled there to watch the event. One guy came with an x ray film and helped me to photograph the event. Yes, it worked. I placed the X-Ray film on top of the lens, and adjusted the aperture and shutter speed. After two or three trials, I could compute the required values for aperture and shutter speed, and got these images. Dhanushkodi is an interesting place to visit, a big tragedy happened there long before. You can read about this place in Wikipedia in the link (Dahnushkodi)

More info about this solar eclipse can be found in Wikipedia in the following link. Solar Eclipse - 15th Jan 2010

Mars

I was trying to capture Mars using full digital and optical zoom during one of the closest Earth-Mars approach in 2009, and this is what I got.

Our Nature Satellite

Still people love to make myths around our only natural satellite, the Moon.

A Stary Sky from Wayanad - December 2008

The above picture was taken from Payyampally during my Christmas vacation. I went to the school play ground of St. Catherine’s HSS around 10.00 PM with my camera and tripod to have this picture. In the above image you can easily spot the familiar constellation in the Sky – The hunter (Orion). Click on the image to get the enlarged version and spot it. In the future I hope to buy a camera and telescope that will help me to have better quality astronomical images. I am in the process of learning about telescopes.

Sky Show - Dececember 2008

The December night Sky of 2008 was ruled by Moon, Jupiter and Venus. The conjunction of these three celestial objects in the formation of the shape of a smiley is already published in the earlier posts. Still the planet Venus stays the brightest object in the evening sky after Sun & Moon. Tomorrow, Planet Venus will be again visible very near to the crescent Moon in the evening. Given above are some pictures taken by hand held shot using my Canon S2 IS. These images were taken during my long driving task from office to home (Mysore road to Electronic City) during the last one months duration.

Astronomical Photography – Exp 4

Just wanted to post this photo of our own satellite – The MOON.

Astronomical Photography – Exp 3

The three celestial objects; Venus, Jupiter & Moon had a close approach in the evening sky and the formation resembled a smiley. I was on the way back to home after office hours; there was not a tripod in my hand. Somehow I managed to get this photograph by placing the camera on top of my car. The 15 seconds exposure left a small trail of the three objects, which you can clearly see in the above picture. The evening was a little bit cloudy, and you can see those clouds also in the above picture. The brightest object other than Moon in the above picture is Venus, and then comes Jupiter.

Astronomical Photography – Exp 2

The crescent shaped earth’s moon and the planet (frankly speaking, I don’t know which planet it is), came little bit closer than the previous day. This time I photographed the event from the terrace of my rented flat in Himagiri Green Forest. I was having enough time and the tripod with me. So I was able to avoid the hand held shakes. The night sky is so polluted in Bangalore so that, the fainter stars were merely visible or not at all visible. The smoke pollution and light pollution in the city will never give a chance for the Bangaloreeans to see and enjoy the beauty of the night sky. The situation is becoming even worse day by day. The sky becomes little bit clear only after a rain, and that too does not last for more than 24 hours. Few stars other than the bright moon and the planets can be spotted at top of the photograph, which was more clear in the original uncompressed picture.

Astronomical Photography – Exp 1

The crescent shaped earth’s moon and the planet (frankly speaking, I don’t know which planet it is), came so close and was the brightest object in the evening sky during the Deepavali of 2008. The night sky is so polluted in Bangalore so that, the fainter stars were merely visible or not at all visible. This photo was taken while I was commuting back to home from office. I reached the hilly area near Rajarajeshwari Nagar in South Bangalore, (Near by Sakthi Resorts and NICE road) when the sky was not lit up too much by the city lights.