Oot and Aboot with Some Canadian Skeptic

Tonight, I took a trip around the solar system, photographing some objects better than I ever have, and even photographing an object for the first time, and is a rare-treat for amateur astronomers because it's so dim and distant. You've already seen the best picture I took of the moon in yesterday's post, so here's the rest of the results.

Venus & Mars, taken with the telephoto:


Mars, taken with the Telephoto:


Jupiter, Taken with the 8", 3x barlow, and Canon Rebel XT:

Saturn, taken from 3 still-frames of an .avi file, shot with a Canon Powershot A430, aimed through the 3x barlow on the 8":

Neptune, taken with the 8", 3x barlow and Canon Rebel XT:

Neptune & Jupiter, taken with the telephoto:

Jupiter is the bright one in the bottom left with the two bright little moons orbiting (from left to right they're Europa and Ganymede), Neptune is that really dim dot at the upper-centre. The brighter dot at the right is a star is the constellation Capricorn.

Neptune and Jupiter are really close together right now in the sky, and once they move apart later this month, they will never appear to be that close in our lifetime. So if you have some decent gear, get out there and catch this once-in-a-lifetime opportunity!