This Canada Day weekend Angela and I drove up to Lothlorien Farm for what turned out to be a pretty big family reunion / pregnancy (not Angela's!) / impending knee surgery (not mine!) / Canada Day party.

The Farm is located deep in the backcountry of Eastern Ontario, and the skies there are usually very clear, so my dad suggested that I bring my new telescope. However, all of the forecasts I read said that the weekend would be cloudy and rainy the whole time. So, I decided against risking my telescope on such a long journey.

It did rain every day we were there, but on Sunday night the skies cleared and we were treated to an amazing show of stars. I like to think that I had some part of making that happen. I am sure that if I had brought my telescope it would have remained cloudy.

Anyway, this is a photo I took just before we got into our tent to go to sleep. I used my fisheye lens to capture almost the entire night sky as it looked from where we were camped. The object that drew the most attention that night was Jupiter, which was shining so bright that I had trouble believing that it was real. In this photo, Jupiter is the bright spot close to the bottom right. You can also clearly see the summer triangle right in the centre of the frame.

Jupiter and the stars around the outside of the photo are slightly blurred because I had the aperture wide open and this isn't the highest quality lens in the world. Actually, it is the cheapest. However, it is worth every cent for shots like these, in my opinion.

Technical details: This photo was taken with my Rebel XT + Peleng 8mm fisheye at ISO 1600, f/3.5 for 30 seconds.

Comments

Wow...I'm still not sure I believe that was Jupiter. Awesome picture. The
summer triangle really stands out.  

Nice capture.  Too bad you didn't at least take your binoculars, I'm sure the
views would have been quite nice.

Yes, I ordered a tripod and mount for my binocs but they did not arrive in
time, and my camera tripod is simply too weak to be of any use.  My new gear
will probably arrive this week or next.  I sprung for a Universal Astronomics
T-Mount with an Oberwerk surveyer tripod.  Hopefully it does the trick!

I can't believe the horizon line still had so much colour in it so late at
night. Very cool pic.

Yea the UA T-Mount will definitely do the trick.  The Oberwerk surveyor tripod
is pretty nice too, though somewhat heavy.  One piece of advice, don't try to
move the tripod with the T-Mount and binos attached, it becomes a juggling act
usually with a sad ending.