Wide Field Imaging In a Local Park In NJ

 Hillsborouugh Township. NJ is very supportive towards our use of the parks for astronomy and imaging. They let us use them after dark and in the past, I've had star parties with sometimes with as many as 120 members of the public showing up.

Recently, I used the darker skies with NJAA members Kah-Wai Lin and Len Cacciator to practice setting up our new equipment... I'll post images as they are taken.

Below: Kah-Wai is setting up his new Williams Optics 51mm and guide scope to his Sony Z6 for a shot.

Below: Len Cacciatore is polar aligning his AVX mount to his new Canon.

 

New member and professional photographer, Kah-Wai Lin's first attempt at imaging Mars

 Kah-Wai and I spent the early morning hours of 10 October 2020 in NJAA's Luna 2 observatory imaging Mars. Here's his Mars Portrait using the club's 14" Edge.

Thanks for sharing Kah-Wai.

Keith 

Another attempt at getting better omages of Mars

 Taking good planetary images is much more difficult than I thought....

Here's my 6 October 2020 attempt and the post I put on my Facebook page. Not great but possibly better than my previous tries.

Keith

 Friday night, Oct 2nd, I got my camera out for a very close Lunar/Mars conjunction ~ only about 1.5° separation. I took these shots only 26 minutes before the actual conjunction.

Also, the moon is 98.52% illuminated, so it's just past it's full moon stage and on Saturday the 3rd, at about 2pm EDT, it will be at it's furthest distance from Earth in it's slightly elliptical orbit, at 406,282km or 252,451.9 miles.