Clear Skies and Blurry Photos

My first-ever telescope arrives this Wednesday and wouldn't you know it? After weeks of uncharacteristically crystal clear skies, living near the coast finally rears its head and throws humidity and cloud cover our way. I hope it clears out so I don't have to wait even longer to start playing with my new toy.

I found this handy site that forecasts handy attributes of the sky. The "Seeing" row indicates times that are ideal for stargazing. And the "Darkness" row measures relative darkness of the overall sky. According to this, the darkest hour really is just before dawn (right now, at least), just after the moon sets.

The sky was so clear a couple weeks ago that I was actually able to see and photograph (using a telephoto lens on my dSLR) Jupiter and one of its moons, Ganymede. Through binoculars (if I could hold them steady long enough - this was after a glass of wine) I could clearly see both bodies. I set up my dSLR on a tripod to photograph the two and this is the best I could get:

10-7-2010, 9:02 p.m.

I know it's grainy. And out of focus, and overexposed, etc. It was the best I could do given my equipment! (Incidentally, it was the very evening before I decided to buy the telescope.) The picture on the bottom left is another shot taken right before the one on the top. Interestingly, although there's a blur from me hitting the tripod, the bodies are clearer - and there's even a little streak coming from Callisto. On the right is a scientifically accurate software render of the formation of Jupiter and its brighter moons at that exact time that same evening. (Io is the moon at the 2:00 mark close to Jupiter.) Not too shabby if you ask me. I sincerely hope the telescope and astrophotography kit arriving this week can do better. Stay tuned...