The months of August and September were way too busy for me to take pictures just for fun. However, a few nights, after the nights shooting I took some time to aim my camera up at the sky. Now I know why astronomers went into digital in a big way. Here are some of the results.
I cropped this shot, the Moon was only about one third of this size in the viewfinder, the focal length is about 450mm.
Here is Mars taken through a 320mm lens. I enhanced the contrast afterwards to make
some stars appear too. Even so, Mars is overexposed, which is why it appears yellow
instead of red.
Then I just aimed the camera up into the sky. The images are slightly contrast enhanced to bring out the fainter stars. The first shot is at 112mm while the second is at 280mm. The exposure is 4s at f2.8 at an equivalent film speed of 1600ISO.
I then switched to an 80mm lens and re-aimed the camera lower down. In this contrast enhanced shot you can actually see the silhouete of the trees against the sky glow in the east. The glow is more intense to the south over Toronto. By now it is 1AM in the morning.
