# 119 | Lunar Halo
Quite common in the winter when there are high-altitude cirrus clouds cover the sky, a lunar halo is the result of moonlight being refracted by hexagonal ice crystals.
Stuart Heggie took this image on a cold January night at 2:00 a.m. in Flesherton, Ontario. He used a Nikon F2 camera with a Zenitar 16mm fisheye lens set at f2.8, taking a 30-second exposure with Supra 400 film.
# 118 | The Sword of Orion
What appears to the naked eye as only three stars, the sword of Orion is in fact one of the sky's most beautiful areas to observe. Binoculars will show the sword's middle star to be a small puff of smoke while a telescope reveals it to be a showcase of nebulosity. Telescopic observers should be easily be able to discern the trapezium, four stars that make up the centre of the nebula.
Claude Fortin of Beaupré, Québec using a Canon 300D digital camera coupled to a SkyWatcher 120mm refractor took nine 60-second images and one 35-second image at ISO 1600 which were then processed together with Photoshop. A Baader Contrast Booster filter was also used.
# 117 | The Moon Meets Venus
Anyone looking to the west shortly after sunset on January 24th would have noticed a striking celestial scene in the sky: Venus and the 3-day old crescent Moon were having a close conjunction. With brilliant Venus and the silvery Moon contrasting against the colourful sunset, many of those who submitted images to SkyNews noted it was a beautiful sight to behold.
Robert Adye of Belleville, Ontario took this one-second image of the pair using a Canon G3 digital camera at f3.2.
# 116 | Tails of Star Trails
For those that love to view the nightsky through different telescopes, a star party can be the ultimate experience to provide memorable views to last a lifetime. From small backyard telescopes to monster-sized Dobsonians where ladders are needed to get to the eyepiece, they all can be found and observed through at a star party.
Julie Tomé, who attended Starfest 2002, took this image of the Kingston RASC's truss-tube Dobsonian telescope. Observers with red lights illuminated the telescope and surrounding area while a weak aurora provided a colourful background for Julie's 40-minute exposure.
Julie used an Olympus OM-1 camera with a 50mm lens set at f1.8 and Kodak Max 800 print film.
# 115 | Barnard 142 and 143
Located near the star Altair (at left), Barnard 142 and 143 are irregular shaped dark nebula, seen only because they are obscuring the light from the stars of the Milky Way behind them.
Robert Lenz of St. Catherines, Ontario took this image at Starfest 2003. Robert took his shot with a Takahashi E130 astrograph mounted on a Super Polaris mount accompanied by a Celestron C5 as a guide scope. Kodak Elite 200 film was used and was pushed two stops during developing.
# 114 | Saturn
On December 31, 2003, Saturn was at opposition, it's closest point to Earth for the year. This opposition was a favourable one for Saturn observers because the planet is currently situated so that from our viewing angle it's rings are seen nearly as open as they possibly can be. Saturn can be found rising high in the east soon after sunset and can be observed for the next few months.
Claude Boivin of Saint Félicien, Quebec, took this image of Saturn on December 28, 2003. Note the easily visible Cassini division in the rings (visible even in small telescopes), the coloured bands on the planet and the different shadings of the rings themselves.
Claude used a Celestron 11" Schmidt-Cassegrain telescope operating at f30 with a 3x barlow and a Quickcam Pro 3000 webcam to take the images. With Registax, Clause stacked the best 500 images out of the 1000 he took that evening.
# 113 | NGC 6946
Located approximately 10 million light-years away in the constellation Cepheus, galaxy NGC 6946 distinctly shows a core full of older, yellow-coloured stars. Looking closely at the spiral arms reveals several red star-like patches which are nebulas giving birth to new stars.
Paul Zelichowski took this image, a stack of ten10-minute exposures, from his observatory in Tilverton, Ontario using a 10" reflector mounted on a Losmandy G11 with a Starlight Xpress SXVH9C colour One Shot CCD.
# 112 | The Horsehead Nebula
Aptly named because of it's distinctive resemblance, the Horsehead Nebula is an illusive visual target but reveals itself much easier upon being imaged. Located in the constellation Orion, it is an area of gas and dust obscuring the brighter nebula behind it.
Albert Saikaley did 150 minutes of imaging combined over two nights from his backyard in Ottawa, Ontario using a Celestron C11 Schmidt-Cassegrain telescope at f4 and an ST-7E NABG CCD camera (LRBG 60:30:30:30 minutes with RGB's 2x2 binned) to capture the nebula. Image processing was done with AIP4WIN and Photoshop.
# 111 | Simple Star Trails
Sometimes the most simple shot can achieve spectacular results. Shaun Lowe, while doing some observing at the Halifax RASC's observatory in St. Croix, Nova Scotia last August, decided to take a star trail image and drive his car along the road to add an interesting effect to the foreground.
Shaun simply took his Pentax K1000 and left shutter open for about 10 minutes and set his 28mm lens to f3.5.
# 110 | Sun Pillars
Those who travel towards the east on their way to work early in the morning this time of year may notice what appears to be a ray of light shooting upward from the Sun as it crests the horizon.
Called Sun pillars, they are caused by falling ice crystals which have formed in high, thin clouds and are quite common to see. When the crystals are aligned correctly, a pillar results. Street lights can also form similar pillars on a frosty, foggy night.
Lukas Gornisiewicz of Medicine Hat, Alberta took this image on November 21, 2003. Lukas reports that the details visible were much more pronounced when he first saw the phenomenon but by the time he was able to set up his camera, it had somewhat faded. The curse of the astrophotographer!
Lukas used his camera on the automatic setting at ISO 400 and a 24 mm lens.