Tom Hughes (舒大同) | Research Fellow in Extragalactic Astrophysics

TomHughes Research Fellow in Extragalactic Astrophysics

  • Home
  • Research
  • Publications
  • Slides
  • Posters
  • Thesis
  • Blog
  • About
  • CV (PDF)
Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimetre Array Arecibo Observatory Atacama Pathfinder EXperiment Palomar Observatory Very Large Telescope Arecibo Observatory VISTA Xinglong Observatory

Imaging the Moon with an iPhone

Posted on 11/09/2014 by Tom

…attached to a 12-inch diameter telescope!

Studying the night sky has been a passion since long before heading to university to study astrophysics. I’ve collected a number of telescopes over the years, including a 3-inch Cassegrain,
8-inch Dobsonian, and some smaller scopes for experimentation.

However, my most prized possession is my 12-inch Meade LX90GPS pictured on the left. It cost a small fortune, but is an absolute beast that allows observing deep sky objects with relative ease compared to my smaller scopes.

Sadly, the sheer size of the thing means its totally impractical for me to easily move around whilst working abroad. Factoring in the heavy tripod, a case of eyepieces/leads/filters, and some other less-useful accessories, it quickly becomes a huge headache. The overlapping region of the Venn diagram depicting “At Home In UK”, “Free Time”, and “Clear Skies” is extremely small, leading to a highly limited number of days when I can go observing with the 12-inch.

Spending the weekend with friends in a countryside holiday cottage in the UK’s Peak District gave the perfect opportunity to return to some amateur astronomy with this telescope. Luckily, the usual British (i.e. damp, grey, and overcast) weather cleared for one day and night and we were able to observe some stuff.

We first turned the scope to the Moon, which is currently at perigee and may appear 14% larger and 30% brighter – the so-called Supermoon phenomenon. With a 26 mm Plossl eyepiece on the 12-inch, the entire surface of the Moon does not fit in the field of view. However, the level of detail available due to the magnification is amazing. The Moon was not quite full, giving the craters towards the edge a three-dimensional appearance that contrasted with the flatter plains across the disc. We zoomed in using 9 mm and 6 mm eyepieces, studying individual craters.

My friends wanted to take some photos to capture these beautiful views. In the past, I’ve wasted many hours trying astrophotography. I could never afford a digital SLR camera, and instead tried a variety of cheaper alternatives including modified webcams and the Meade Planetary Imager, with limited success. We tried piggybacking a Sony compact digital camera, but we couldn’t seem to focus the image on the camera CCD.

Interestingly, our iPhone 4 and 4S models were not only able to quickly focus on the image at the eyepiece, but also adjust the contrast to avoid saturation from the bright moon. Some of our better results are shown below – I find they seem to nicely capture the curvature / spherical nature of the Moon, which so often appears just as a flat circle in the sky. The images are mostly centered around the Tycho Crater, Mare Nubium (Sea of Clouds) and Mare Humorium (Sea of Moisture). Amazing what you can do with your mobile phone these days.

After a few hours, I spent some time locating and observing the Hercules globular cluster (M13), which appeared as a fuzzy blob, and the Andromeda Galaxy (M31), which appeared as a larger fuzzy blob. Afterwards, however, the observing was cut short – I had forgotten the dew shield to protect the telescope from moisture and the lens was fogging up with condensation. D’oh!

Click on each image below to see the full size version.










Posted in Astronomy | Tagged iPhone, Moon, observing, telescope | Comments Off on Imaging the Moon with an iPhone

Blogposts

  • Recent Posts

    • MethylCal: Results published in FASEB Journal
    • Award of the China-Chile Fellowship
    • Observing at APEX (Run #2)
    • The Valparaíso ALMA Line Emission Survey
    • Atacama Large Millimetre/submillimetre Array
  • Recent Comments

    • sravani on Solutions to errors with APLpy show_regions()
    • Tom Hughes (舒大同) | Postdoctoral researcher of galaxy evolution on MethylCal: Results presented in Switzerland
  • Archives

    • August 2017
    • June 2017
    • February 2017
    • December 2016
    • January 2016
    • September 2015
    • March 2015
    • November 2014
    • October 2014
    • September 2014
    • July 2014
    • June 2014
    • May 2014
    • March 2014
    • January 2014
    • November 2013
    • October 2013
    • September 2013
    • August 2013
    • July 2013
  • Categories

    • Astronomy
    • Code
    • Data Analysis
    • Languages
    • Postdoc Life
    • Programming
    • Research
    • Science
    • Travel
  • Meta

    • Log in
    • Entries feed
    • Comments feed
    • WordPress.org

Jump to...

  • Home
  • Blog
  • Contact me

Disclaimer

    All content provided on this blog is for informational purposes only. The views presented here are personal and not necessarily those of my employer, and I make no representations as to the accuracy or completeness of any information on this site or found by following any link on this site. The owner will not be liable for any errors or omissions in this information nor for the availability of this information. The owner will not be liable for any losses, injuries, or damages from the display or use of this information. (If you manage to injure yourself reading this page, my advice is to stay off the internet in future.)


    Find me on

View Facebook profile View Twitter feed View LinkedIn profile
View ResearchGate profile View ResearchGate profile View Vox Charta profile

Contact me

Address: Instituto de Física y Astronomía
         Universidad de Valparaíso
         Av. Gran Bretaña 1111
         Valparaíso, Chile

        

Telephone: +56 9 9901 3258
FAX: +56 32 2508230
Skype: txhughes
E-mail: thomas.hughes (at) uv.cl

Last update: 01/08/2017

© Copyright T. M. Hughes 2009-2017.