Astronomy Articles

How does one see - much less photograph - a solar eclipse when it is cloudy? Bring the right telescope of course - the "cloud clearing" one I own. The photos turned out okay too.

My technique is to use my finger to brace the camera over the eyepiece by placing said finger between the phone and eyepiece itself - just propping it up there. The phone initially thinks it's looking at darkness, so when I do finally manage to locate the Sun with the camera, the exposure gets 'blown out" for a few seconds until it can compensate for the brighter image. Then, I carefully control my breathing - sometimes I feel like a sniper - taking my shots by tapping the phone lightly to take the picture when the screen has a sharp image that isn't vibrating too much due to my finger being between the scope/camera

Afocal photography used to be "Hold a film camera to the eyepiece of your telescope and hope you get something good." With cell phone cameras, we can actually see what we are capturing right then and there - though, it does need to be VERY steady skies and a lot of magnification to get anything good.

Light. It either bounces around, is absorbed, or - as in most cases - there's a little bit of both happening. So what exactly has to occur for us to see the non-sunlit side of the Moon despite there not being any direct sunlight on it?

Space is big. REALLY big. In fact, it is a bit difficult to actually imagine just how big it is. And then I found a site where.... well, OMG. SPACE. It's big. REALLY big.