Sunset over the Oquirrh Mountains

Fireball scene over the Oquirrh Mountains tonight. Complete with cell phone tower. Taken with a Canon 550D, Tamron 18-270 zoomed to 270, 1/1000 sec exposure, F-stop 13. There are a couple of sunspots. One is at about the 4 o'clock position, towards the center.

Transit of Venus through the clouds

A nice accent to the transit. Taken with a Canon 550D, Tamron 18-270mm lens, zoomed to 270mm.

Venus in Transit through the Cell Phone Tower

It was totally cloudy until right before sunset. We were lucky to see the transit. Taken with a Canon 550D, Tamron 18-270mm lens, zoomed to 270.

Sunspot AR1476 moving across the Sun's face

I will leave the sun alone after this post, at least until the Eclipse next week, (fingers crossed for no blocking cloud cover). My Baader AstroSolar Safety Film does an excellent job of filtering the sun, but I wanted the sun to be "Yellow". So, I used the free download, "The GIMP" to alter the color.

It turned out quite nice.

Sunspot AR1476

Shown here is what is being called Sunspot AR1476. The diameter is 12 times the diameter of the earth.

The images were taken two days apart, on 7 and 9 May. Clouds provide an interesting effect on the second picture. Taken with a Canon 550D, Baader Film filter cover for my Tamron 18-270mm Zoom. Heavily cropped in IrfanView.

Current Sunspot Picture - Backyard Special

I am practicing for the Solar Eclipse, occuring on 20 May, so I was very happy for this image with the sunspot.. This picture was taken from my backyard today, using a Canon 550D with a Tamron 18-270mm lens zoomed to 270mm. Image was heavily cropped using IrfanView. Shutter 1/1000 second, f 6.3, ISO 100. The most important thing was a home-made protective lens cover using Baader AstroSolar Safety Film, Optical Density 5.0. My thanks to Bob and team at Alpine Astronomical, LLC, www.alpineastro.com, for being such a reliable provider of this film.