Was out doing some yard work-it's that time. I took the trusty SX60 with me because I noticed that the male Goldfinches were acquiring their breeding plumage. You can see here the spots of yellow on the males as the old feathers are slowly replaced:



Almost time for the ladies to say, "Looking good there, Goldie!"

But they're still arguing over who owns that perch:



So later I went out to check out the conjunction of planets but it was a little disappointing as it wasn't much of a conjunction. Jupiter was almost to the horizon and Mercury, well, it's just hard to see anyway, and Venus was much higher in the sky and the Moon was almost overhead!

I tried to get, then, a good shot of Venus as we had pretty clear skies but I was having trouble with the SX60's focus. Now, as much as I like the SX60, the manual focusing system just plain sucks. I was trying to use that, which I have successfully used before, but no matter where I set the indicator I could not get a sharp image. And even tho I have used the auto-focus shooting the night sky-as long as the object is bright enough, like Jupiter, e.g.-it would not lock onto Venus. So if anyone can offer an explanation I'd be happy. Hope it's not something going wrong...

OK, as the conjunction was meh, the Moon was bright enough for the auto-focus so I just shot an image of it at the first quarter:



Thx for looking in.

---

Disclaimer: This post is checked for correct spelling, punctuation, and grammar. Any attempts at humor are solely the responsibility of the author and bear no claim that any and all readers will approve or appreciate said attempt at humor.
My name is DP, and I approve this message.

"Show me the man and I’ll show you the crime."- Lavrentiy Beria

Lovely pics, thanks for sharing. As to the focusing issue, it might be that the subject was too small for the focusing system to identify.

It worked before with Jupiter, tho, and it's not as bright as Venus. That's what's bugging me...

---

Disclaimer: This post is checked for correct spelling, punctuation, and grammar. Any attempts at humor are solely the responsibility of the author and bear no claim that any and all readers will approve or appreciate said attempt at humor.
My name is DP, and I approve this message.

"Show me the man and I’ll show you the crime."- Lavrentiy Beria

Nice photos! Thanks for sharing!

---

JoeM

DP...

I enjoy your photos posted above. Do the birds drop off loose change for the feed?

Curious, being a newbie with some simple camera gear, I have a couple of questions:

(1) Do you recall the lens and exposure settings for your moon shot? Nice picture. (I was playing around with moon shots late last year. Plan to get out there and try again sometime soon.)

(2) Same question above for the Jupiter picture. Very cool by the way.

(3) It's been awhile since I posted pictures to the forum. Based on the image address, it looks like you upload to the forum database "My Files" tied to your forum name? How do you manage the files there regarding size for the pictures you post since there is a 16MB limit? I am assume if you have any pictures that you delete out of the database then the thread that called for them will not show the photo anymore?



Edited 5 time(s). Last edit at 03/29/2023 06:06PM by SKYLANE.

Yes, amazing on Jupiter. I should say same as well for the little dinosaurs!

That would be nice but instead they just drop off poop...

The SX60 has a built in zoom and it was extended all the way to a 35mm equivalent of 1365mm but the lens itself shows at 247mm. This camera's zoom range is 3.8-247mm but the 35mm equivalent is 21-1365mm.

Because I can get the Moon in pretty close, it is quite bright and I shot it at f6.5 @ 1/320th of a second at ISO 400. Using a tripod, of course.

When I upload to the Control Center my images are usually 800px on the long dimension at 72ppi. I save in JPEG and use a Quality setting to get a file size of 100-150kb.

The Jupiter image is a composite as the planet is very bright compared to the four Galilean moons. The planet frame was shot at f6.3 @ 1/125th sec at ISO 400. The moons frame was shot at 1/15th sec.

And with that lens, I got this, from December of '20; the Jupiter/Saturn conjunction:



Yeah, I've deleted I don't know how many images over the years to make enough room!

Thx for the kudos!

---

Disclaimer: This post is checked for correct spelling, punctuation, and grammar. Any attempts at humor are solely the responsibility of the author and bear no claim that any and all readers will approve or appreciate said attempt at humor.
My name is DP, and I approve this message.

"Show me the man and I’ll show you the crime."- Lavrentiy Beria

Is there a way to use a photo sharing site like Smugmug or Flickr to post pictures here?

---

The arts are not luxuries but assets that give way more than they cost.
--Ronald Tucker on YouTube

A mind is like a parachute. It doesn't work if it is not open.
--Frank Zappa