Urban Astro Images Web Page

Lunar Eclipse January 2000

35mm Prime Focus Photography by Lyn and Joel Miller

This eclipse occurred for us in Maryland during the evening of Thursday, Jan. 20 and morning of Fri, Jan. 21. Penumbral phase started about 9:00 PM, Umbral about 10:00 PM, totality from about 11:05 PM to 12:20 am, Umbral ending about 1:25 am, and the eclipse ended about 2:25 am. Lyn and Joel Miller made the following images at Northway Field in Greenbelt, Md. while providing telescopic views to members of the public. Hardy members that is. A snow storm had dumped 6" of snow on the area the day before and temperatures were in the teens with a substantial wind chill. This makes their accomplishment with these images even more remarkable.

Christmas Day 2000 Solar Eclipse

North America received a rare present for Christmas 2000 with a partial solar eclipse visible for most of the continent.
Greenbelt Astronomy Club member Lyn Miller was able to document this once in a lifetime occurrence in the following 8 images taken sequentially throughout the eclipse. One can clearly follow the movement of the Moon across the face of the Sun from right to left in the following series. Some really neat sunspots where captured as a bonus. This was a Partial Solar Eclipse for the Greenbelt, Md. area. First contact was at 11:04 AM EST, Maximum eclipse at 12:41 PM, Last contact at 2:16 PM. Times are for Washington, DC. Add one minute for Baltimore, Md.

Comets in Urban Skies

Cookbook CCD Images Linear	Comet Ikeya-Zhang Imaged With Vesta 675-SC and Orion ST80

Mike Hall of of the Howard County Astronomical League in Maryland shows determination pays off overcoming light pollution and a full moon to capture an image of a comet.	Orion Short Tube 80 piggybacked on a Meade 10" LX200 Vesta 675-SC modified webcam Moog 6.3 Focal Reducer 20 Second exposure Single darkframe subtraction Captured and processed with Astrovideo "I captured over 100 light and darkframes and hope to improve the images with more practice on processing. Even so, I'm very excited about the results." Steve Barkes Las Cruces, NM

Comet Hale-Bopp Over Northway Field Greenbelt, Md.

One of two really impressive comets to visit the inner solar system in the 1990's was Hale-Bopp. This is a scan of a photograph of Comet Hale-Bopp. The image was made at about 5:00 a.m. on March 11, 1997 from the James Wolfe softball fields at the end of Northway in Greenbelt, MD, USA. The comet appeared in the northeast sky at that time. The camera used was an Olympus OM-1 with a Tamron SP 60mm-300mm zoom lens, set at 60mm. The f-stop was 3.8 and the exposure time was 12 seconds. The film was ASA 800 Fuji Color Print film. Photo by Greenbelt Astronomy Club member Matt Elliott .

2001 Leonid Meteor Shower

Photos By Lyn Miller
How do you photograph a meteor shower? You just point the camera at a patch of sky and hope one flies in front of it while the shutter is open! That is the technique Lyn Miller used to capture the following images on the night of November 17/18 2001. The 2001 Leonids increased the probabilities of capturing a short lived meteor on film by providing an intense meteor "storm." Experienced meteor observer George Gliba described the shower as "The meteor rates seen for this storm made it by far the best meteor shower I have seen in 40 years of observing!" Observing from Screech Owl Hill Observatory in W.Va. George recorded 1600 Leonids from 7 - 11 UT with the ZHR being near 11 UT having 1200 Leonids averaging between 1st and 2nd mag.