Cold Winter Night Sky.
The forecast for the night was intermittent clouds. The waning gibbous moon is reducing in brightness (86% illuminated) and not rising until later. I programed the “Plan my Night” sequences on the Vespera telescopes to start soon after dark and hoping for long periods with clear skies. with several objects away from the moon and will see what I get depending on the clouds. During later part of the night, I have the telescopes looking at the moon. I also set up the Nikon D9 camera with an 8-15 mm fisheye lens to take a sequence of images of the night sky with the full Vespera family of telescopes in the foreground. These images were then used to create the following time-lapse video. You can see the night starting out cloudy, then clear to a good period of time. Later, when the moon is high in the sky there is a 22° ring or halo around the moon. This is caused by high level ice crystals. The telescopes automatically close before the sun rises. The time-lapse video is best viewed in the dark and expanded to full scale. Images captured by the telescopes to follow.
