Sky Gazing Part 2

All right...Back out tonight, gazing up at the full Moon and Jupiter, with the little blue blur that is Uranus. I could not stand it - I went and got my camera...which is a fairly nice digital Cannon Zoom...but nothing spectacular per se. So my first shot was just a regular picture, no zoom, of the Moon and Jupiter....

The moon is in the extreme upper right hand corner.

The little blur in the extreme lower left hand corner is Jupiter (and Uranus...but the camera wasn't up to catching that. *sigh*)

The next shot is a zoom at maximum setting of the moon...fairly nice for a basic camera to pull off....

So, next I zoomed in on Jupiter - and the camera promptly had the equivalent of a mechanical nervous breakdown...it zoomed in, tried to focus. Lost the focus...backed up...tried to focus. Didn't know it could DO that...So I patiently let it widget and zoom...and finally hit the button before it lost the little blur up there again. That was this shot:

Fuzzy, but its there...thats Jupiter!

I then lay down flat on my back, camera at maximum zoom, arm braced on the bumper of my car, held my breath - seriously - and waited for the camera to settle one last time out on it's extreme focus. And that's what the last shot here is - Jupiter, seen through the lens of my very ordinary little camera, doing the best it could do.

It simply could not pick up the faint bluish blur of Uranus. The focus was too diffuse by then. But having watched the two planets in the sky for days now, I can clearly see both of them, particularly early in the evening when they have been at their brightest.

So not too shabby for a basic little camera, with no bells and whistles, no tripod and no telescope. What a lovely evening...I doubt I shall see these two giants of the heavens again like this in my life time, so I will continue to observe their journey across the sky as long as they are visible.

What grace has been given to me - I am blessed!