Punctus Contra Punctum:

Ride the Lightning - Adrian Fullon

Mother Nature's Contrapuntal behavior

Punctus Contra Punctum means point against point, Counterpoint was the word in my head to describe what happened in my imaging session last night. It is the musician in me that suggested the word. When we speak of counterpoint in the music world, it basically means writing or playing lines that sound different and independent of each other. Bach was one of the most popular musicians who explored this in his Fugue in the Baroque period.

This is what happened last night. We had rain in the afternoon. I got home at around 19:30 and I saw a distant thunderstorm to the northwest. So i decided to setup and shoot it as you can see in the first three frames. The third one you'll see what I am talking about. The peaceful clear sky in my area and a raging thunderstorm to the northwest. It was musical.

Jupiter & Io

After an hour, I setup my scope for Jupiter. I was able to get a few avi files at 3mins and this is one of them. Seeing was good but transparency is average, you can see Jupiter shaking in the eyepiece about every 5secs.

Orion Field

It was Orionids night so I setup and took my chances. I saw only one in the whole hour of waiting but It was out of the frame. After that, I rested and set my alarm to 3am for the Moon.

This Phase of the Moon is always worth the wake up

Phases like this are hard to capture because you really have to wake up early. And of course the weather cooperation.

Sinus Iridium 

Sinus Iridium or the Bay of Rainbows. I always wanted to image this.

My First ever image of Mars

After the Moon, I slewed my scope for Mars. It only looked like a dot on my 4inch. But the rusty color unmistakable. Almost like it doesn't fit with the background stars. It has an apparent diameter of 6.0" and just north of the moon this morning. Easy to spot if you're awake!

Tomorrow I'll set the alarm to 4am. A little bit easier because 5am is my normal wake up time (pretty abnormal for a musician like me!) I ended my session at around 03:45 happy!