The Planet Uranus

This was taken with an SLR bolted to the mount for my telescope. A motor drive kept the picture steady during the 5 minute exposure. 400ASA film was used, and the 300mm lens was wide open, at f/5.6.

I haven't had much success with this arrangment in the past, with most of my pictures coming out trailed. However, this one came out fine.

The pictures below were taken a year later, and Mars is now in the picture too. Spot the difference. This time a 50mm lens was used and I enlarged a small part of the picture, hence the grain. Both planets have clearly moved from one picture to the next.

I don't know what the red dot is. It may be a fault on the film. A similar dot appears on another of my pictures, but not the one I took five minutes after this, so it isn't a star. About half a dozen times I've seen bright flashes in the sky. On one such ocasion I had my binoculars handy and was able to identify them as coming from a satellite. Sunlight reflecting off a satellite would cause a dot to appear on the picture, but only if it was very bright and very brief, otherwise it would appear as a line.

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