When worlds meet

This evenings sunset conjunction of Venus and Jupiter.

Tough Shoot

As an amateur astrophotographer, I'm always on the lookout for challenging astronomical events to photograph. Well - tonight, a gathering of Jupiter, Venus and the Moon (called a conjunction) was visible at sunset.

Below is the view through a 300mm lens. A tough shot to get - the moon was only 23 hours past new and only 3 degrees above the horizon. This image was obtain just 2 minutes before Venus set behind the distant Tucson Mountains.

Not so fast!

Spent the day photographing hummers in my backyard. The setup was simple - a feeder in the shade hanging from the roof of my back porch, a couple of off-camera radio controlled speedlights set up about three feet from the feeder @ 1/128th power, my Canon EOS 1D MKIIN on a tripod with a 70-200mm @ 200mm, manual exposure set to the max sync speed of the radio strobes (1/320th of a second) with the background 2 stops under exposed - and bang!

Not so fast. According to others on the web, my 580EX flash at this power setting is suppose to produce a 1/30,000th of a second duration flash - enough to completely freeze any motion of these little criters - or so you would think. Someone is lying. Either these birds are DAMN fast or the flash isn't. Me thinks its the later.

Late Light at the Desert Museum

Birds - again