Sunset at Lykavitos hill

 

Mount Lycabettus is a Cretaceous limestone hill in Athens, Greece. At 277 meters (908 feet) above sea level, the hill (also known as Lycabettos or Lykabettos) is the highest point in the city that surrounds it. Pine trees cover its base, and at its peak are the 19th century Chapel of St. George, a theatre, and a restaurant.

In this image a spectacular sunset is captured from St. George Chapel!!!

Technical Details

Optics: Vixen ED81S

Mount: Vixen Porta

Camera: Canon EOS 300 D

Filters: -

Date: 23 June, 2009

Location: Athens, Greece

Exposure: 1/800 sec, ISO 100

Aphelion Sun sets in Portara

 

Earth's orbit around the sun is not a perfect circle, it's an ellipse, and on July 4th, Earth will be at the end of the ellipse farthest from the sun. Astronomers call this "aphelion." When we are at aphelion, the sun appears smaller in the sky (by 1.7%) and global solar heating is actually a little less (by 3.5%) than average.

To commemorate the aphelion of 2008, there was an expedition by a group of greek amateur astronomers in order to photograph the sun setting behind the Portara, entrance to the 2500-yr-old Temple of Apollo on the Greek island of Naxos.

The team members were: Anthony Ayiomamitis, Chris Kotsiopoulos, John Doukoumopoulos, Anthony, George Hamilothoris and me.

"The white sun, virtually at aphelion, seemed to pass right through the Portara". "The presence of tourists in the foreground enriched the scene with the silhouettes they cast while marveling at the sunset." Even a little sun is a big beauty!

This image appears on spaceweather web site on July 03, 2008

http://spaceweather.com/submissions/large_image_popup.php?image_name=Konstantinos-Christodoulopoulos-sunset7_1214770039.jpg

Technical Details

Optics: Canon EF 24 mm lens

Mount: Tripod

Camera: Canon EOS 300 D

Filters: -

Date: 28 June, 2008

Location: Naxos island, Greece

Exposure: 1/1600 sec, ISO 100

Moon in Aquarius

 

The 3.6 day old Moon beautifully shows 84% gently bathed in soft Earthlight. Aristarchus, the “active volcano” that William Herschel reported to the Royal Society in 1787, is the brightest feature on the still cold part of the Moon. A star in Aquarius close to the dark limb (above the small red 1 on the big image and the top small one to the left) has been caught. Is this a graze, an occultation, or just a very close call? At the bottom of the bright crescent is another unusual phenonmenon. The farside is mostly illuminated, and as the Sun rises more and more on ourside, its light rotates around the pole. The beads of bright light are places where the Sun is just rising with the month’s first light passing through the low places; beacons of a new day. This is really just an edge-on view of the roughness of the terminator that we usually see from above - look closely at the jagged terminator along the rest of the image. This is the way people living on the Moon will see daybreak, a series of bright searchlights pouring through the low spots before becoming overwhelmingly bright. And before these spotlights they will see the solar corona. There is another chapter to this story. Such beads were reported in May 2006 by Stephen Saber, and fellow amateurs Curt Renz and Carol Lakomiak named them Saber’s Beads. The online discussion states that they are visible when the Moon is just about a day away from new, but in this image we have them at an age of 3.6 days.

 This image was

(1) LPOD (Lunar Photo of the Day) on 23 Jan 2007

http://www.lpod.org/?m=20070123

(2) Best image in Europlanet "Very Spatial Year" 2007 Competition

National Winners & European Winners 1st prize

http://www.europlanet-eu.org/demo/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=119&Itemid=999

Technical Details

Optics: Vixen 102M

Mount: Vixen GP, Skysensor 2000 PC

Camera: Canon EOS 300D

Filters: Wraten 8

Date: 22 January, 2007

Location: Korinthos, Greece

Exposure: 13 sec - ISO 100

Total Solar Eclipse

On 29 March 2006 I visited the beautiful island of Kastelorizo in order to see, for the first time in my life, the total eclipse of the Sun. There I met some fellow amateur astronomers and all together we watched this spectacular phenomenon. In this image you can see the solar corona in all its glory during totality.

This image appears also on Spaceweather web site.

http://www.spaceweather.com/eclipses/gallery_29mar06_page3.htm

Technical Details

Optics: Canon EF 85 mm lens

Mount: Tripod

Camera: Canon EOS 300 D

Date: 29 March, 2006

Location: Kastelorizo, Greece

Exposure: 1 sec, ISO 100