Jupiter & The Beehive: March - April 2003
		During March, Jupiter trekked across the sky steadily on its path toward M44 -- Praesepe, or the Beehive Cluster. On March 28th, Jupiter got as close as it could, from our perspective, before reversing direction in its orbit. Weather wasn't cooperative for me on the 28th, but April 6th, the sky was clear, & it wasn't as brutally cold & windy as it was before.    Below is my 1st ever composite shot. What a trick this was! I've been combatting periodic error on my G5's tracking motor, & for a long time thought I was just aligning the scope poorly. Turns out I just have to make sure I take 3-4 shots of a given spot before I can go the whole exposure (16 secs) without any error. Not a hobby for the impatient, to be sure! Its not quite as complete as I would've liked, but here it is!    Jupiter's line of moon's are clearly visible, & there's even a star placed right in line with them, making it appear as though I caught five of them (my scope is too small to see any but the 4 Galilean moons). Sorry for the lens flare around Jupiter. Couldn't really eliminate it while trying to capture everything in the background. Toward the left side of the shot is a good example of how starfields typically come out in my shots. 16 seconds of exposure can't detect terribly much, so this spot is a good guage to compare against the cluster, on the right. If you were to see the cluster alone, it really wouldn't convey what a 'cluster'-- in this case, an open cluster-- is.
	This second shot was more of a happy accident than intentional. I was going for the Iridium flare, & knew it was going to occur very close to Jupiter, but I didn't realize I was going to get the Beehive too! Its a little blurred, & in fact seems to be a recurring limitation with my Kodak. I can't wait for my Coolpix!