In this timelapse sequence, San Francisco Chronicle photographer Jerry Telfer used a simple Web camera attached to his Meade 8-inch Schmidt-Cassegrain telescope to capture a sequence of images to a laptop computer. Compiled here as a 1.3-Mbyte animated GIF, this shows Mars viewed from near Robert Ferguson Observatory in Sugarloaf Ridge State Park between 1 a.m. and 2 a.m. on Aug. 24. Mars' south polar ice cap is clearly visible at the bottom of the planetary disk. (Expect a delay until the GIF has completely downloaded to your browser window.) Photos by Jerry Telfer, text from www.sfgate.com.

This picture was generated by RFO Docent Steve Follett  The telescope uses was an 8" f:8 Dobsonian with no tracking.  He then used a handheld Hi-8 video camera to shoot through the eyepiece and captured frames to his computer through a TV capture card. Approximately twenty images were "stacked" to form a composite and processed heavily in Adobe  Photoshop.

This next series of images were all taken by RFO Docent Len Nelson.  The first image was taken on 9-17-03 using a 5" refractor telescope and camera exposures at 1/60 of a second.

This next image was taken on 9-20-03 using RFO Docent Tom Burrow's 6" refractor telescope.

The next image was again taken on 9-13-03 using a 5" refractor telescope with a 32mm ocular, and a digital camera at 4x zoom.

This image was taken using RFO Tom Burrow's 150mm refractor telescope, using a 32mm ocular and a pale blue filter.

Finally, this last image was taken on 10-13-03.