Speaking of diamonds...

[orogenicman]

What is more exotic? Mars?

It might be, but my scope is actually better suited for deep sky astrophotography instead of planetary work. The Moon is close enough that I can get decent (but not supurb) images of it.

Here is a false color photo I took of took of the harvest Moon in 2006 with the same scope but a different camera:

The false colors show the various mineral compositions of the Moon. Bluish-gray represents titanium-rich lavas, while the reds represent iron-rich lavas (which is a relative term, since the Moon is deficient in iron relative to the Earth). The pinkish regions are the silicate-dominated lunar highlands, and contain the oldest rocks on the surface of the Moon. I like to think of this photo as a poor man's geologic map of the moon.

Beautiful orogenicman ...just beautiful.

Wondering if you have any pics of the Pleiades constellation??

Thanks. Actually, the Pleiades is a star cluster in the Constellation Taurus. I have some, but I've never been satisfied with them. They are very hard to image because they are very bright, while the nebulosity surrounding them is very dim. So in order to get the nebulosity to show up right, you have to overexpose the stars. Any defects in your optics and in guiding show up very easily. On top of that, at the focal plane of my telescope, I cannot get all of them in the view, it is that big (and close).

With that said, this is my best image of them todate, taken last year. I plan to take more this year, hopefully better than this (part of the problem with this image is that I took it very early in the morning, and my mirrors fogged up:

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Here is an image of the pleiades that someone else got right: