Earthquake image

Supernova hunting in an Earthquake

On the 4th of Sept 2010 in the early hours of the morning I started a Supernova run and went to bed. At 4:35am we were woken with a massive jolt which threw me out of bed. There was a 7.1 magnitude Earthquake only 20km from us. While imaging galaxies my telescope captured the entire event and I thought it was interesting to post the results.

The Earthquake causes billions of dollars of damage and over 5000 homes were damaged and destroyed. The unbelievable thing is that there was no loss of life. Here is what my scope imaged that morning.

We were very lucky and only had minor damage to our home and Observatory.

Sadly on the 22nd of February 2011 there was a 6.3 mag earthquake in

Christchurch 60km from where I live this powerful natural

event severely damaged Christchurch, killing 185 people.Making it the

second-deadliest natural disaster recorded in New Zealand.

As you can see here in my images the telescope survived the Earthquake and infact carred
on imaging as you can see it was knocked out of aligment and focus but not bad considering
the damage elsewhere!!

4:34am-30 second Exposure-The Before image

4:35am-30second exposure-The during image

4:36am-30 second exposure-The after image

M45 - Pleiades (Seven Sisters) - Taken at "Leyburn Dusty Downs Observatory" on 28 September 2008 with my Intes MN61 6"F6, 7 x 5 minute subframes. Camera Canon 350D @1600ISO, unmodified. Copyright Greg Bock.

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