Beaver Moon

Well, it's been a while, folks.  I've been observing and learning all the while but the photography has suffered.  Struggles with focusing and failing hardware have made it a challenge.  My little D90 is nearing (or already surpassed) it's average lifespan.  Blah blah, excuses excuses.

Tonight (11/28/12) is a rare treat as Jupiter is snuggling up close to the full "Beaver" Moon.  Jupiter is nearing opposition on 12/3 where it will be at it's closest position to the Earth for almost a decade.  The Great Red Spot will be swinging into view during that time as well.  So it's a great time to grab any telephoto lens, binoculars, or scope and check it out.

I stepped out to check  the sky this evening and with luck the clouds were breaking up.  They stayed partly cloudy for about 15 min.  Just enough time to snap of these shots before my lens fogged up completley.  Always prep your gear for temperature.  In winter, I recommend placing your camera bag somewhere equal (or near) to the outside temperature, like a shed, sunporch, or garage for a few hours before heading out.  If not your glass is going to fog up...no bueno. When returning home, it's just as important (if not more so) to slowly bring your gear back up to room temp and placing it in a sealed bag to reduce condensation while doing so.

Enjoy my impromptu robe-wearing driveway astrophotography:

f9, 1sec, ISO400

f8, 3sec, ISO320

f8, 1sec, ISO320

Dark skies of eastern New Mexico

On 7/22/12, the family and I drove from Pennsylvania to Arizona to visit my father and family.  It was a long stretch from St. Louis to Albuquerque but a couple hours before we hit the hotel we drove under some amazingly dark skies.  With much whining and gnashing of teeth from the back seat I pulled off at a random exit on I40 (marked Las Vegas) and into a field.  Stepping out of the car, there was a collective WOW from the wife and kids as they looked up and saw the brightest Milky Way they have ever seen arching from horizon to horizon as I dug my tripod out from under coolers and suitcases.

Unfortunately, it was very warm that night causing an INSANE amount of  nasty green noise in this 30 second exposure at ISO3200.  Needless to say MAJOR noise reduction work was needed in post processing to salvage this shot.  A car was nice enough to light the foreground for me and there was a thunderstorm in the distant horizon.  I could have spent hours out there but we were pressed for time, I'm just glad the boss let me stop at all.

In my normal observing location in northwest Pennsylvania, the "Teapot" of Sagittarius is fairly low on the horizon and the curve of Scorpius' tail dips below.  In the southern states both constellations are much higher meaning the bright center of our own galaxy is riding high in the southern sky giving a more spectacular view.

30s f4.5 @ ISO3200

rough constellation guides

pre noise reduction

Touring Sagittarius

Tuesday, June 10 was an exceptionally clear night.  Unfortunately, we had only 1.5 hours of true darkness before the last quarter moon crashed the party at around 12:30am.  We did a bit of visual observing since Randy adjusted the Meade RCX400's focus from "oooh, that's cool"  to "Holy Crap!" sharp.


Then we strapped my D90 with the business end of the William Optics Gran Turismo 81mm f9 telescope attached to the top of the RCX and got to work.  These images could have used quite a few more frames to stack but with the moonrise in 1 hour, time was of the essence.  I'd like to try again closer to the new moon.

Touring around the busy galactic center.  First we hit the Omega or Swan Nebula (M17) which, as you can see, is a nifty shaped star forming H II region located in the densely populated constellation Sagittarius.  I flipped this image 180 degrees to better show the "swan" shape

8, 1min frames stacked with DeepSkyStacker

The nearby Lagoon Nebula (M8),  also found in Sagittarius is a gorgeous emission nebula churning out stars like a champ.

6, 1min frames stacked with DeepSkyStacker

Just above Sagittarius in the constellation Serpens lies the Eagle Nebula.  The Pillars of Creation create that tiny silhouette of an eagle soaring upward clutching a fish.  An interesting fact (I just learned) is that the pillars have likely been destroyed by a supernova that could have been seen from Earth 1000-2000 years ago.  The light is just now reaching us from approx 6000 light years (35,271,752,239,101,650 miles!!!) away.
The mind-boggling size and distance of cosmic objects means that most of the things we see are drastically changed or completely gone at the same moment we are viewing them.

4, 1min frames stacked with DeepSkyStacker

This is the epic Sagittarius Star Cloud, a massive star field of many different kinds of stars giving it the many different colors.  This cloud is home to some of the oldest stars known.

1 min single exp

Milky WOW

Friday, June 29:

With a 10 day old moon setting at 2AM, I decided to head to the observatory, if only to visit with friends and relax a bit.  The sky was mostly overcast, even showing us a 22 deg Moon ring at one point.  As the Moon made it's final plummet around 1:30am the clouds parted and revealed a beautiful sky that was sooo worth staying up for.  We waited patiently for the clear sky to darken after Moonset and opened the roof.  We hopped around Cygnus, Cassiopeia, Andromeda, Lyra, and (of course) Sagittarius.  Notable views of Wild Duck (M11), Dumbell Nebula (M27), Ring Nebula (M57), Double Cluster, and the the gorgeous Andromeda Galaxy.  Unfortunately, it was too late and bright to do any astrophotography with the scope.

The stars started to dance in the eyepieces after about an hour of viewing as we were pushing 3:30am so we called it a night.  Before I packed up the gear I took a 180 degree Panorama of the milkyway from horizon to horizon.

10 frames @ 18mm 30sec f3.5 ISO1600

Here's a single frame I took of the Milky Way flowing through the Summer Triangle, which is made up of the stars Vega, Deneb, and Altair.  There's lots of great stuff in there but look hard in this frame to find Brocchi's cluster, aka: the "Coathanger Cluster.

18mm 30sec f3.5 ISO2000

I Bode you Good Night!

I've had these shots sitting neglected on my hard drive for nearly a month, don't know how they slipped my mind.  It was May 17th, and it was a fantastic night of brilliantly clear dark skies, many scopes, and good company out at the Observatory at Bisbee Hill.  Tonight looks like another one of those nights and I'm trying my best to not run out the door as I'm sure a good crew is out there right now (I have to drive to Philadelphia in the morning or I definitely would be out there!)  Hopefully the skies will hold this weekend.

This is a couple really long exposures showing the astronomers (and the stars) in action.

one 15 min exposure

and 30 min

Then I strapped my camera to the big scope and pointed it at a spectacular pair located in Ursa Major.  M81 and M82 also known as Bode's Galaxy and Cigar Galaxy are quite a dynamic duo.  M81 is a very large face on spiral galaxy and M82 is a unique starburst galaxy that is churning out stars on a massive scale being helped along by tidal forces from it's large neighbor M81.  There's a small galaxy on the lower left called NGC 3077, it's is also an irregular galaxy likely being acted upon by it's larger neighbor as well.

11 frames @  2min, f6, 81mm, ISO1600 , merged in DeepSkyStacker

Holey Sun Batman!

Somebody made quite an sacrifice to Ra because he was out in all his glory this evening for the Venus Transit at Presque Isle State Park.  After days of rain and cloud cover it cleared right in time for us to observe this twice in a lifetime event.  My head is throbbing from squinting behind viewfinders and lenses for hours but it was a now or never, I'm currently nursing it with a glass of wine (probably a bad idea but the Tequila has run dry).

The photography was difficult to say the least.  I used a variable neutral density filter to block most of the light from the sun.  I should have sprung for a BAADER filter (google it) but alas they were either sold out or over-budget.  I did my best to get a good focus with my 300mm, set my intervalometer to 1 min intervals, and set the camera to 1/100sec @ f14.  I then mingled with the shockingly huge crowd only to return to the camera and recenter the sun in the frame.

Here's a few of the shots I quickly browsed and edited from 300+ images.

Second Contact "black drop effect"

199 frame time-lapse.  Not nearly as impressive as some other amateur video's I've seen but it's mine.

The dim moving smudges are from the large cottonwood seeds floating in the air.  I love the atmospheric ripples as sunset nears at the end.

Re-edited the time lapse. I either need better video editing software or better skills but I'm satisfied with this last version.  If anyone knows any software that will perfectly align multiple frames for time lapse videos, do tell.

And I nabbed a green flash as the the sun sank! 

Lightning and light pollution

On Friday 5/25/12 our area was hit with some very severe weather but it was supposed to clear quickly afterward.  So, not willing to waste a day off, I decided to head out to the observatory to wait out the storm.  With the 360 degree view at a nice elevation it is perfect storm watching site as well.  The storm was in full swing when I arrived but it wasn't on top of us yet.  I quickly set up the tripod and using my shutter release to  keep the shutter going at 30 sec exposures, it was dark so no need to worry about over exposure.

Lightning is one of the most impressive and surprisingly one of the easiest things to photograph if you don't over think it.  Don't waste your time trying to snap as it happens, you'll only frustrate yourself.  If you have a nighttime storm just set up a tripod and shoot continuously at 30 sec with a wide aperture, pour some wine and get comfy (and safe).  For a daytime storm close the aperture and use shorter exposure times.   Just make sure to grab your gear when the rain hits if you don't have a rain cover (link is the super cheap one I use).

As the night went on the storm moved south and the stars were visible above the thunderheads. Saturn and Spica are the most prominent objects above the clouds. All these shots were taken between 11pm and 1am.

Here's best shots out of 200 or so:

This is the shot I was waiting for!

Bright stars on the left are Saturn (upper) and Spica (lower)

When the sky finally cleared it was such low transparency and seeing was so poor that we didn't even bother opening the observatory roof.

  

__________________

With summertime nearing, the Milky Way has been rising in time for some interesting photo ops.  I've been trying to get a shot of the Milky Way arching over this particular dirt road or weeks and after 3 different tries I have something finally worth showing.   Last night (5/27/12) I returned to this site located near the very rural Spartansburg, PA.  While very rural you can still see the dramatic effects of light pollution.  I'm anxiously awaiting the airing of the documentary The City Dark on PBS on July 5.  I strongly urge you to watch and in the meantime, if you must have glaring property lights get some motion detectors or sky friendly fixtures and bulbs.  Reconnect with the stars, there's a whole Universe out there.  People need to realize we're part of something much bigger.

TURN THE LIGHTS OUT!
180 degrees, from Cassiopeia to Scorpius