Doug Backlund Travel and Photography

Sonoran Desert Winter

The cold has finally arrived, such as it is. Night time temperatures have been dropping to near freezing and will drop below freezing for the next few nights. Time to get out my winter sleeping bag! It still warms up nicely for the day. Some rain would be very welcome. Yesterday, a biologist from the Arizona Game and Fish came out and we found another dead Sonoran Toad at Highway Tank. He took some samples so maybe there will be answers soon as to what is killing the toads.

My annual Kit Fox photo. There are two of them that come around every night now.

I found three Long-eared Owls in an arroyo off the Child’s Mountain Road. Not a great photo but I was happy to get it for eBird.

Anna’s Hummingbird nectaring on some of the few Ocotillo flowers that are available.

A House Wren, first one I’ve seen this winter. Not a common wintering bird here but there are usually more than I’ve been seeing.

The Spider and the Fly nebulas. Readers may remember I posted an image of the Fly Nebula a while back. This is what it looks like at 500mm focal length along with its companion the Spider Nebula. It looks like it could use another 10 hours. The Spider (IC 417) and The Fly (NGC1931) are located in the constellation Auriga, and lie about 10,000 and 7000 light-years away from planet Earth.

Last night I tried to image Jupiter again. The seeing forecast was only average but it turned out quite well, I think. I wish I could get a night when the Great Red Spot was on this side.

Jones-Emberson 1, also known as the Headphone Nebula. I did this a few years ago with the C8. It took many hours to get anything, this time I used the 500f4 and the IDAS Nebula Booster filter. This is the result after only 3 hours of exposure. It is a very faint and small planetary nebula in the constellation Lynx.

Astrophotography Birding

Happy New Year

Well, it is 2025 and it doesn’t feel much different. I was in bed by 9 PM last night, as it was too cloudy for astro. I have had a good string of clear nights though. The weather here can be described as boring, nothing happens. It is very nice though.

I still have the C8 mounted and have been shooting some small nebulas and a galaxy. This, of course, is M1, the Crab Nebula, which I haven’t tried for a few years. I have the C8 finely tuned and everything is working great, tracking, guiding, collimation, focus, and this is what happens. A good, sharp image!

This is NGC 1931, also known as the Fly Nebula, usually imaged with the Spider Nebula and known as the Spider and the Fly. The Fly Nebula is tiny but with the C8 it actually shows quite a lot of detail.

This is the Crystal Ball Nebula, NGC 1514. It is a planetary nebula, less than 2 arc minutes in diameter. Perfect for the C8! This time I imaged it at 2000mm focal length, which I have never tried to do before. I ended up throwing out about 30% of my subs but the image looks pretty good.

NGC 1055, a galaxy in the constellation Cetus. It does not rise very high at this latitude. It is around 50 million light years out there. The two bright stars would not be visible to the unaided eye. All of the stars shown here are in the Milky Way Galaxy. The galaxy itself contains billions, maybe a trillion, stars.

A Pyyrhuloxia at the golf course, the first one I’ve seen this winter.

This Prairie Falcon was at Highway Tank hunting quail or doves, I guess. It flew by a lot of times and I got at least a few good flight shots.

Astrophotography

Astro

The moon is going away and I spent three nights on one dark nebula. I also decided to get out the C8 and try for some planets. It takes awhile to switch systems, so I will probably be using the C8 for a while longer. I’ve always wanted to try imaging a small nebula at prime focus, which in this case is 2032mm, versus 500mm with the Canon lens. That will be a challenge. Planetary is a different story, imaging at over 5000mm but using video and stacking video frames. At those kinds of focal lengths everything is finicky!

This is the first time I have successfully imaged the planet Uranus. I’ve tried before but could never find it in the field of view. It really isn’t worth spending much time on, just a small blue disc in the darkness. However, despite how it looks, it is very challenging, equivalent to imaging an object with a diameter of two inches at 2.5 miles distance. The inset shows the size of Earth compared to Uranus. At an average distance of 1.7 billion miles from Earth, it seems like a long way out there. It took Voyager 2 ten years to get there. In the larger scheme of things in the universe, it isn’t much.

This dark nebula contains Sh2-239, a region of star formation glowing in a cloud of cosmic dust, part of the Taurus Molecular Cloud. This region is 450 light years out there, the bright portion in the center spans about three light years.

Seeing was very good on this night, and I got one of the most detailed images of Jupiter I’ve ever taken. This is the result of stacking about 8000 video frames. Some call this the boring side of Jupiter (without the Great Red Spot), but a recent event makes it more interesting. Spaceweather.com reported two gigantic (larger than Earth) thunderstorms on Jupiter, in the southern equatorial belt. The remains of the tracks of these storms can be seen in my image, in the upper left of the planet. Read about the storms HERE.

Birding Herps

Just More Photos

Nothing very exciting has happened around here. The weather has been very nice, not cold at night and warm days. About all I’ve been doing is birding and taking photos. Now the full moon is past and I will be starting to do some astro again, clouds permitting.

One evening I found this Vermilion Flycatcher on a perch, so I parked the truck fairly close with the setting sun behind me, and pretty soon it came back! Always nice to get a good shot of birds like this.

Within minutes, it was replaced by this Loggerhead Shrike!

Western Bluebirds coming to water at Highway Tank.

An Ash-throated Flycatcher in nice light. This is the first one I’ve seen since arriving in Ajo.

And here is the first Gray Flycatcher I’ve seen since getting here.

Here is what could have been a great bird except I can’t tell what species it is. I found this bird at the golf course one afternoon. Tropical Kingbird and Couch’s Kingbird are nearly identical except for their calls and songs. This bird never vocalized so remains Tropical/Couch’s Kingbird. I guess either way it is a new species for the year. Tropical Kingbirds are usually gone from Arizona by fall and would have been a life bird for me. This time of year, according to Arizona birders, Couch’s Kingbird is more likely but still very rare. I’ve seen Couch’s Kingbirds in Texas. Three of us looked for this bird the following morning but could never find it again.

These two Killdeer at Highway Tank made an interesting mirror image in the water.

A Sonoran Toad in December? Yes, here it is. According to all the literature, Sonoran Toads spend the winter in underground burrows. Apparently this one decided to stay in the water. I’ve seen two of these at Highway Tank and another that came out of the water and died on the bank. I’m not sure what is going on here.

Astrophotography Birding

Clouds are Gone!

Finally, after over a week of cloudy nights (and just before the new moon), it has been clear every night. Unfortunately, I wasted a lot of that time trying to image a very faint (as in impossibly faint) nebula. I thought that with the nebula booster filter I could do it, but I think I have met my match. I could spend more time on it, but there is no guarantee the results will be any better. What I need is a faster (focal ratio) scope, that’s not likely to happen.

Here it is, Sh2-224, also known as the Rice Hat Nebula. It is a supernova remnant, very faint, in the constellation Auriga. The first night I tried it I found that I had not centered it due to the fact that I cannot see it in my images. I tried to get it centered by looking at star patterns in Stellarium. After that I spent 4 nights shooting this and this is all I can pull out of the stacked images. There are some fine images of this nebula on the internet, typical exposure times are around 40 hours or more, which is more than I’m willing to do.

This one was much easier, the Shrimp Nebula, Sh2-188, a dim planetary nebula in Cassiopeia, about 8,000 light years away. I’ve never done this one before and am happy with how it came out. It is small and with the 500 f4 had to be cropped quite a bit but the image held up well.

Here’s one I haven’t tried for a couple of years, the Great Andromeda Galaxy. I think the colors came out well for a change.

Another old favorite, M45, the Pleiades or Seven Sisters. It is fun to get good results instead of the tedious collecting of data from faint nebula that may not even produce anything.

Another bright and easy nebula, the California Nebula. I used the nebula booster filter for this one.

And now some birds, here is a Loggerhead Shrike taking a bath. I’ve never photographed one doing this before.

The Red-breasted Sapsucker is still here. I find it interesting that it is drilling holes vertically instead of horizontal, like most sapsuckers seem to. Maybe the vertical holes eventually fill in to look horizontal. That seems to be happening at the bottom of the image.

Astrophotography Birding

The Birds Keep Coming

I’m still picking up a few new birds for the year list. In the last week, there has been a flurry of activity here, with some birds that are rarely seen in the Sonoran Desert and some that are new to my year list, now at 379 species. When I first got here, sapsuckers were nearly absent, but that has certainly changed in the last few days. It has been a long stretch of cloudy skies too, so astrophotography has come to a complete standstill.

A very nice looking Red-breasted Sapsucker that showed up at the golf course 3 days ago. Yesterday, some birders from Tucson were here to see it. It was still there this morning. A new bird for my year list.

Yesterday, Vikki and Lyn Jackson called me over to see this bird, my first of the year Yellow-bellied Sapsucker. Juvenile Yellow-bellied Sapsuckers retain most of their juvenile plumage over the winter while the other sapsucker species molt into adult plumage in the fall. This makes juvenile Yellow-bellied Sapsuckers easy to ID in the late fall and winter.

While birding in Bud Walker Park last Sunday, I found this Lapland Longspur, a lost bird. I saw thousands of them while driving through eastern Colorado on my way to Ajo, but in the Sonoran Desert they are very rare.

I got a report of an Acorn Woodpecker in Ajo. I’ve never seen one here, this species normally stays in areas with lots of oak trees. The owner of the residence invited me over to see it and maybe get some photos. Another lost bird.

Not lost, but there is a significant irruption of Western Bluebirds this fall. The numbers are higher than usual. Last winter there were hardly any around. I got this shot at Bud Walker Park this morning.

This morning at the golf course, I saw this Red-tailed Hawk catch a Mourning Dove. The dove’s tail is sticking out below the hawk’s talons. Red-tailed Hawks are very versatile predators.

I tried another method of processing and a crop and a rotation of the Flaming Star Nebula. I think this image gives a better impression of flames!

A Prairie Falcon that was terrorizing the golf course this morning. There are lots of Gambel’s Quail and it was general panic every time this falcon streaked through the area. I never saw it catch anything.

Astrophotography Birding

Some Fall Astro

I have had a few good nights for astrophotography. Now it looks like there will be a period of cloudy nights. I hope it doesn’t last long. The weather has been very nice, although it does get quite cool at night. I’m still picking up a few new birds for the year, but overall birding has been slow. There is still a good chance of getting four or five new birds for my year list but unless I decide to take a trip to the coast (either San Diego or Gulf of California) I don’t think I will get to 400 species for the year.

This is IC 405, the Flaming Star Nebula. I wanted to see what it would look like using the IDAS Nebula Booster filter. I had a difficult time getting the reflection nebula to show up, the filter does not work well for that. So I had to tone down the Ha quite bit and this is the result. IC 405 is about 1500 light years out there and is a big nebula, a frame filler at 500mm focal length.

Another nebula I’ve been wanting to use the filter on, IC 63, the Ghosts of Cassiopeia. The bright star is Gamma Cassiopeiae, also known as Navi.

NGC 281 (the Pacman Nebula) is perfect for the IDAS Nebula Booster. I really like how this came out. Located in the direction of the constellation Cassiopeia, it is around 9200 light years distant.

My latest new bird for the year (number 377), a Varied Thrush at Lake Ajo. This bird has been present for three days now, quite a few people are coming to see it.

Birding

Ajo!

I made it to Ajo last Sunday, late in the afternoon. I drove all the way from Bosque del Apache NWR, a long day. I don’t drive much over 60 mph when towing, so it takes awhile. Anyway, I was happy to see my favorite spot was empty when I got to the campground. There are only a few other outfits here. I got the astrophotography equipment set and am taking images tonight.

This Eastern Phoebe has been at Lake Ajo for several weeks now, I was hoping it would stay until I got here, as I needed the species for my year list. Species 376 for the year.

I saw two Gray Fox in trees yesterday. This one had an odd position, with its head held down below a fork in the branch.

A Pyrrhuloxia in the cactus garden at Bosque del Apache NWR.

Another new bird for the year, an American Golden Plover at Bosque del Apache NWR.

It’s not often I can get a good shot of a Northern Harrier. This female posed for a lot of shots.

A Cooper’s Hawk on the hunt at Bosque del Apache NWR.

Birding

Heading South

Post author By Doug Backlund
Post date November 12, 2024

I’m finally on the way. My first and second nights are at Lake McConaughay State Park in Nebraska. This lake and Lake Ogalla are well known for good gulls, ducks and often jaegers. I’ve never birded the area before so I thought this fall would be a good time to check it out. There are literally thousands of ducks and gulls around! I picked up two more species new for the year, Long-tailed Duck and White-winged Scoter. I was especially happy to see the White-winged Scoters as it has been many years, well over a decade, since I’ve seen any. The photos aren’t great but good enough for eBird, see my checklist at this LINK. The two new duck species put me at 373 for the year.

The day before I left, Rick called to tell me the Short-billed Gull (formerly Mew Gull) was back at the tailrace. This being the fourth time I’ve gone up there to see the bird and and find it gone, I finally got it. Here it is in front of a Ring-billed Gull. Other birds I’ve picked up since my last post include Lapland Longspur and Rusty Blackbird.

Here’s one of three Rusty Blackbirds I saw on Farm Island.

I’ve seen a few Fox Sparrows this fall but had no photos to show, until a few days ago. A couple of the Fox Sparrows started coming in to the feeders at Farm Island. All I have to do is park the truck by the feeders and wait.

Also got this nice shot of a female Purple Finch.

Birding

A Life Bird-Brambling!

This morning I decided to sit in the truck by the Farm Island feeders and do some photography. I was actually hoping for a Fox Sparrow to come in, but after a few minutes I briefly saw another bird, from the back, that looked very unusual. I could see it was more brightly colored than the Harris’s Sparrows that were also present, but then it flew off. I sat there wondering, could that have been a Brambling? Nah, couldn’t be. I sat there another 15 minutes or so when all of the sudden there was a Brambling! Wow! I managed to get some photos, despite the thick clouds and low light. I put out some alerts on eBird and the local birder hotline, and within 20 minutes almost every birder I know in the Pierre area was there. Everyone got to see it.