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 equitorial 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.
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.
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. An Inca Dove at Bud Walker Park.
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.
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.
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.
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. Here’s a male Purple Finch.
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.
The Brambling is a widespread species in northern Europe and Asia during breeding season. It is migratory, wintering in southern Europe, North Africa, southern Asia and Japan. It frequently strays into Alaska during migration and there are scattered records across the northern United States and southern Canada. In South Dakota, there are two previous records, and hardly anyone got to see either of those. Brambling in the fallen leaves. This makes 603 species of birds on my ABA area list. I was at 605 but there were some taxonomic changes so I lost three species so now I have to find two more to get back to where I was. For South Dakota, my life list is now at 374, Hughes County 318. Here’s one more. The light was pretty bad and I had a lot of blurry photos, so I’m glad a few came out OK.
I’m still here. The weather is getting colder and the days are shorter. I will need to head south soon. I’m getting my drivers license renewed on Monday and then at the first break in the weather, I will depart. I’m up to 367 species for the year now. Lately, I’ve added a Northern Shrike and a Rough-legged Hawk, both with only poor photos taken. A few days ago, I got three Surf Scoters, also with very poor photos taken from a great distance. I do have some better bird photos to show.
One of my favorite birds, a Golden-crowned Kinglet. My sister Sally was with me and she picked them up on Merlin, it didn’t take long to find them, three Golden-crowned Kinglets. As always, they are very active and difficult to photograph, this one turned out well. One morning, while driving down the Farm Island causeway, a Merlin smoked a robin right in front of me. This behavior is called mantling, guarding fresh caught prey by spreading the wings over it. The Merlin flew a short distance with the robin and began to pluck it. Here’s another new bird for the year, a Purple Finch. This female and few other females and one male are feeding mostly on Green Ash seeds. A Blue Jay in the fallen leaves. A Red-bellied Woodpecker peeking around the trunk. On the left, a Red-necked Grebe, another new bird for the year. I was hoping to get one before I head south and here it is. While walking on Farm Island this morning, I found this dead Northern Short-tailed Shrew (Blarina brevicauda). The saliva of this species contains a toxin used to paralyze and subdue its prey. The toxin is strong enough to kill small animals (up to mouse sized) and results in painful bites to humans who attempt to handle the shrew. I often see dead shrews like this and sometimes voles and mice, laying out in the open and I wonder what it is that kills and then leaves them there. Possibly the shrews are not very appealing as food, but that doesn’t explain the mice and voles I see like this.
I’m sure most readers have heard about the recent comet as it has been all over the news lately, C/2023 A3 ( Tsuchinshan-ATLAS). Apparently it was quite bright for a few days after it emerged from the glow of the sun, but I missed it for a long time due to clouds. Finally, one night I went out and set up my camera, and right on schedule more clouds came in. I could still see it but it wasn’t all that great. Compared to Comet Neowise, I would classify it as a dud! However, this comet did have a nice anti-tail and I was glad to capture that.
Here it is, C/2023 A3 ( Tsuchinshan-ATLAS), photographed through some high clouds. I could see it with the unaided eye on this night. The faint anti-tail is quite apparent. The following night, I tried again. Due to some unforeseen glitches with my camera, the results were not very good, the backgound is blotchy and vignetted. Also, the comet had faded out, I could no longer see it without binoculars. The anti-tail does show up better though. It was very hazy and the bright moon made it difficult. My most exciting bird was this female Bay-breasted Warbler! This is a fairly rare species for our area and I haven’t seen one for many years. It posed for me and I got a lot of nice photos. Here it is again. A Ring-billed Gull playing catch with a crayfish. Here is a Field Sparrow that was feeding on the seeds of Big Bluestem.A Cackling Goose with some Canada Geese, a new bird for the year!And here is my latest new bird for the year, an American Tree Sparrow, species number 358 for the year. Can I make it to 400? I don’t know, maybe.
