Doug Backlund Travel and Photography

March Astro

Despite some lousy weather, clouds, wind, ect., I’ve been getting some astrophotography done. Birding is still slow. There hasn’t been anything exciting for a long time. Although it did get hot for a couple of days, it didn’t seem to bring out the herps, probably because of the extreme dryness. The Round-tailed Ground Squirrels are out and they cannot find anything green to eat on the ground so they are climbing the mesquites and eating the leafs and bark.

I started this weeks ago and just finished up last week. NGC 4565, the Needle Galaxy. It has been a few years since I tried this, one of my favorite galaxies. A large and bright galaxy, it is out there 40-50 million light years, in the constellation Coma Berenices.

This is one I did just to see what it looks like. Often called the Penguin and the Egg, NGC 2936 is the larger galaxy, interacting with the elliptical galaxy NGC 2937. Both are very small in our view from Earth and very distant. There is a smaller galaxy on the left, PGC 1237172. It is an unrelated bluish irregular galaxy or edge-on spiral galaxy. It is located around 230 million light years away, making it closer to the Earth than the NGC 2936 collision. This image is a very heavy crop.

Here is another galaxy I haven’t tried for years, M64, the Black-eye Galaxy. A very colorful galaxy, it is a mere 17 million light years out there, also in Coma Berenices.

NGC 4244, also known as Caldwell 26, is an edge-on loose spiral galaxy in the constellation Canes Venatici. It is part of the M94 Group, a galaxy group relatively close to own Local Group containing the Milky Way, Andromeda, and Triangulum Galaxies. It is only about 14 million light years out there.

I just discovered this in Stellarium last night. It is a planetary nebula, very small. The nickname is the Lawn Sprinkler Nebula, and for once I can see why! Officially NGC 4361, it is a Wolf-Rayet star creating the nebula, the star is only 6% the size of our sun but 18,000 times brighter. It is found in the southern constellation Corvus, about 3000 light years out there. I would like to add a lot more exposure to this but for now, this is what I have, about an hour.

Here is another example of colliding galaxies, NGC 3227 is the larger galaxy, NGC 3226 is the smaller eliptical galaxy. Tidal tails of stars being pulled from the galaxies fill the spaces around the galaxies. Very faint and dim, about 70 million lights in the constellation Leo.

And now a few birds. Here is a hybrid Cinammon Teal/Blue-winged Teal at Lake Ajo.

A flock of American Avocets showed up a few days ago, and some got close enough for a fairly decent photo.

A dispute being resolved by two male Great-tailed Grackles.

My FOS Yellow Warbler, at the golf course.

Some Rain

But not much, certainly not enough. Two systems moved through and the total rain here was maybe .5 inch at best. According to the National Weather Service, most of the Ajo area and south to Organ Pipe Cactus National Monument got about that much or less. It will help, better than nothing, but there won’t be much of spring flower bloom. Now we are in for an early heat wave. Bird migration is picking up. Maybe the best bird I’ve seen recently was a Purple Martin at Lake Ajo, the first one I’ve ever seen in the Ajo area and one of the earliest spring records ever recorded for Arizona. I got some very poor photos which I will not be showing here.

There a lots of bats flying around Lake Ajo in late afternoon, even before sundown, giving me enough light to get some flight shots. Vikki came over one afternoon with her bat detector and between what that tells us and the few good photos I got, this appears to be a Pocketed Free-tailed Bat.

I found this Red-tailed Hawk in Bud Walker Park, it had just caught a Gamble’s Quail for breakfast. I’m always amazed at how versatile Red-tailed Hawks are!

A FOS Wilson’s Warbler at the golf course. Since I photographed this one, I’ve seen many more.

And a FOS Warbling Vireo. This is the only one I’ve seen so far.

First there was one, a FOS Common Yellowthroat, now there are many.

This is an object I’ve wanted to image for a long time. Finally, the time was right. Abell 33, also known as the Diamond Ring Nebula. This is a faint planetary nebula located about 2700 light years away in the constellation of Hydra. The star HD 83535, which has no relation to the nebula, gives it the “diamond ring” effect. It is very small (about 4 arc minutes) and very faint, without the IDAS Nebula Booster filter I would have no chance at getting it. Doubly ionized oxygen gives the nebula its color.

Unfortunately, I have to use the filter with 500 f4. This nebula is about the smallest object I can use the lens on and still get a result. This is about four hours of exposure time.

Astrophotography Birding Herps

March and Still Dry

I’ve been here since early November and it has not rained more than a few sprinkles in all that time. The current forecast calls for a chance of rain later this week. If it happens it will be too late for most of the spring annuals but it will help. I’ve never seen it this dry here. The migration of birds is slowly picking up, mostly with sparrows and swallows.

I went for another hike in Alamo Canyon. This time the bird numbers were down and the seep has dried up. I still got a few nice photos, like this male Ruby-crowned Kinglet.

The Canyon Wren was still there and this time I got a much better shot!

A Lincoln’s Sparrow that was scratching around in the oak leaves.

Butterflies are going to be few and far between this spring, so I was happy to photograph this Empress Leilia. I did see a few orangetips flying around too but none of them landed.

My first snake of the spring, a Western Patch-nosed Snake on the Child’s Mountain Road.

My previous attempt at the Skull and Crossbones Nebula was with the C8 and without the Nebula Booster Filter. I spent a few nights reshooting with the 500mm f4 and filter. The OII really popped out. It gives the nebula an entirely different shape and color.

It has been a few years since I’ve imaged the Rosette Nebula. With the use of some of the new software, I think this is the best result I’ve ever had. This is with the 500 f4 and without the IDAS Nebula Booster Filter, it really isn’t needed for this large and bright nebula.

Late winter and spring is what some call “galaxy season”. The plane of the Milky Way Galaxy is moving further south and west for now and galaxy rich areas of the night sky are more prevalent. This is NGC 2683, about 25 million light years out there in the constellation Lynx. There are several dwarf galaxies associated with NGC 2683 but the two faint galaxies that are in this image are distant background galaxies, far out in the universe.

M 44, the Beehive Cluster, is an open star cluster in the constellation Cancer. It is easily visible to the unaided eye in dark skies. In 1609, Galileo studied the Beehive Cluster and was able to resolve it into 40 stars with his telescope. Bright massive stars are concentrated in the cluster’s core while dimmer and less massive stars populate its halo. The cluster’s core radius is estimated at 11.4 light years.

Astrophotography Birding

February Update

I’m still here. It has been over two weeks since my last post. There hasn’t been much going on, until the last few days. Now there more signs of spring with some new birds migrating into the area. I am finally getting a few clear nights for astrophotography. By next week we will be seeing temperatures near 90 F. Still no rain and it does not look promising for the foreseeable future.

A Neotropic Cormorant appeared at Lake Ajo one day, this is the first one I’ve seen here, although they are common at Gillespie Dam and other places that have water with fish. This bird did not stay long, as soon as it realized there were no fish in Lake Ajo it took off.

A female Mountain Bluebird that has been in the campground all winter. A few days ago, I got this shot of it in the soft late afternoon light.

I made my first trip this winter to Alamo Canyon. There was actually a very small seep in the South Fork, in a bosque that usually is good birding. And it was good birding! Here is a Rufous-crowned Sparrow I photographed there. I also got my FOS Hooded Oriole, Cassin’s Vireo and a Gray Vireo. Here is a LINK to my eBird checklist.

It as been several years since I’ve seen a Bell’s Sparrow. One has to search all of the much more common Sagebrush Sparrows for a bird with no stripes on the back and black malars. I found one (maybe 2) at Highway Tank. The back is not striped, there are black streaks on the scapulars, but that is normal.

Here a frontal view showing a strong black breast spot and black malars.

Hubble’s Variable Nebula, NGC 2261, in the constellation Monoceros. I have photographed this before but only as part of a wider view of the Cone Nebula. I’ve never tried it with the C8. It is a small target but very bright. This is one of the few space objects that exhibit rather rapid changes in shape and brightness. One can track changes over time with a sketch or photos each time. It’s not the nebula changing shape, but rather clouds of thick dust and gas near the illuminating star (R Monocerotis) that are casting shadows into the nebula. Discovered by William Herschel in 1783, Edwin Hubble was the first to describe this pulsating nebula.

This is NGC 2467, with the common moniker of Skull and Crossbones Nebula. I have never tried this one before. It does not rise above 30 degrees in the south, so it stays in the murk of the atmosphere all the time. However, it is quite bright and large, so it worked out OK. Located in the constellation Puppis, it is a large star forming region, rich in ionizing hydrogen and even OII. I need a lot more exposure to bring out all the details and it may not even be possible at that low elevation.

Astrophotography Birding

Springlike in the Desert

The Sonoran Desert is in a heat wave. Near record heat started yesterday and continues through tomorrow, it was 86 F here at the campground today. It feels good! Night time lows are much warmer too. I don’t suppose it will last too long. I have had many nights of clouds again. I wouldn’t mind so much if it would rain, but that does not happen. I have got a little astrophotography done but not much.

Vikki and I made another trip to Gillespie Dam. This time the White Ibis was there, but the Reddish Egret was not. This is the first White Ibis I’ve seen since my 2010 trip to south Texas.

A nice pose from a male Western Bluebird. There is a flock of six that comes into water at Highway Tank, this is one of them.

This is my finished IC 2169. I posted this in my last update, but now have added two more hours of exposure.

Last night I spent a few hours on IC 443, the Jellyfish Nebula. I used the IDAS Nebula Booster Filter. This is a supernova remnant that I have imaged before. I wanted to add this to my results from last year but the framing was too far off, so this is what I have. From Earth, the nebula is nearly twice the size of a full moon, but in reality it is about 70 light years in diameter. The power of a supernova is unimaginable, this one is thousands of years old.

I did some planetary imaging Saturday night. The “seeing” was forecast to be good and it turned out OK. I caught the transit of the Galilean moon Io. In this image Io has passed in front of Jupiter and the shadow of the moon is still passing.

I spent a little time on Mars too. With a C8 this is about as good as it gets. At least the polar cap stands out.

Astrophotography Birding Mammals

January Update

It has been almost two weeks since I’ve updated. Not a lot is happening. It has been typical Sonoran Desert winter weather, except for a lack of rain. There is a promise of some rain in the next few days. I hope it materializes. I drove north to Gillespie Dam on the Gila River to look for a Reddish Egret that keeps popping up. As it turned out, it popped up an hour before I got there and then disappeared again. I may try again, I haven’t seen a Reddish Egret since my trip to south Texas in 2010.

At Gillespie Dam I did get some good shots of a Virginia Rail. I was hoping for a Least Bittern too, but did not see one.

A Common Gallinule, also at Gillespie Dam. This species never shows up at Lake Ajo because there are no cattails.

The numbers of wintering Sage Thrashers is higher than usual, same for Sagebrush Sparrows, which seem to be very common in the right habitat. Last winter both species were hard to find.

The south end of a north bound Javelina. I saw it getting a drink from a tank out by Burro Pass. In town, Javelina are quite tolerant of people but out in the desert, they are very wild and wary.

This is LDN 1622, a dark nebula in the Orion constellation. I framed it like this to show the long streamer of cosmic dust below it. The red glow of ionizing hydrogen is a part of Barnard’s Loop. The obscuring dust of LDN 1622 is thought to lie at a distance of 1,500 light-years. At that distance, this nearly two degree wide field of view would span about 60 light-years.

I want to add more exposure to this, but it has been too cloudy or windy and looks like it will be a few more days before I can do anything. So here it is, for now. This is IC 2169, also known as Dreyer’s Nebula, in the constellation Monoceros. It is named after John Louis Emil Dreyer (1852 – 1926), the Danish astronomer who compiled the NGC and IC catalogues. This image also includes some smaller reflection nebulas and dark nebulas. It reminds me of M78. I think it will be worth putting more hours into a final image.

A Western Bluebird at Highway Tank this morning.

Here’s a Rock Wren that was foraging around the camper a few days ago.

Astrophotography Birding Mammals

Sonoran Desert Winter

Post author By Doug Backlund
Post date January 11, 2025

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.