Yes, I’m still here. However, the weather in the Sonoran Desert is finally going to cool down and I will be in Ajo by Wednesday. It will be nice to be closer to a grocery store. I’ve been busy with astrophotography and my usual hiking and reading. This is a nice spot for quiet camping. I have a good crew of hummingbirds coming to my feeder now, Black-chins, Anna’s, and Rufous. I’ve been putting out the trail camera every night hoping for the mountain lion to come by but so far all I’ve got is coyotes, a gray fox, and rabbits.
As always, right click on an image and open in a new tab to see it displayed at a larger size.
Tarantula Hawk walking on a board. These are somewhat difficult to get a good photo of. A Robber Fly sucking the juice out of a bee. I can’t resist a shot like this. I now have an Anna’s Hummingbird at my feeder. This is a juvenile male.I’ve spent two nights gathering photons for this image. I now have a total of about 4 hours of exposure. In the upper left is the Iris Nebula and lower right is the Ghost Nebula. Both are in clouds of space dust in the direction of the constellation Cepheus. Here is the Ghost Nebula cropped out and some rather heavy-handed processing. It is a pretty neat nebula, I can see why it is named the Ghost! I am out tonight gathering more light from this region, so will see what another two hours of exposure will do.
