December has been kind of disappointing for astrophotography. The weather varied from cloudy and cold to cold and clear, but more clouds than I would expect. It seems to me that there are more cloudy nights the last couple of years than I experienced in my first winters in the Sonoran Desert. Only one rain event in December and that was .15 inches in Ajo. Birding has really slowed down.
I spent far more time on this than I should have. M45, the Pleiades, but I used my Canon 6D, a full frame camera and not modded for H-alpha. This gives me a much wider field of view and that is what I wanted, to show the dust clouds surrounding this bright reflection nebula. I have never tried to image the Witch Head Nebula (IC 2118)with the 500 f4. I used the 6D for this too, for the wider view. IC 2118 is an extremely faint reflection nebula. It is a cloud of gas and dust illuminated by nearby supergiant star Rigel in the constellation of Orion. It is about 900 light-years from Earth.For this I used the H-alpha camera to capture the red light emitted by the ionizing hydrogen in this emission nebula, the California Nebula. At 500mm it completely fills the frame. Lots of galaxies in this image. Located in the constellation of Cetus, this group of galaxies makes a good area to image. At the top right is spiral galaxy NGC 1042 and in the lower left is NGC 1052. There are at least 8 galaxies visible. Right click and open in a new tab to see a larger image. NGC 1398, located in the Fornax constellation. It is about 65 million light years away. It has an interesting double ring structure at the center. This is one I’d like to spend a lot more time on but it is so low in the south that I can only get about an hour on it per night. To see a really good image of this galaxy, check this LINK. Saturn and Jupiter approaching an historic conjunction. It has been about 800 years since they have been seen this close together. December 21 is the date that the two are at their closest and Saturn will be within the area of the Jupiter’s Galilean Moons. Jupiter and Saturn are actually 456 million miles apart. Saturn is nearly twice as far away from Earth as Jupiter.
I took this last night with the C8. I had to really overexpose to get some of Saturn’s moons and then combine images for this composite. The largest moon, above Saturn, is Titan. I think the other three are Rhea, Tethys, and Dione. Saturn has lots of moons but most are far too small to see from Earth. Only 13 have diameters greater than 30 miles. Titan is larger than the planet Mercury. The four Galilean moons of Jupiter are much easier to photograph. Going out from Jupiter, they are Io, Europa, Ganymede, and Callisto.
Finally, some rain. Last night a thundershower moved through and it rained hard for about 30 seconds. There was a little more rain overnight but altogether it didn’t add up to much, I suspect about .1 inch. I need to get a rain gauge, I guess. There is a weather station in town but it has been offline for a few days now, so it is not very reliable. Not much for new birds in the area. I have been getting some very nice photos at the golf course.
My favorite new photo, a Cedar Waxwing displaying the red, waxy tips of the secondary feathers. Here’s a link to good article about those red waxy feather tips. Another Western Bluebird feeding in the palms. They let me get very close. A Long-eared Owl in The Thicket. This would be a very nice photo if it weren’t for that stick in front of the owl’s face. It is very difficult to get any clear shots, or for that matter any shots at all. They are like ghosts in the trees. It is impossible to sneak up on them, they know I’m there, it is just a matter of seeing them before they fly. They have excellent camouflage and are masters at finding a roost where I can’t see them. Another shot of the Hepatic Tanager, probably the best photo I have so far. Notice the notched tanager bill, diagnostic. I saw this Sharp-shinned Hawk soaking its feet in the community pool at Bud Walker Park. I was able to get very close but had to shoot through a woven wire fence. It still came out pretty good. M77, Cetus A, a galaxy in the constellation Cetus. This galaxy has a very bright core surrounded by a very faint layer of stars and dust. This adds up to a difficult exposure job. Charles Messier and William Herschel described this galaxy as a star cluster in 1780, but now we know M77 is a galaxy.
I’d like to put more time on this, maybe tonight. On the other hand, I’m about ready to put to 500 f4 on the mount and shoot some nebulas for a change.
The full moon is waning to the new moon on December 14. I have had three nights with enough dark sky for a few hours of astrophotography. Of course, now is when the clouds decide to roll in. For the next three days, it is forecast to be mostly cloudy, but the good news is, there is a good chance of some rain on Wednesday. It has been cold at night, down around freezing. Now with the clouds moving in the night temperatures won’t drop much below 50 F.
The Sculptor Galaxy. I have done this galaxy before with the 500 f4 lens, this is the first time with the C8. This is a large and bright galaxy. Even at this latitude, it never rises more than about 35 degrees above the southern horizon, so it is less than ideal for photography. I put about 3 hours into this and think it came out pretty good. It is a starburst galaxy with a high rate of star formation. This leads to lots of young stars, very bright and blue, giving the outer rings a strong blue color. Older stars in the center are more yellow. NGC 1232, a very faint galaxy that is over 60,000,000 light years from earth. Before I imaged this I had read that it was faint and low surface brightness, making it difficult to photograph, so I was surprised that this came out so well. Like the Sculptor Galaxy, it is low to the horizon. Another of the low-hanging galaxies of the south, this is NGC 1300. Like both of the galaxies above, it is in the constellation Eridanus. It is about the size of our galaxy, and about 60 million light years out there. NGC 1055. I posted this one last week, but now I have added more photos to it. I really like this galaxy. Of all these galaxies that I have posted recently, I suppose it all adds up to 4 or 5 trillion stars in total, maybe more. I wonder if there is someone or something else out there photographing the Milky Way? it seems quite likely. I found this in Stellarium and decided to try it just because of the name. Darth Vader’s Starfighter Galaxy, NGC 936. The view through a telescope doesn’t show the fainter part of this galaxy, just the bright core and outer bars, so I can see how it got the name. I decided to watch Star Wars that same night. I used a 200mm f2.8 lens for this, the California Nebula, and captured the dust clouds seen on the left too. A composite image of the moon rising over the Batamote Mountains, east of my campsite.
As always, right click on an image and open in a new tab to see a larger image.
Nothing much new here. The big excitement lately has been a McCown’s Longspur at the golf course. Mark Otnes saw it first, yesterday morning, just before I got there. We had planned to go to Alamo Canyon later, but he found this longspur first and we spent more time on it than planned. Alamo Canyon turned out to be dry and not very birdy anyway. This is the first record of McCown’s Longspur in the Ajo area and for the most part, the entire Sonoran Desert. There are more records in Arizona east of Tuscon and in northern Arizona.
The full moon is finally fading and I should be doing astro again, probably starting tomorrow night. Looks like a series of clear nights coming up too.
McCown’s Longspur (now called the Thick-billed Longspur) in winter plumage. A very rare bird in this part of the world. My annual photo of a Black-throated Sparrow, this one on an Ocotillo stem. Gilded Flicker. This bird was feeding on palm berries and landed on this branch with soft light and the sun behind me, very close, which makes for a nice image. Probably the best photo I have of this species. Here it is again, on the palm. Male Mountain Bluebird on the golf course green at sunrise. It was 32 F. this morning, kind of chilly. I can add Western Bluebird to my list of birds photographed eating palm berries. An out of season Hepatic Tanager at the golf course. Very unusual this late in the fall. One of six Long-eared Owls I found in The Thicket a few days ago. Another coyote that I got very close to.
