Month: January 2021

Red Phalarope at Ajo

The big excitement of the past few days has been a Red Phalarope that showed up on the Ajo Sewage Ponds. I found it late Tuesday afternoon and got the word out, but it was too late for birders from the Tucson area to come over. The following morning was cold, 28 degrees at my campsite. I got to the pond before sunrise. Roger Clark and Linda Birkel were already there and Brian Nicholas showed up right after I got there. It finally got light enough to see, but no Red Phalarope could be found. Discouraged, we decided to go check on the Long-eared Owls in the thicket. There were still a few there and a Barn Owl too. Then back to the pond but still no phalarope. About then Roger checked his messages. Quite amazingly, another Red Phalarope had been found at Canoa, south of Tucson. They all piled into their cars and took off. And they all got that one.

Red Phalarope in winter plumage. Quite rare inland and especially in the Sonoran Desert. This is the first record of the species at Ajo.

There are lots of White-throated Swifts at the pond. I keep trying to get good photos of them but it is hard.

Western Meadowlark at the golf course. This was one of the rare times when I could get close to them with the sun behind me.

Birding Photography

Finally, Some Rain!

Post author By Doug Backlund
Post date January 21, 2021

It started yesterday as forecasted and last night it rained fairly steady for several hours. Although the weather station in Ajo said only .21 inches, I’m sure more rain than that fell where I am. It is pretty soggy out there. I went to the golf course and there was standing water in many places. The forecast is for even more rain next week. I watched the rain develop on radar and it appears that Organ Pipe Cactus National Monument got a good drenching as did most of the Sonoran Desert. So far, the rain has made no difference for birding, there still isn’t much to see.

I haven’t seen many Sage Thrashers this winter and this is the first one I could get a good photo of since I left Granite Gap last fall. I followed it around for awhile till it hopped up on this branch.

A juvenile Sharp-shinned Hawk that was on the hunt and ruining my birding at the golf course.

Astrophotography

January Grand Finale

The January astrophotography period is ending. It was marred by clouds on too many nights. I wouldn’t mind some clouds if they would bring rain, but that didn’t happen. All in all, I still got some good images. I have moved back to the county campground now. The weather forecast for this week is looking good for rain, finally. I hope it rains a lot!!!

I spent one night on M81, Bode’s Galaxy. Of course, I have done this galaxy before but not with guiding. It is one of the most photogenic galaxies in the universe, as seen from Earth.

I spent about an hour one night imaging this area of the Virgo Galaxy Cluster. There are dozens of galaxies in this image. This image only covers about .5 degree of the sky. The galaxies that look so close together are separated by millions of light years. It is really hard to comprehend the immensity of the universe.

NGC 2403, also known as the Jewel of Camelopardilis, in the constellation of Camelopardilis. Known for its many and large h-alpha star-forming regions, the galaxy is similar in size to our Milky Way Galaxy. It is about 8 million light years away. I tried to make the large nebulas as visible as I can, but they are difficult at this image size.

Had to do it. The Great Nebula in Orion. I can never get tired of this one!

Astrophotography

Dodging Clouds

Post author By Doug Backlund
Post date January 13, 2021

The nights are dark again but with that comes a series of nights with clouds. Mostly the clouds are just high and thin but they are not good for astrophotography. Despite that, I’ve had some success. The Cosmic Bat didn’t turn out so well and I spent a lot of time on it. Oh well, there will be more good nights, I hope.

The Cosmic Bat and associated dust clouds. This small and dim nebula is located in the Orion constellation. I would need to spend many more hours to get a good image, but I think I will quit with this. I gathered photons for three nights, between clouds, for a total of 6 hours.

After the Cosmic Bat I needed to work on some more spectacular nebulas. I’ve done the Rosette Nebula before but that was prior to having guiding and dithering. With guiding, I rarely have to throw out any subs. Before, I would sometimes lose 25-50% of my subs due to poor tracking and oblong stars. Dithering (small random movements of the image framing) eliminates much of the noise and random errors that result from long exposures. The end result, I get more and better keepers and therefore more exposure on a given night.

It has been a whole year since I’ve done the Horsehead Nebula and I was excited to do it again, this time with guiding and dithering. I think this came out exceptionally nice!

Astrophotography

M78, Casper the Friendly Ghost Nebula

Post author By Doug Backlund
Post date January 9, 2021

I’ve been working on this image for awhile now. I’ve gathered images over two nights for about 6 hours of total integration. I was interrupted by two nights of clouds and last night I had to wait till almost 9 PM before the clouds went away, but then I got a good 3 hours on it. The nebulas are in the Orion B molecular cloud complex and about 1,350 light-years from Earth. It takes a lot of exposure to show the dust clouds around the nebulas. The large area of red is part of Barnard’s Loop, a huge emission nebula that encompasses nearly half of the Orion Constellation.

This is one of my favorite parts of the night sky to photograph. I have no idea how the name of Casper the Friendly Ghost Nebula was arrived at but that is what is shown in Stellarium. Of course the official designation of M78 is most often used. Taken with Canon 500 f4 lens, Canon 7DMII H-alpha modified camera, Losmandy G11G mount, guiding with Lacerta M-Gen III and an Astronomics 60mm guide scope.

As always, one can right click on the image and open in a new tab to see a larger image.

Tonight, with luck, I will be shooting the Cosmic Bat. Stay tuned for that!

Astrophotography

Onto 2021 and Beyond…

Another year gone by. Birding has been very slow here and not much else worth mentioning until now, when the moon is starting to rise later every night. I did make a move of my campsite. I got tired of listening to dogs barking all the time and left the county campground. I’m now located in a remote site and enjoying the quiet here.