Month: October 2021

A Halloween Post

I figure it is about time to post something. I’ve been keeping busy with astrophotography, birding, and hiking. Yesterday I found a Rufous-backed Robin at the city park and even got some good photos. That is the third time I have seen Rufous-backed Robin in the Ajo area. Today, I found a Yellow-bellied Sapsucker in the same park but could not get any good photos. I will keep trying.

Rufous-backed Robin in Bud Walker Park, Ajo.

I drive by a Kit Fox den everyday, every now and then I will spot one outside in the sun. This one was catching the late afternoon sun just before sundown.

I’ve got 10 hours on the Helix Nebula now and I think it is enough.

I’ve never tried the Pacman Nebula with the C8 and with guiding. It is almost too big for the C8 but it works, I guess. This nebula is about 9000 light years distant and 48 light years in diameter. There is a dark cloud in the center of the nebula known as a Bok Globule, a dense cloud of dust and gas, a prelude to star formation. Officially NGC 281, the Pacman Nebula is found in the constellation of Cassiopeia.

My Halloween image, the Skull Nebula. I have added a lot more exposure since posting this a few weeks ago.

Birding Insects Photography

Birding is Picking Up!

Quite a few new birds are showing up yesterday and today. Another Red-breasted Sapsucker has appeared at the golf course and this one is, so far, easy to find and get close too. This morning it was in the shadows though, so I went back to the truck and got my flash. The flash didn’t bother it all. I also saw a Townsend’s Solitaire, Lawrence’s Goldfinch, Swainson’s Thrush, and a Lazuli Bunting. Finally, the moon is starting to fade and the weather looks good after Monday, I should have at least five good days of astrophotography and I am looking forward to that.

Get ready for a barrage of Red-breasted Sapsucker photos! Finally, a pure specimen (there are lots of hybrids) and one that lets me get close. Shot with flash.

From last evening, when I first saw the bird it was on the palm fruit. It was just at sundown, I had to shoot at higher ISO.

It has been a long time since I’ve seen any Great Purple Hairstreaks. So far this fall, I’ve seen several.

A Common Ground Dove at the golf course.

Townsend’s Solitaire bathing with a Lazuli Bunting.

A pair of Greater Yellowlegs at Highway Tank.

A Desert Blond Tarantula that I came across a few days ago.

Birding Insects Photography

Butterflies Galore

Today I drove out to a place I call 8115 Arroyo. It seems to have no name on maps but there is BLM Road 8115 that goes to it, so I have made a name for it. I’ve been watching the summer monsoon storms on radar for the last three or four months and this area has got quite a lot of rain. It shows too, the vegetation in the arroyo is lush and green, the spiny hackberry are loaded with green fruit that is just starting to ripen and should be attracting birds soon. The numbers of butterflies was amazing. It was mostly American Snouts and Cloudless Sulphurs, but I also saw Queens, Sonoran Metalmarks, Empress Leilia, Southern Dogface, Mexican Yellows, Gray Hairstreak, Leda Ministreak, and Pipevine Swallowtail. I saw my first ever caterpillar of a Pipevine Swallowtail too. The abundance of American Snouts was just amazing, sometimes hundreds on a single plant.

I don’t think I have seen this before, at least not in flower. Texas Virgin’s Bower, *Clematis drummondii*. There was lot of it flowering in 8115 Arroyo. Butterflies seemed to ignore it though.

Here’s the Pipevine Swallowtail caterpillar. I had to post it on BugGuide to find out what it was. It is a large caterpillar, it was on Chuckwalla Delight. Throughout the arroyo, Chuckwalla Delight was attracting lots of butterflies.

I can walk by hundreds of butterflies of many species but when I find a Sonoran Metalmark I have to start taking photos. The flower is Chuckwalla’s Delight.

It isn’t often I can get shots of the underside of a Sonoran Metalmark, the light wasn’t very good here.

I took more photos of the Lewis’s Woodpeckers at the golf course, now there are four of them.

A Cloudless Sulphur nectaring on Hummingbird Trumpet.

Astrophotography Birding Herps Photography

A Skull and a Snake, Among Other Things

Post author By Doug Backlund
Post date October 12, 2021

Birding has really improved with the latest storm. Today I saw two American White Pelicans at the ponds (first time ever for Ajo) and two Lewis’s Woodpeckers at the golf course, only the second time I’ve seen that species in the Ajo area. There were three Red-necked Phalaropes at the pond too. I had one good night for astro before the storm and now the moon is getting too bright again. I am enjoying this cooler weather but will miss snake hunting, I suppose till next spring, although I did have an encounter with a snake recently.

I was checking out The Thicket for owls. I didn’t see any owls but I did come across this Coachwhip. It was close, laying there and watching me and I suppose hoping I would just go away. I have given up trying to catch this species for photography. Even if I could catch it, all they do is fight, bite, and try to get away. Not a nice snake to handle. And they are big, this one was about 5 feet long.

Zoomed out to see more of the Coachwhip, a very fast and powerful predator.

One of the two Lewis’s Woodpecker at the golf course.

A species of wild *Datura*, or Moonflower.

These wild Morning Glories are blooming by the hundreds in The Thicket.

I got about an hour on this, the Skull Nebula, NGC 246, about 1600 light years away. I have tried this before with the 500f4 but it is too small, it works much better with the C8. I am going to be adding more exposure time to this eventually. This is an interesting planetary nebula, located in Cetus. It has a central star, known as a white dwarf, that is forming the nebula, but also a second star and an even smaller third star, forming the only known planetary nebula with three central stars. None of the stars in this image are bright enough to be seen even with binoculars, the brightest is about magnitude 10.

Here is the white dwarf, cropped out of the image above. The large second star is also visible. I am pretty impressed with my Celestron C8 reflector since it can actually resolve these two stars. Not many scopes can. The third star is too small or maybe is hidden behind these stars, I don’t know. Here’s a link with more information:
Eerie Skull Nebula glows bright for Halloween | Space My little C8 can resolve the central stars just about as well as the European Southern Observatory’s Very Large Telescope! I need more exposure time for the dimmer stuff.

Astrophotography Birding Herps Photography

Eye of Sauron?

I think the heat of summer is behind me now. By next week it looks like an even more significant cool down is on the way. I’ve been getting a little bit of astro done too. I decided that I’m going to spend more time on fewer deep sky objects. I started out with the Helix Nebula. As always, one can right click on an image, open in a new tab and see a larger image.