I know that the folks back in South Dakota aren’t going to have much sympathy for me here. But it has been pretty cold for this area, and it has been a long-lasting cold snap as well. The end is near though as a warming trend is finally coming. Daytime highs in the low 50’s will soon be in the upper 60’s and 70’s. The Ajo CBC was held on Friday, and I had my usual unit. A Spotted Towhee was probably the best bird for me, and I got the other two species of Towhees as well, Green-tailed and Canyon, all within 100 yards of each other. Another good find was a Canyon Wren, and I got some nice photos of that. Astrophotography has been slow and cold. Quite a few cloudy nights and the nights that were clear had heavy dew that later froze on surfaces.
Way back on December 7, Mars passed behind the full moon, a rare occultation of the red planet and a full moon. I had the C8 set up for it and this is what I got. Here’s my Canyon Wren. It was singing a lot. Always nice to hear!Not far away, a Rock Wren was wondering what all the commotion was about. A female Northern Cardinal, I saw the male too but couldn’t get a good photo of it.IC 405, the Flaming Star Nebula in the constellation Auriga. I imaged this nebula a long time ago. I like this image a lot better than the old ones I took. The brightest star in the nebula is AE Auriga, a runaway star. AE Auriga lights up the Flaming Star Nebula as it passes through the nebula at high speed. IC 348 with the 500 f4. I tried the brightest part of this dark nebula with the C8 and liked the results so much I went for this wider-angle view of the area. Located on the edge of the Perseus Molecular Cloud, it is not far from the Pleiades and the Embryo Nebula.
One reply on “Ajo CBC and Cold Weather”
The pic of Mars behind the moon is awesome! Good bird photos too. Our CBC is tomorrow, I hope we get some good birds.
I was reading about the runaway star on the Nasa web page, and had to laugh at this statement:
A runaway star is one that is hurled into high-speed motion through a supernova explosion or encounter with nearby stars. Like an angry teenager who storms out of the house after a family fight, runaway stars are ejected from their birthplace and race off to other parts of the galaxy.
One reply on “Ajo CBC and Cold Weather”
The pic of Mars behind the moon is awesome! Good bird photos too. Our CBC is tomorrow, I hope we get some good birds.
I was reading about the runaway star on the Nasa web page, and had to laugh at this statement:
A runaway star is one that is hurled into high-speed motion through a supernova explosion or encounter with nearby stars. Like an angry teenager who storms out of the house after a family fight, runaway stars are ejected from their birthplace and race off to other parts of the galaxy.