Month: March 2025

Categories
Astrophotography Birding

March Astro

Despite some lousy weather, clouds, wind, ect., I’ve been getting some astrophotography done. Birding is still slow. There hasn’t been anything exciting for a long time. Although it did get hot for a couple of days, it didn’t seem to bring out the herps, probably because of the extreme dryness. The Round-tailed Ground Squirrels are out and they cannot find anything green to eat on the ground so they are climbing the mesquites and eating the leafs and bark.

I started this weeks ago and just finished up last week. NGC 4565, the Needle Galaxy. It has been a few years since I tried this, one of my favorite galaxies. A large and bright galaxy, it is out there 40-50 million light years, in the constellation Coma Berenices.
This is one I did just to see what it looks like. Often called the Penguin and the Egg, NGC 2936 is the larger galaxy, interacting with the elliptical galaxy NGC 2937. Both are very small in our view from Earth and very distant. There is a smaller galaxy on the left, PGC 1237172. It is an unrelated bluish irregular galaxy or edge-on spiral galaxy. It is located around 230 million light years away, making it closer to the Earth than the NGC 2936 collision. This image is a very heavy crop.
Here is another galaxy I haven’t tried for years, M64, the Black-eye Galaxy. A very colorful galaxy, it is a mere 17 million light years out there, also in Coma Berenices.
NGC 4244, also known as Caldwell 26, is an edge-on loose spiral galaxy in the constellation Canes Venatici. It is part of the M94 Group, a galaxy group relatively close to own Local Group containing the Milky Way, Andromeda, and Triangulum Galaxies. It is only about 14 million light years out there.
I just discovered this in Stellarium last night. It is a planetary nebula, very small. The nickname is the Lawn Sprinkler Nebula, and for once I can see why! Officially NGC 4361, it is a Wolf-Rayet star creating the nebula, the star is only 6% the size of our sun but 18,000 times brighter. It is found in the southern constellation Corvus, about 3000 light years out there. I would like to add a lot more exposure to this but for now, this is what I have, about an hour.
Here is another example of colliding galaxies, NGC 3227 is the larger galaxy, NGC 3226 is the smaller eliptical galaxy. Tidal tails of stars being pulled from the galaxies fill the spaces around the galaxies. Very faint and dim, about 70 million lights in the constellation Leo.
And now a few birds. Here is a hybrid Cinammon Teal/Blue-winged Teal at Lake Ajo.
A flock of American Avocets showed up a few days ago, and some got close enough for a fairly decent photo.
A dispute being resolved by two male Great-tailed Grackles.
My FOS Yellow Warbler, at the golf course.
Categories
Astrophotography Bats Birding

Some Rain

But not much, certainly not enough. Two systems moved through and the total rain here was maybe .5 inch at best. According to the National Weather Service, most of the Ajo area and south to Organ Pipe Cactus National Monument got about that much or less. It will help, better than nothing, but there won’t be much of spring flower bloom. Now we are in for an early heat wave. Bird migration is picking up. Maybe the best bird I’ve seen recently was a Purple Martin at Lake Ajo, the first one I’ve ever seen in the Ajo area and one of the earliest spring records ever recorded for Arizona. I got some very poor photos which I will not be showing here.

There a lots of bats flying around Lake Ajo in late afternoon, even before sundown, giving me enough light to get some flight shots. Vikki came over one afternoon with her bat detector and between what that tells us and the few good photos I got, this appears to be a Pocketed Free-tailed Bat.
I found this Red-tailed Hawk in Bud Walker Park, it had just caught a Gamble’s Quail for breakfast. I’m always amazed at how versatile Red-tailed Hawks are!
A FOS Wilson’s Warbler at the golf course. Since I photographed this one, I’ve seen many more.
And a FOS Warbling Vireo. This is the only one I’ve seen so far.
First there was one, a FOS Common Yellowthroat, now there are many.
This is an object I’ve wanted to image for a long time. Finally, the time was right. Abell 33, also known as the Diamond Ring Nebula. This is a faint planetary nebula located about 2700 light years away in the constellation of Hydra. The star HD 83535, which has no relation to the nebula, gives it the “diamond ring” effect. It is very small (about 4 arc minutes) and very faint, without the IDAS Nebula Booster filter I would have no chance at getting it. Doubly ionized oxygen gives the nebula its color.

Unfortunately, I have to use the filter with 500 f4. This nebula is about the smallest object I can use the lens on and still get a result. This is about four hours of exposure time.
Categories
Astrophotography Birding Herps

March and Still Dry

I’ve been here since early November and it has not rained more than a few sprinkles in all that time. The current forecast calls for a chance of rain later this week. If it happens it will be too late for most of the spring annuals but it will help. I’ve never seen it this dry here. The migration of birds is slowly picking up, mostly with sparrows and swallows.

I went for another hike in Alamo Canyon. This time the bird numbers were down and the seep has dried up. I still got a few nice photos, like this male Ruby-crowned Kinglet.
The Canyon Wren was still there and this time I got a much better shot!
A Lincoln’s Sparrow that was scratching around in the oak leaves.
Butterflies are going to be few and far between this spring, so I was happy to photograph this Empress Leilia. I did see a few orangetips flying around too but none of them landed.
My first snake of the spring, a Western Patch-nosed Snake on the Child’s Mountain Road.
My previous attempt at the Skull and Crossbones Nebula was with the C8 and without the Nebula Booster Filter. I spent a few nights reshooting with the 500mm f4 and filter. The OII really popped out. It gives the nebula an entirely different shape and color.
It has been a few years since I’ve imaged the Rosette Nebula. With the use of some of the new software, I think this is the best result I’ve ever had. This is with the 500 f4 and without the IDAS Nebula Booster Filter, it really isn’t needed for this large and bright nebula.
Late winter and spring is what some call “galaxy season”. The plane of the Milky Way Galaxy is moving further south and west for now and galaxy rich areas of the night sky are more prevalent. This is NGC 2683, about 25 million light years out there in the constellation Lynx. There are several dwarf galaxies associated with NGC 2683 but the two faint galaxies that are in this image are distant background galaxies, far out in the universe.
M 44, the Beehive Cluster, is an open star cluster in the constellation Cancer. It is easily visible to the unaided eye in dark skies. In 1609, Galileo studied the Beehive Cluster and was able to resolve it into 40 stars with his telescope. Bright massive stars are concentrated in the cluster’s core while dimmer and less massive stars populate its halo. The cluster’s core radius is estimated at 11.4 light years.