More Photos from Granite Gap

I’m still here at Granite Gap. This is sure a nice, peaceful campsite. I am surprised at the lack of use since the Forest Service campgrounds are closed and this is listed as a free camping area on the various internet sites. I suppose it is due to it not being a good place for the big trailers and motorhomes. It is suited to small campers only. The long range weather forecast doesn’t show much hope for going to Ajo for at least a week but I might move further west in a few days.

Sage Thrasher eating juniper berries. This was in a bad place for photography, with the bird in the shade and a bright background, but some work with Photoshop made it look pretty good.

The Wizard Nebula with the C8. I have about 3 hours of exposure on it now. This is an emission nebula that surrounds the open star cluster NGC 7380 in the constellation Cepheus. I’ve seen some really nice images of this nebula but it takes 8-10 hours (or more) of exposure to really get the fine details and I’m not sure I have the patience for that.

It was pretty windy one night so I used the 500 f4 lens instead of the C8. The C8 really does not do well in wind. I elected to put the entire night (until the moon came up) on the Andromeda Galaxy.

This was an experiment. NGC 1333 (also known as the Embryo Nebula) is very small and faint. I have tried it before with the 500 f4 but it is too small. With the C8 the issue is getting enough exposure. I used ISO 12000 to see what would happen with 2 minute exposures. It isn’t too bad but there is a lot of noise and the image quality is poor. At this low resolution I suppose it looks fine. This is another one that would take many hours to get a really good image.

2 replies on “More Photos from Granite Gap”

Very nice photos. I really like the striations in the Andromeda Galaxy, it resembles an agate.
I’m glad your weather has been good and it’s a peaceful campsite. It’s nice here now but going to get windy tomorrow, and below freezing by the end of the week.

Thanks, Andromeda Galaxy is my favorite. Getting windy here too, probably too windy for any astro tonight. Guess I’ll get some sleep instead.

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