It has been a long time since I posted anything, so here goes. I had some good nights for astrophotography. Birding has really slowed down, but I’m still taking photos. The most exciting birds have been a Herring Gull at the ponds, but it didn’t stay long enough for anyone to drive out to see it. And at Highway Tank, during a Cabeza Prieta Natural History Association field trip, we saw three Red Crossbills, a very rare bird for the Sonoran Desert. After three years of not catching a cold, flu or covid, I have now come down with something. I think it is a cold but can’t get tested for covid until tomorrow. At any rate, I don’t feel like doing much today.
Later this week it looks like very good chance for rain, and it is badly needed. Fingers crossed.
One afternoon I looked out and saw this Loggerhead Shrike perched on top of the astronomy mount. It let me get very close. An American Pipit at Highway Tank. One of the three Red Crossills at Highway Tank. A distant photo of all three, two males and a female. After getting a drink they flew south. This is a dark nebula, Sh2-239. It is a star forming region in the Taurus Molecular Cloud. It takes a lot of exposure to capture these dark nebulas but I find them fascinating and worth the effort. I’m not even sure this one has a name, but the dark nebula near the top is shown as B209 in Stellarium. The B stands for Barnard. The galaxy in the upper right is IC 359, which is what I had to use to find this dark nebula. Framing is always difficult because these dark nebulas are nearly invisible until the images are stacked and processed. VdB 14 and 15, reflection nebulas in the constellation Camelopardalis. Both are illuminated by two super giant stars. These are very faint too, took me hours of exposure to get this much. Here’s an easy one. I couldn’t resist it one night, the Horsehead Nebula. Compared to the nebulas above, this one is easy to do. Only about 2 hours of exposure and the processing is very fast. All of these astrophotos were taken with the 500f4 lens.
2 replies on “Mid-December Update”
The dark nebulas are interesting, like clouds hiding the stars.
Pretty awesome that you got crossbills there for a short period of time.
I hope you’re feeling better.
Grat shows. I’m glad you got those Crossville. I missed the shot!
2 replies on “Mid-December Update”
The dark nebulas are interesting, like clouds hiding the stars.
Pretty awesome that you got crossbills there for a short period of time.
I hope you’re feeling better.
Grat shows. I’m glad you got those Crossville. I missed the shot!