I made a trip to Buckeye to stock up at Walmart and on the way there, I birded. There were lots of birds at the Gillespie Dam, hundreds of egrets and herons, two species of cormorants, and lots of pelicans. Astrophotography continues to be hard, with too many clouds. But I have managed to get some done. I also made a trip down to Alamo Canyon, long overdue.
This is Abell 31, also known as Sh2-290. It is a very faint planetary nebula in the constellation Cancer. It is so faint that I cannot see it in any of my images until I stack and process. As far as planetary nebulas go, it is fairly large in view. This is what I got after 8 hours of exposure with the Nebula Booster filter and the 500f4 lens. Comet 62P/Tsuchinshan is now passing through the Virgo Galaxy Cluster, so I tried it last night. At magnitude 10.5 it isn’t very bright. The comet is over 50 million miles distance. The galaxies are on the order of 50 million light years, some are nearly 90 million light years out there. On a walk in Alamo Canyon, I found lots of Miner’s Lettuce, Claytonia perfoliata.And also Redmaids, Calandrinia ciliata.Some of the pelicans and one Snowy Egret at Gillespie Dam. Snowy Egret swallowing a fish. Abert’s Towhee at Gillespie Dam. Some of the egrets I saw. At 100mm focal length, this is all could get in one frame. Also in Alamo Canyon, I saw several Empress Leilia nectaring on Gooding’s Vervain. For me, this is unusual for two reasons. I rarely if ever have seen this species of hackberry butterfly nectar on anything and in my experience, not many butterflies nectar at this species of plant. At the parking lot in Alamo Canyon, I watched this Northern Cardinal repeatedly attack its image in a sideview mirror on another car parked there. Then it flew up onto this Saguaro to sing loudly!
One reply on “More Photos from the Ajo Area”
Looks like birding is picking up! The egrets at the dam are impressive.
We haven’t seen the comet, we’ll have to give it a try.
One reply on “More Photos from the Ajo Area”
Looks like birding is picking up! The egrets at the dam are impressive.
We haven’t seen the comet, we’ll have to give it a try.