Author: Doug Backlund

Wilson’s Warbler

Post author By Doug Backlund
Post date March 13, 2021

It must have been a pretty boring birding winter if a Wilson’s Warbler seems exciting. Yesterday, I actually saw around a dozen of them in a wooded area behind the Ajo tennis courts. They were very busy feeding and not paying much attention to me, so were easy to photograph. The weather has been pretty bad for astrophotography, so it appears that most of this new moon period is not going to be productive. At least we finally got some rain, about .15 inch according to the Ajo weather station. It is cold and windy today.

I got my covid vaccine on Thursday here at the local clinic. They just got a supply of the Johnson and Johnson one shot vaccine, so I’m done with that. I didn’t notice much for side effects, I felt a little tired and achy, but that went away by the next day. I am sure glad to have that done!

Male Wilson’s Warbler. I was pretty excited to see so many yesterday.

Here’s a side view of another one on a Palo Verde branch. They were very actively feeding and easy to approach.

Here’s another galaxy from a few nights ago. M95 is found in the constellation Leo and is about 33 million light years from Earth. Unlike most galaxies, it seems to harbor more yellow stars in the outer limits of the system.

Astrophotography

Galaxy Season

Post author By Doug Backlund
Post date March 8, 2021

Now that the moon is approaching the new moon phase, the clouds are rolling in. I had a few good nights but for the next few days at least, it does not look good. As far as birding goes, it is very slow. A few new birds have appeared, indicating some migration. Two dowitchers at the pond and a couple of Greater Yellowlegs, along with a Ring-billed Gull were the most exciting birds I’ve seen. Still not warm enough to get the herps out, except for the most common ones I’ve seen all winter.

M65, another one of the Leo Triplets. It has crossed my mind to make a mosaic of all three using images taken with the C8. I’ll see how that goes.

M100, a galaxy in the Virgo Galaxy Cluster. NGC 4312 is in the upper right.

The Needle Galaxy, NGC 4565, in the constellation Coma Berenices. IC3571 is the small bluish area just to the left of the galaxy, in Stellarium it is called an “object of unknown nature”. Other places I’ve looked describe it as a dwarf galaxy. The Needle is one of my favorite galaxies, it is large and bright, very photogenic. This image is about 2 hours of exposure.

M46, an open star cluster near Orion. There is a small planetary nebula in the cluster, NGC 2438, but it is not actually associated with it. There are around 500 stars in this 250,000,000 year old cluster. It can be easily seen in binoculars.

Astrophotography

Galaxies High and Low

I mentioned in my last post that I wanted to try making an image of the Andromeda Galaxy as it was close to the horizon. My goal was to show how large this galaxy would appear if we could see it as bright as the moon. I wanted to get it setting over the Air Force radar installation on Child’s Mountain. It was close and I even got an unexpected Saguaro in the scene. I took about 30 minutes of exposure of the galaxy as it came lower but the moon came up before it was low enough. So, I had to make some adjustments. It worked out pretty good because the moon lit up Child’s Mountain. As always, right click on the image and open in a new tab to see a larger version.

The Andromeda Galaxy, M31, setting over Child’s Mountain, near Ajo, AZ. I was about 3 miles away from the radar installation, shooting with a 200mm lens. M31 is about 2.5 million light years distant, 220,000 light years in diameter and contains around one trillion stars. If M31 were as bright as the moon, this is how it would look to us. The moon is about .5 degree in diameter while M31 is about 3.2 degrees on the long axis. Amazingly, there are two other galaxies in the image, M110 ( to the right of M31) and M32 (small bright spot of the left edge of M31).

Last night, I had about 2 1/2 hours of shooting before the moon came up. I opted for NGC 2775, a small galaxy I have never tried before. This is at about the limits of size I can do with the C8 and still get results that show detail. I am kind of disappointed with this, but it is still a nice image. Quite a few smaller galaxies in the background too. NGC 2775 is located the in the constellation of Cancer is around 67 million light years away.

Photography

Full Moon Rising

Post author By Doug Backlund
Post date February 28, 2021

This turned out about perfect for photography. The moon was rising over the Batamote Mountains but the sun was still up in the west. No bracketing, HDR, or other usual methods of combining overexposed and underexposed images were needed. Just the standard photoshop routine and this is what I got. Something I’d like to try is shooting the Andromeda Galaxy in a similar setting. If we could actually see the Andromeda Galaxy in its actual size, it would be 4 or 5 times wider than the full moon. It is too faint for our eyes but if I can photograph it setting behind the mountains here, it might be a nice image. I may be able to do that tomorrow night if I can find the right location. Timing and location will be important! Right now the galaxy is setting in the west from 9-10 PM but the moon comes up about 9:30 PM.

Not much editing needed. Light was perfect.

Birding Herps Photography

Full Moon Days

Nothing going on here for astrophotography, the moon is too bright. Birding is still very slow and in my walks around the desert I’m not finding many flowers or butterflies. All in all, not much going on. At least the weather is nice. Many of the campers have left now, the campground is very quiet again.

While hiking out by Valentine Well I came across this homemade grave marker. I’m not sure what Quate means, it could be cuate, which can mean brother or friend in Spanish. I suppose Francisco was another immigrant looking for a better life.

A Harris’s Antelope Ground Squirrel feeding on something. Like chipmunks and Red Squirrels, hard to pass up.

It is hard to find anything new to photograph, so here’s another Common Side-blotched Lizard in breeding colors.

I found this Wilson’s Snipe this morning, at the golf course. It was probing in the soft soil around a leaking pipe. It let me get pretty close. Not very often one can find one of these out in the open like this.

Astrophotography

More Galaxies

I think I enjoy imaging galaxies more than nebulas. There are lots of them and all are different. But, mostly it is because they are so awesome and fascinating; entire galaxies, thousands of light years in diameter, millions of light years away, with billions of stars, all captured in my images. Most are too small for the 500 f4 lens but with the C8, many more are now within my range. And it is galaxy season now, with many of the nebulas now shifting to the south and west.

This is the Tiger’s Eye Galaxy, NGC 2841, in Ursa Major. Several other smaller galaxies are visible too. NGC 2841 is an unbarred spiral galaxy in Ursa Major. It was discovered in 1788 by William Herschel. Known as a flocculent spiral galaxy, a type of spiral galaxy whose spirals are blotchy and discontinuous. M63, the Sunflower Galaxy is similar to the Tiger’s Eye Galaxy.

NGC 3628, also known as the Hamburger Galaxy, is about 35 million light-years away in the constellation Leo. It was discovered by William Herschel in 1784. It is one of three galaxies known as the Leo Triplets.

Astrophotography

M82-The Cigar Galaxy

Post author By Doug Backlund
Post date February 12, 2021

M82 is an interesting galaxy due to the fact it is an edge-on starburst galaxy. Stars are forming 10 times faster than in the Milky Way Galaxy. M82’s red (ionized hydrogen) outflow filaments are created by energy released by supernovae in the galaxy center which occur at a rate of about one every ten years. I have messed around with this galaxy a few times but never got an image I’ve really liked. So, the last two nights, this is all I did. I now have 5 hours of exposure on this galaxy with the C8 (at 1200 mm focal length using a .63 reducer).

Five hours of total exposure and probably about the same amount of time stacking and processing, this is the final result. I’m not sure if I will add more exposure or not. I’ve seen photos with as much as 16 hours exposure and they are impressive but that is a lot of time spent on one object!

Birding Photography

Catching Up With Some Photos

Post author By Doug Backlund
Post date February 10, 2021

I haven’t been taking many photos other than astrophography for a couple of weeks now. So, the new ones have just been sitting in the camera until today. It looks like I might have one or two more good nights for astrophotography then it is back to looking for birds or anything else that is interesting. It is beginning to feel like spring and apparently ducks feel the same way as some new species showed up today at the pond, including some Northern Pintails, Cinnamon Teal, and Gadwall. The question is: are they moving back north or moving south from the bitter cold? Looking at the weather back in South Dakota, I’m sure glad I’m here! Some of the desert vegetation is starting to green up now, but more rain is needed.

A Cactus Wren that hopped up on a rock, too close to even get the whole bird in the frame.

I was at Gillespie Dam about a week ago. It was nice to see some new water (besides the Ajo sewage ponds) and some new birds. I liked how this Green Heron is framed in the opening in the wall.

While hiking along Ten-mile Wash, I came across this rock pile and started noticing petroglyphs. This one is apparently snakes and maybe indicates that this rock pile was a snake den. Who knows?

Another petroglyph, obviously a Saguaro.

Astrophotography

February Astro

It has been a pretty productive February for astrophotography. I had 4 nights that were too cloudy. It will be cloudy again tonight but tomorrow night might be good. Birding has been very slow again, nothing new to report there.

A new nebula for me, the Angel Nebula, in the constellation Monocerus. It took a lot of exposure to get this but I think it was worth it.

I’ve wanted to try this for a long time, the heart of the Coma Cluster of galaxies, located in the Coma Berenices constellation. The mean distance to the galaxies in this cluster is about 320 million light years. That is by far the farthest I have ever photographed anything. By far. When the photons I captured left these galaxies there was only one continent on Earth and the land was covered in dense, swampy forests, during the Carboniferous Period. There are over 1000 galaxies in this cluster, I would guess there are over 100 galaxies in this photo.

Here’s a tighter crop of the image. All of these galaxies are in the Coma Cluster. The blue star is in our galaxy.

The Seagull Nebula with the 500 f4 lens.

NGC 4725, a new galaxy for me. This is located in Coma Berenices and a good target for the C8.

M66, one of the galaxies that make up the Leo Triplets. This is the first time I’ve imaged it separately with the C8. It is very colorful.

The Intergalactic Wanderer, a very distant star cluster. I recently discovered that there are two listed in Stellarium, one is a mistake. This is the correctly identified Intergalactic Wanderer, NGC 2419, in the Lynx constellation. It is about 300,000 light years away.

The Little Pinwheel Galaxy in Ursa Major. Officially NGC 3184.

The UFO Galaxy, NGC 2683, in the constellation Lynx.

NGC 2903, 30 million light years away in the constellation Leo.

Birding Photography

Red Phalarope at Ajo

The big excitement of the past few days has been a Red Phalarope that showed up on the Ajo Sewage Ponds. I found it late Tuesday afternoon and got the word out, but it was too late for birders from the Tucson area to come over. The following morning was cold, 28 degrees at my campsite. I got to the pond before sunrise. Roger Clark and Linda Birkel were already there and Brian Nicholas showed up right after I got there. It finally got light enough to see, but no Red Phalarope could be found. Discouraged, we decided to go check on the Long-eared Owls in the thicket. There were still a few there and a Barn Owl too. Then back to the pond but still no phalarope. About then Roger checked his messages. Quite amazingly, another Red Phalarope had been found at Canoa, south of Tucson. They all piled into their cars and took off. And they all got that one.