Finally, some rain. Last night a thundershower moved through and it rained hard for about 30 seconds. There was a little more rain overnight but altogether it didn’t add up to much, I suspect about .1 inch. I need to get a rain gauge, I guess. There is a weather station in town but it has been offline for a few days now, so it is not very reliable. Not much for new birds in the area. I have been getting some very nice photos at the golf course.
My favorite new photo, a Cedar Waxwing displaying the red, waxy tips of the secondary feathers. Here’s a link to good article about those red waxy feather tips. Another Western Bluebird feeding in the palms. They let me get very close. A Long-eared Owl in The Thicket. This would be a very nice photo if it weren’t for that stick in front of the owl’s face. It is very difficult to get any clear shots, or for that matter any shots at all. They are like ghosts in the trees. It is impossible to sneak up on them, they know I’m there, it is just a matter of seeing them before they fly. They have excellent camouflage and are masters at finding a roost where I can’t see them. Another shot of the Hepatic Tanager, probably the best photo I have so far. Notice the notched tanager bill, diagnostic. I saw this Sharp-shinned Hawk soaking its feet in the community pool at Bud Walker Park. I was able to get very close but had to shoot through a woven wire fence. It still came out pretty good. M77, Cetus A, a galaxy in the constellation Cetus. This galaxy has a very bright core surrounded by a very faint layer of stars and dust. This adds up to a difficult exposure job. Charles Messier and William Herschel described this galaxy as a star cluster in 1780, but now we know M77 is a galaxy.
I’d like to put more time on this, maybe tonight. On the other hand, I’m about ready to put to 500 f4 on the mount and shoot some nebulas for a change.
The full moon is waning to the new moon on December 14. I have had three nights with enough dark sky for a few hours of astrophotography. Of course, now is when the clouds decide to roll in. For the next three days, it is forecast to be mostly cloudy, but the good news is, there is a good chance of some rain on Wednesday. It has been cold at night, down around freezing. Now with the clouds moving in the night temperatures won’t drop much below 50 F.
The Sculptor Galaxy. I have done this galaxy before with the 500 f4 lens, this is the first time with the C8. This is a large and bright galaxy. Even at this latitude, it never rises more than about 35 degrees above the southern horizon, so it is less than ideal for photography. I put about 3 hours into this and think it came out pretty good. It is a starburst galaxy with a high rate of star formation. This leads to lots of young stars, very bright and blue, giving the outer rings a strong blue color. Older stars in the center are more yellow. NGC 1232, a very faint galaxy that is over 60,000,000 light years from earth. Before I imaged this I had read that it was faint and low surface brightness, making it difficult to photograph, so I was surprised that this came out so well. Like the Sculptor Galaxy, it is low to the horizon. Another of the low-hanging galaxies of the south, this is NGC 1300. Like both of the galaxies above, it is in the constellation Eridanus. It is about the size of our galaxy, and about 60 million light years out there. NGC 1055. I posted this one last week, but now I have added more photos to it. I really like this galaxy. Of all these galaxies that I have posted recently, I suppose it all adds up to 4 or 5 trillion stars in total, maybe more. I wonder if there is someone or something else out there photographing the Milky Way? it seems quite likely. I found this in Stellarium and decided to try it just because of the name. Darth Vader’s Starfighter Galaxy, NGC 936. The view through a telescope doesn’t show the fainter part of this galaxy, just the bright core and outer bars, so I can see how it got the name. I decided to watch Star Wars that same night. I used a 200mm f2.8 lens for this, the California Nebula, and captured the dust clouds seen on the left too. A composite image of the moon rising over the Batamote Mountains, east of my campsite.
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The moon is growing bright again. I gave up astro a couple of nights ago due to the moon, which now is setting pretty late, and the clouds which have not encouraged me to get up early. Back to normal sleep mode for awhile.
I added more exposure to M1. This is without a doubt the best image I have made of this supernova remnant. Mellote 15, the star cluster at the heart of the Heart Nebula. The nebula’s red color and its heart shape are driven by the radiation from this small group of stars near the nebula’s center. NGC 1055, 52 million light-years distant, with a diameter of about 115,800 light-years. I’ve done this before with the 500 f4 but it looks much better with the C8, due to its small apparent size. Those two stars that appear so bright are actually 6-7 magnitude, probably not even visible to the unaided eye. There is another very small, distant galaxy in the lower right. My final version of Hind’s Variable Nebula. I really like how it turned out. Not so pleased with this one though. NGC 1333 with about 7 hours of exposure. Looks like I need another 7. I’m getting tired of it. Also known as the Embryo Nebula, it is a faint reflection nebula in the constellation Perseus. The Whirligig Galaxy, NGC 488. A large galaxy in a far away place, 90 million light years in the constellation Pisces. I’ve been spending a lot of time learning how to better process planetary images. Now, one can see the faint, blue atmosphere of Mars (this image was made in October when Mars was closer to Earth), around the edge where the atmosphere is the thickest from our point of view. Olympus Mons is clearly visible on the right a little below center. To the left of Olympus Mons are three smaller volcanoes, Ascraeus Mons, Pavonis Mons, and Arsia Mons.
Astrophotography has been great the last few nights. I have been working on two objects that require a lot of exposure, one of them is close to being done and the other will take more time. While waiting for my preferred targets to rise high enough in the sky, I have been shooting a few new galaxies, ones that I’ve never imaged before. An added benefit to being out at night is watching the local wildlife, mostly Merriam’s Kangaroo Rats and a Kit Fox that I’ve been seeing in the area.
The Superman Galaxy, NGC 7479. About 105 million light years away in the constellation of Pegasus, the odd shape is thought to be due to a recent merger of two galaxies. I guess no explanation is needed for the name. NGC 891, this galaxy looks a lot like the Needle Galaxy that I have imaged before, but it is a different galaxy, located in Andromeda, about 30 million light years from Earth. Here is one of my faint, long exposure subjects, Hind’s Variable Nebula. I posted an image of this some time back, but now I have a lot more exposure on it. I really like this image, one can see the dark dust cloud being pulled into the star forming region that lights up the nebula. Located at the edge of the Taurus Molecular Cloud, Hind’s Variable Nebula is about 400 light years from Earth. M1, the Crab Nebula. I have done this before, this is the first time with C8 telescope and guiding. Last winter, before I started autoguiding, I had to throw out half of my subs before stacking. Last night, I only lost 2 out of 50 subs. I will probably take more tonight, if I can stay up long enough.
Finally, once again I am able to do more astrophotography. The last three nights have been pretty good, tonight the jet stream is directly overhead so the atmosphere is very unstable. I think I will catch up on sleep.
M74, also known as the Phantom Galaxy. Due to its low surface brightness, it has a reputation for being hard to see in a telescope. Thirty-two million light years distant, this galaxy is located the constellation Pisces. It contains an estimated 100,000,000,000 stars. And here is NGC 772, the Fiddlehead Galaxy, again. I’ve added about 3 more hours of exposure to this. Very faint and distant, about 130 million light years, but it is twice the size of our Milky Way Galaxy. NGC 770 is a dwarf galaxy, seen to the upper right of NGC 772, and its gravity is probably responsible for the odd shape of the larger galaxy. NGC 1514 is a planetary nebula in the constellation of Taurus. It is very small and I am pretty happy with how this turned out. I tried this last winter before I started guiding the C8, but had to throw out half of my subs. Now that I’m guiding, I only lost 4 subs out of 70, all ninety second exposures. This is my latest project photographing a very faint object. This is NGC 1555, also known as Hind’s Variable Nebula. This is a variable nebula, illuminated by the star T Tauri, in the constellation Taurus. Both star and nebula vary significantly in brightness but not necessarily at the same time, adding to the mystery of the intriguing region. Struve’s Lost Nebula, visible for only a few decades in the 19th century, was in this area but has not been seen since. It was probably illuminated by another star that is now obscured by dust. I’ve only got about an hour on this so far and it already looks pretty good.
This afternoon I got the best photo I’ve ever taken of a Rufous-backed Robin. The Varied Thrush is still here too. The good birds here are also attracting birders. Mark Otnes, who has moved to Tucson from North Dakota, came out this morning. I have been meeting more birders from Arizona and some from California this fall than ever.
Rufous-backed Robin at the golf course pond. Light was nice, I had to crop more than I like but it still looks pretty good. This species is very skittish and hard to approach. Why is its mouth open? Because it is hot, temperature was hovering around 100F this afternoon, record breaking heat again. Varied Thrush eating an earthworm. Another Eastern Phoebe has appeared, this one is at the golf course. This is NGC 772, the Fiddlehead Galaxy. I will need to get a lot more time in on this galaxy before it will look very good. It is twice the size of the Milky Way Galaxy, but it is so far away (130 million light years) it appears small and faint.
Today I got a message from Tim Burkhardt to let me know that a Sharp-tailed Sandpiper had been found near Dateland. That is about 60 miles from where I am. A Sharp-tailed Sandpiper is definitely worth a drive. I headed out and got there in time to meet some other birders who pointed out exactly where it was along with seven Least Sandpipers. I quickly took a few photos and then got to talking with the others. As we watched the shorebirds all flushed and flew a few hundred yards and landed again. A few minutes later, someone thought they heard the Sharp-tailed Sandpiper fly overhead. It must have been it because we never saw it again. I got there just in the nick of time, if I had stopped anywhere along the way I would have missed it. I would have liked to get some better photos but that’s the way it goes sometimes. More birders were showing up only to be disappointed.
Sharp-tailed Sandpiper with Least Sandpipers. Sharp-tailed Sandpiper breeds in the boggy tundra of northeast Asia and winters in south-east Asia and Australia. In North America it is a rare migrant, usually in fall and usually along west coast. ABA life bird #605.I couldn’t pass up this nice shot of a male Gambel’s Quail. Greater Roadrunner nicely showing the zygodactyl toe pattern as it runs. The birds leave a distinctive track. This might be the best Mars photo I will ever get with my current equipment. Olympus Mons is a little below center on the right edge. I stacked about 13,000 frames from 30,000 frames of video taken over four minutes (software selects the best frames for stacking). Four minutes is about as long as one can take video and stack before the planet rotation starts to blur detail. I’m pretty happy with this. Taken last night at about 11 PM.
I left Granite Gap this morning. Last night I spent a few hours photographing Mars since the “seeing” was forecast to be good and now Olympus Mons is on the right side of the planet. I figured I better try it because the weather is going to change, the jet stream will dip far south and that means the “seeing” will be pretty bad for a while. The results were OK but I hope for better later this month. On my way to Ajo I stopped at the Ina Street bridge over the Santa Cruz River to see if I could find the Northern Jacana. It only took about 10 minutes to do that and take some photos. I got into the campground at Ajo around 4 PM. It was 97 F. but this is the supposed to be the last day of hot weather. I hope so.
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Northern Jacana. The light was terrible, midday glare and I could not get very close to the bird so all I got were some documentation photos. ABA area life bird #604. Extremely long toes allow it to walk on emergent vegetation. Northern Jacana is a very rare visitor to the United States, only in south Texas and southeast Arizona. The Ghost Nebula is starting to look better with two more hours. Mars from last night. The light area in the top center is Olympus Mons.
Yes, I’m still here. However, the weather in the Sonoran Desert is finally going to cool down and I will be in Ajo by Wednesday. It will be nice to be closer to a grocery store. I’ve been busy with astrophotography and my usual hiking and reading. This is a nice spot for quiet camping. I have a good crew of hummingbirds coming to my feeder now, Black-chins, Anna’s, and Rufous. I’ve been putting out the trail camera every night hoping for the mountain lion to come by but so far all I’ve got is coyotes, a gray fox, and rabbits.
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Tarantula Hawk walking on a board. These are somewhat difficult to get a good photo of. A Robber Fly sucking the juice out of a bee. I can’t resist a shot like this. I now have an Anna’s Hummingbird at my feeder. This is a juvenile male.I’ve spent two nights gathering photons for this image. I now have a total of about 4 hours of exposure. In the upper left is the Iris Nebula and lower right is the Ghost Nebula. Both are in clouds of space dust in the direction of the constellation Cepheus. Here is the Ghost Nebula cropped out and some rather heavy-handed processing. It is a pretty neat nebula, I can see why it is named the Ghost! I am out tonight gathering more light from this region, so will see what another two hours of exposure will do.
I’m still here at Granite Gap. No break in the heat out in the Sonoran Desert. That’s OK because this is a great place for astrophotography and nights are currently moonless. Every night is good, clear, usually no wind, dark. Compared to South Dakota, this is great for astro. Up there I can only wish for a good night or two during the new moon period. Yesterday I put quite a bit of time in on Sage Thrashers trying for a better shot of them eating juniper berries.
Finally, I got a good shot of a Sage Thrasher eating juniper berries. Once they get used to me sitting there, they will come out in the open, but it takes awhile. It is too bad that branch is covering the tail, but nothing I can do about it. This is M15, the Pegasus Cluster. Located, as one would suspect from the name, in the constellation Pegasus. M15 is about 33,600 light years from Earth, and is an estimated 175 light-years in diameter. It is one of the oldest star clusters known, at around 12 billion years. The Cocoon Nebula. I have done this before but it is quite small and by using the C8, it looks much more impressive. Located in Cygnus, it is is a stellar nursery where star-formation is ongoing. M33, Triangulum Galaxy, which I have done many times with the 500 f4 lens. This image was done with the C8. The galaxy is nearly too big to get it framed but it does fit.
As always, right click on any image to open in a new tab if you want to see it at full size.
