Category: Astrophotography

Categories
Astrophotography Birding

A New Bird for Lake Ajo

A few days ago, I stopped at the Ajo sewage ponds and counted all the birds for my eBird checklist. I was leaving when I took one last look and saw a gull that hadn’t been there before. A look through my binos revealed it was a Black-legged Kittiwake, quite a rare bird in Arizona and the first one ever recorded here at Ajo. Needless to say, quite a few birders made the trip out here to see it and it stayed all day, so they all got to see it. The following morning, it was gone.

The star of the show for one day, a Black-legged Kittiwake.
This Lincoln’s Sparrow posed nicely for me with a nice background. This was at Highway Tank.
A young Oregon Junco at the golf course.
Yesterday I saw two Prairie Falcons at Highway Tank, one chasing the other. Later I saw this one perched and it let me get fairly close.
A Desert Blond Tarantula that was out on a cool morning.
IC 410, popularly called the Tadpole Nebula. It is located in the constellation Auriga, about 12,400 light years out there. I used a new filter, the IDAS NBZ Nebula Booster, to create this image. It is a dual band filter that allows Ha and OII light waves to pass but it filters out moonlight and other light pollution, so I can still do astro on moonlit nights, as least for nebulas. It is not going to work on galaxies. It will only work with the 500f4 lens. In this case, this is the first time I’ve imaged this nebula and was able to really see the “tadpoles”.
The Heart Nebula, taken during a night with a bright moon, using the new filter. With this new filter and my new software, I’m seeing a big improvement in nebula photography.
Categories
Astrophotography Birding

Mid-November Update

I’m still here. It has been a while since I have updated anything. Birding has been good, and the weather has been fantastic. Last night it rained, reports vary but probably around .2 to .25 inches in the Ajo area. More rain is forecast for tonight.

The star of the show this fall, a Rufous-backed Robin at Bud Walker Park. It has been two years since I’ve seen one. This bird has been quite cooperative for photos too. A number of birders have traveled here to see it, some were successful others were not.
A Varied Thrush in the town plaza has been getting a lot of attention too. This bird has also been very cooperative for photos.
Kestrels don’t usually let me approach very close; this one was an exception. A female at the golf course, there seems to be more Kestrels around this winter than usual.
Also at the golf course, a Gilded Flicker posing in nice light.
This is Arp 273, pair of interacting galaxies nearly 300 million light years out there. Located in the constellation Andromeda, this is a very small and faint target, but I think it was worth the time I spent on it. They are also known as the Rose Galaxies.
NGC 660 is a rare polar ring galaxy. I copied this information from Wikipedia: NGC 660 is a peculiar and unique polar-ring galaxy located approximately 45 million light-years from Earth in the Pisces constellation. It is the only such galaxy having, as its host, a “late-type lenticular galaxy”. It was probably formed when two galaxies collided a billion years ago. However, it may have first started as a disk galaxy that captured matter from a passing galaxy. This material could have, over time, become “strung out” to form a rotating ring.
NGC 925 is a barred spiral galaxy located in the Triangulum constellation, about 30 million light years away. Although relatively large in the field of view, it is very faint. All of the galaxy photos I posted are taken with the C8 and a .63 reducer, so about 1200mm focal length.
Categories
Astrophotography Aurora Borealis Birding Insects

Heading South

I left my campsite yesterday and drove to Sidney, Nebraska. I’m in the Cabela’s RV Park. Today I’m aiming to make to it to Timpas and spending the night there. I would have been happy to stay where I was, but the weather is changing, a period of rain and cloudy weather is moving in.

Here is another image of STEVE from the geomagnetic storm that occurred Monday night. Spaceweather.com had several other reports and photos of STEVE. Mine was the only one from South Dakota. I was pretty excited to see this! I guess I won’t be seeing any more auroras now that I’m going south. Read more about STEVE at this LINK.
One more photo of the aurora.
A few days ago, I was sorting things out in the truck when I noticed lots of small things hitting the truck. A closer look revealed that backswimmers, aquatic insects, were coming out of the sky onto the truck. I checked around the area and they were not coming down on the camper or anywhere else. I realized what was happening, the shiny, black truck looked like water to the backswimmers. There must have been a large hatch of them somewhere and they were looking for new areas to colonize. This is a photo of one I took some years back at the same place, genus Notonecta.
It took a few days, but I finally found a few Pygmy Nuthatches near camp.
A pair of Canada Jays (Gray Jays) in the top of a pine.
I probably shouldn’t even show this, it is not very good. This is Abell 85, an extremely faint supernova remnant near Cassiopeia. I spent three nights on this, gathering 6 hours of exposure. I could not even see it in any of my photos, and even after processing it was very faint. Without the new software that allows me to remove stars before processing, it would have been hopeless. Unless I decide to invest in a new astrophotography camera, I think these very faint objects will be off limits to me, it just isn’t worth the time.
Categories
Astrophotography Aurora Borealis

Northern Lights

Tonight, there was a major geomagnetic storm, and the auroras began as soon as it was dark enough to see them. It was not the best display I’ve seen in South Dakota, but the appearance of another phenomenon was completely unexpected and welcome! I took lots of photos but for now, I’m going to post only three. I wish this had happened when I was in Harding County, a couple of degrees further north might have made a big difference.

The aurora stayed low on the horizon most of the time, this is about as good as it got. I could see it very well with the unaided eye but the camera picks up a lot more color. All images are taken with a Canon 6D, 35mm Sigma art lens, mounted on an iOptron Sky Tracker.
On the left is STEVE. STEVE, formally known as Strong Thermal Emission Velocity Enhancement, is different from the aurora. It looks like a ribbon of pink or mauve light. Sometimes, STEVE even has a “picket fence” appearance, with green columns of light passing through the ribbon. That can be seen in my photo. Auroras, by contrast, usually are shimmering green ribbons. Very exciting to see it!
Another image with STEVE and aurora on the right. I enhanced the stars in the Big Dipper.
Categories
Astrophotography Birding Insects

A New Truck

This morning I left the Slim Buttes and drove to Pierre to get my new truck, a 2023 Toyota Tacoma. It is a lot smaller than the Ford F-150 I had but I think I can fit all my stuff in it. I may have to downsize the load a little. I can’t say I can recommend a Ford F-150 to anyone, given all the problems I had with it. Maybe I just got a bad one. Anyway, I’m glad to be rid of it. I may stay here a few days before heading for my next destination, as of now that is unknown but likely somewhere in New Mexico.

A few days ago I was hiking in the Red Cross Spring area of the Slim Buttes. Suddenly, out of nowhere, this Long-eared Owl flew in and landed in a pine tree. The birds in the area got excited and started mobbing it, but they didn’t keep at it too long.
I got some pretty good shots of this Black-capped Chickadee as it foraged for seeds on the seed heads of coneflowers.
This is a Juba Skipper, quite a rare species in South Dakota, with only nine records, according to The Butterflies of South Dakota. It is also a county record for Harding County.
Using my new filter, I worked on this a few nights ago. This is the Lion Nebula, in Cepheus. It is very faint and in a rich star field. Without the filter and my new software, I would not have had much of chance of getting anything useful. This is a very faint nebula. I want to add more exposure to it when I get a chance.
Categories
Astrophotography Bats Birding Insects

A Few Photos

It is typical August, birding has slowed, butterflies are much less numerous but there are the late summer species showing up now. I’m seeing flocks of nighthawks moving through. There are two species of late summer butterflies that I’d like to find, Mead’s Wood-Nymph and Pine White. I’ve seen Mead’s Wood-Nymph once before, in the North Cave Hills. Pine Whites have never been reported from the pine forests of Harding County, but they are common in the Black Hills. I had a few nights that were good for astro.

I saw the first one yesterday and today I saw more. Western Branded Skippers are uncommon in South Dakota, and this is the first time I’ve seen them. They are nectaring on Curlycup Gumweed.
I saw this Red-headed Woodpecker working on a caterpillar and got some good photos. I do not know what the caterpillar is.
A few days ago, I opened up the back topper door and there was a bat sitting on the tailgate of the truck. I got a few photos before it woke up and flew off. Apparently, it had crawled into the gap between the door and tailgate and went to sleep for the day. This is a Little Brown Bat.
NGC 6820 is a small reflection nebula near an open star cluster known as NGC 6823.The reflection nebula and cluster within a faint emission nebula called Sh2-86. The whole area is often referred to as NGC 6820. It is about 6000 light years away, in the constellation Vulpecula.
Ghosts of Cassiopeia. About 600 light-years distant, the dust clouds are slowly disappearing under the influence of energetic radiation from hot, luminous star Gamma Cassiopeiae. Gamma Cassiopeiae is an eruptive variable star, whose apparent magnitude changes irregularly from 1.6 at its brightest to 3.0 at its dimmest. Gamma Cassiopeiae is physically located only 3 to 4 light-years from the nebulae. Gamma Cassiopeiae is also known as Navi. Navi (Ivan spelled backwards, Ivan was astronaut Gus Grissom’s middle name), is a seldom-used nickname for the star Gamma Cassiopeiae. Grissom used this name on his Apollo 1 mission planning star charts as a joke, and the succeeding Apollo astronauts kept using the name as a memorial after his death when the command module interior caught fire and burned on January 27, 1967.
Categories
Astrophotography

The Tulip Nebula

I’m back at the Slim Buttes. I’ve had a couple of nights with good conditions for astrophotography. It was very enjoyable being out under the dark skies with no light pollution whatsoever and no moon. I selected a target that I’ve been wanting to do for a long time, the Tulip Nebula in Cygnus. This is a summer target. Nights are short in summer, and clouds are common, so it is hard to get some of these summer targets. I have acquired some new software, StarXterminator and NoiseXterminator. With these I can remove the stars for processing and later add them back in. In a star rich field like this, the stars tend to overwhelm everything else. By processing them separately, I can get much better results. Noise reduction really helps a lot too.

Sh2-101, the Tulip Nebula, so called because it resembles a tulip when photographed with long exposures. It was catalogued by astronomer Stewart Sharpless in his 1959 catalog of nebulae. About 70 light years across and 6000 light years away, the Tulip Nebula is nearly surrounded by glowing clouds of ionized hydrogen gas. I only got about 3 hours of exposure so far, I’d like to get a lot more.
Categories
Astrophotography Birding Flowers and Plants Herps

Slim Buttes in July

I left Pierre yesterday and drove to the Slim Buttes. There has been some good rain out here and the flowers are abundant as are the butterflies. After being in Pierre for almost 2 months, the quiet out here is welcome. There are no trains, barking dogs, loud vehicles, airplanes, or other noisy things. Just birds and the wind. This morning, I went for a walk and got 26 species of birds. My eBird checklist is here. I hope for a few clear nights so I can do some astrophotography in the dark skies of Harding County.

I found this Plains Garter Snake in a puddle on the road, I’m not sure what it was doing but it refused to leave the water.
Butterflies are really abundant. Here’s a Milbert’s Tortoiseshell.
A Two-tailed Swallowtail nectaring on a thistle.
Aphrodite Fritillary.
Great Spangled Fritillary.
While in Pierre, I took one trip out to the Fort Pierre National Grasslands. Here’s a Burrowing Owl that was harassing me about being too close to its nest hole.
This is Wedgeleaf Frogfruit, Phyla cuneifolia. It was growing in a prairie dog colony near Richland Dam. This location is the farthest north this species has been reported, according the iNaturalist. Typically a species of the southwest, the Navajo reportedly used it to treat spider bites.
A Marbled Godwit.
I’m experimenting with some new software for astrophotography. StarXterminator lets me remove the stars for processing then add them back. NoiseXterminator is a much better method of reducing noise. I think the results are impressive on the North America Nebula, which I took several years ago. Now if I can just get some astrophotography done! The weather has not been cooperative.
Categories
Astrophotography Birding Herps

More Astro and Brush Lizard

I’m still in Ajo. I will likely be heading east next week. It is getting pretty hot everyday now. I really hate to leave but it is time. I’ve had a few good nights of astro and the Long-tailed Brush Lizard mystery may have been solved.

M90, another of the Messier objects I’ve never imaged before. Looking at this in Stellarium I didn’t think it was going to look like much, but I’m impressed. It is a beautiful galaxy, rich colors, and lots of interesting things going on. The star-forming regions are very limited, so the outer arms appear smooth and nearly featureless. But the center is a different story. About 60 million light years out there, in the Virgo Galaxy Cluster, M90 is another of the rare, blue-shifted galaxies that is moving toward our galaxy instead of away from it. There are a lot of small, faint background galaxies and one larger dwarf galaxy, IC 3583.
NGC 5033, also named the Waterbug Galaxy, is an inclined spiral galaxy located in the constellation Canes Venatici.
I’m quite proud of this one, M13, the Great Cluster in Hercules. While it is pretty easy to get a photo of star cluster, getting one without blowing out the central stars, getting good round stars all around, good star color and without star bloating, is hard. I finally figured out a good formula, use shorter exposures, take lots of them, and use some different processing. The star colors came out very nicely. I like this!
This afternoon I had two different Long-tailed Brush Lizards show up on my solar panel. One had half its tail missing, so I know there were two different ones. I think the explanation for where the earlier one came from is this; it climbed up the cables for the solar panels, which enter the camper through the window I sit by. Note the yellow throat and hints of blue on the belly of this male.
A male Ornate Tree Lizard showing off.
A male Black-tailed Gnatcatcher carrying food, there was a female in the area doing the same thing. I could not find the nest but didn’t spend much time looking for it.
Categories
Astrophotography Herps

A Lifer Herp and a Mystery

The action around here is hard to keep up with. Last night I took a night walk on Child’s Mountain looking for snakes and whatever else might turn up. I got one Western Lyresnake and saw several Poorwills. This morning, I headed for Lake Ajo to check out the birds. I got a Willet and a Snowy Plover, both very good birds for this area. To top it all off, when I got back to the camper, I became aware of something on my shoulder, when I reached for it, whatever it was leaped off onto the floor. It was a small lizard, and I started to get suspicious. I herded it toward the door, and it climbed up on the screen. My camera with macro lens was in the truck, so I carefully snuck by the lizard, got the camera and took some photos. Proof of what it was, a Long-tailed Brush Lizard. I’ve been looking for one of these for a long time. I thought I had one once in Alamo Canyon years ago but was never quite sure about that one. This one is a positive ID. So, where did it come from? I could have picked it up this morning while birding around Lake Ajo, but it would have to been on my back while I went to the grocery store, got water and drove back. It could have already been in the truck from some previous day, and it just decided to climb onto me. Or had it somehow got into the camper and climbed onto me? I guess I will never know.

Long-tailed Brush Lizard. A lifer for me! Note the very long tail, some of which is out of the frame.
These lizards are very similar to the Ornate Tree Lizard, but the wide row of enlarged, keeled scales down the back is diagnostic of Long-tailed Brush Lizard.
Western Lyresnake from last night. I have much better photos of this species so didn’t bother trying to get more than this.
This is the globular star cluster M3. One of the finest star clusters in the northern skies, it can be seen using binoculars in Canes Venatici. This the right time of year to be looking for globs, there are several (M3, M5, M13) that are easily seen with binoculars if one knows where to look. M3 contains over 500,000 stars, estimated to be 11 billion years old, about 32,600 light years out there.
M98 or NGC 4192, is an intermediate spiral galaxy about 44.4 million light-years away in Coma Berenices, about 6° to the east of the bright star Denebola. It is dim and not very remarkable to look at, but there are interesting facts about it. It is one of the few galaxies with a blueshift, meaning it is moving toward our galaxy instead of away from it. Out of the billions of galaxies known about 100 are blueshifted.