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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
I finished up the astro season for March with only two more good nights. I sure hope April works better for that. Desert flowers continue to be great. Today, I found a species that I’ve been looking for since I first read about it in my Sonoran Desert Wildflowers book. It has been a target species for several years and I finally found it. Now I need to select a new target.
My target flower, Nemacladus glanduliferous (according to my book, other sources may have different taxonomy). Also known as Redtip Threadstem. What interested me was the diminutive flower, only about 1/8 inch across, a perfect target for my super macro MP-65 lens. As the flowers develop, they rotate 180 degrees, there is no known explanation or purpose for this. This image is taken with the MP-65 lens and a ring flash. Three greenish-yellow glands are on the ovary. The stamens are fused. Why the plant seems to be clasping the stamens and stigma with the two lower petals like this I do not know. Another nice find this morning was Desertsnow, Lenanthus demissus. I’ve only seen this flowering one other time, in the Ajo Mountains. Both times I’ve seen it, I’ve only seen one plant. A closer view of a flower of Desertsnow. NGC 4490, also known as the Cocoon Galaxy, is a barred spiral galaxy in the constellation Canes Venatici. It is about 25 million light years from Earth. It interacts with its smaller companion NGC 4485 and as a result is a starburst galaxy. NGC 4490 and NGC 4485 are collectively known in the Atlas of Peculiar Galaxies as Arp 269. This is another of those very small galaxies that the C8 allows me to image. M66, one of the Leo Triplets. I’ve done this before and just added more exposure. It is a very colorful galaxy. Five supernova have been recorded in this galaxy.
I finally got in a few nights of astrophotography. It is not looking good for more, so I thought I would go ahead and post these. I really like doing galaxies, they are so mysterious and distant, but enormous beyond our imagination. I am sure that somewhere in every galaxy there is intelligent life, but the distances are so great we will never know.
NGC 2903. This field galaxy is located about 30 million light-years away from the Milky Way and is a member of the Virgo Supercluster. A dwarf galaxy is visible below NGC 2903 and the two galaxies are interacting. From Wikipedia: It was discovered by German-born astronomer William Herschel, who cataloged it on November 16, 1784. He mistook it as a double nebula, as did subsequent observers, and it wasn’t until the nineteenth century that the Third Earl of Rosse resolved into a spiral form.M61, another of Charles Messiers “not a comet” objects. From Wikipedia: M61 was first discovered by Barnaba Oriani on May 5, 1779, six days before Charles Messier discovered the same galaxy. Messier had observed it on the same night as Oriani but had mistaken it for a comet. Its distance has been estimated to be 45.61 million light years from the Milky Way Galaxy.This is the Helix Galaxy, NGC 2685. It is about 50,000 light-years across and about 42 million light-years away from Earth. From our perspective, it is very small, faint and difficult to image. But I thought I would try it just to see what it looked like since it is a polar-ring galaxy. It is an object of great scientific interest, because polar-ring galaxies are very rare galaxies. They are thought to form when two galaxies gravitationally interact with each other. In my image, the polar ring is apparent.
It has been a long stretch of cool to cold, wet and windy weather. Just a couple of days ago, the area got an inch of rain and some snow on the mountains. However, I think we have finally turned the corner on winter and spring is going to take over. This has certainly been the coldest winter I’ve spent in the Sonoran Desert. I entered eleven photos in the Cabeza Prieta Natural History Association Sonoran Desert Photo Show. I found a good place to get photos printed right here in Ajo so I picked out some of my favorite Sonoran Desert photos. All the entries will be on display for the month of March.
What’s that white stuff? It didn’t last long. Snow on Child’s Mountain. There are more swifts and swallows starting to show up. I still keep trying for a good shot of a White-throated Swift and was rewarded with this one. After one of the recent storms, I checked Lake Ajo and found this Herring Gull on February 22. This is a pretty rare bird for Pima County and some birders were on the way to see it, but it flew off about 30 minutes after I saw it and never returned. I have had absolutely no good weather for astro since my last post. This is M63 that I imaged last spring while at Granite Gap. I spent a lot of time reprocessing this image. I think this version is much improved. Also known as the Sunflower Galaxy.
It has not been very good weather for doing astrophotography, or anything else for that matter. Cloudy, windy, cold, and even wet most of the time. I have only managed a few nights of good astro weather. Birding hasn’t fared much better, but I am able to pick up 25-30 species on a good day. I have now seen at least five different Long-eared Owls in the area. They do not cooperate for good photos.
This is one of those “I did it to see what it would look like” astro images. In the upper left is NGC 2537, also known as the Bear Paw Galaxy. It is a blue, compact dwarf galaxy in the constellation Lynx, about 22 million light years away. The narrow galaxy in the lower right is IC 2233. The two galaxies were once thought to be interacting, but we now know that they are separated by vast distances and not close enough, IC 2233 is probably at least 30-40 million light years out there. There are many other galaxies in the background. Here’s a tighter crop on the Bear Paw Galaxy, one can see how it gets its name (except a bear would actually have 5 toes). Maybe there are 3 toed bear-like creatures on a planet orbiting one the galaxies stars. Or some intelligent life form shooting images of the Milky Way Galaxy and wondering the same things. I’ve imaged the Leo Triplets and each of the three galaxies in the triplet, but this is the first time I’ve tried the Leo Quartet. Each of these galaxies is very small in view, much smaller and fainter than the Leo Triplets. Also known as Hickson 44 galaxy group, these are interacting galaxies. Located in the constellation Leo and about 80 million light years out there. The Tiger’s Eye or NGC 2841. I have imaged this before and am just adding more exposure. Lots of distant background galaxies, none of which show up in Stellarium. NGC 2683, also known as the UFO Galaxy. As with the Tiger’s Eye, I’m just adding more exposure to a previous image. Despite the lousy weather, spring is starting to show, I saw my first Mohave Desert Stars a few days ago. A sure sign of spring!
