I got a couple of good nights for astrophotography but the days are so long, the nights so short! It is nearly 11 PM before it gets completely dark. I think I will give up on astro until the nights get longer. My trail cams have been picking up elk, red squirrels, cottontails, and one coyote, but no more mountain lions. It has been pretty hot, into the low 90’s yesterday. I went to Newcastle for groceries yesterday, it was 99 F. there.
The weather has been perfect. Blue skies, warm but not hot, not much wind. I even got one night of astrophotography. I haven’t started the truck since I got here on Tuesday. I’ve just been hiking, taking some photos and reading D-Day by Stephen Ambrose.
One of the main reasons I’m still here is I wanted to get in a few sessions of wide angle astro while I’m still at 32 degrees north latitude. This gives me the best opportunities for things in the core of the Milky Way. Tonight the moon sets around 3 AM, so from now on out it really won’t be worth getting up in the early morning.
As far as birding news, a Red-breasted Merganser turned up on the sewage ponds. Brian Nicholas came out for it and while he was here we found 2 Semipalmated Sandpipers, pretty rare for this area.
So what next? I suppose I will head east and maybe stop for a few days somewhere in southeast Arizona. The weather still looks nice for the foreseeable future.
The Ford dealership couldn’t find anything wrong with the truck. They ran all kinds of tests, adjusted fuel settings but nothing major. The check engine light is off and that is good. They only billed me $100 after working on it all morning. I was expecting a lot more. The NAPA in Ajo wanted to replace all the O2 sensors (there are 4 of them) and that would have cost between $500 and $1000. I am glad I waited. Ford thinks it may have been a fuel problem of some type. That makes sense, it happened just a few minutes after filling it up at the Shell station in Ajo.
The moon is getting brighter and staying up longer but I still put in a full night of astro last night. I stayed up all night, mostly because I wanted to image the Trifid Nebula, M20, with the C8. At this latitude, M20 rises to nearly 35 degrees above the horizon, which is still pretty low but in South Dakota I would lose another 10 degrees. M20, at about 20 arc minutes diameter, is just the right size for the C8 at 1200mm focal length.
The weather has been a little on the hot side but not too bad. My opportunities for astrophotography have been limited due to clouds and wind. Still no rain at all. The few areas that have got some water (mostly due to being watered or from runoff from paved streets) have been producing some birds. Tomorrow I have an appointment at Jones Ford in Buckeye to see what I need to do about the check engine light. I hope that doesn’t take too long.
I would like to leave pretty soon, it has been getting up near 100F yesterday and today. It should cool down now for a few days and that’s good because the truck has developed a problem, the check engine light came on. At NAPA they did a diagnostic that said it was an O2 sensor. NAPA can’t do it till week and I called the Ford dealer in Buckeye and they can’t do it till next Tuesday. So, I’m stuck. I can drive it to town and around the area, but if it gets worse I will have to park it and have it towed in, so I’m limiting the driving. No more driving around at night, that’s for sure!
It was a warm day, up near 90 F., so I decided to check Valentine Well for bat activity. It still is cooling down at night a little too much for good insect and bat activity, but at Valentine Well, there were lots of bats shortly after sunset. It is probably the only source of water for miles in any direction, since all of the ponds and natural tanks are dry. This is what I need, lots of bats, so I get lots of shots and then hope for a few good ones. Bats tripped the laser trigger 33 times and I got at least two very good images.
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!
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.
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.
