I’m currently parked in the campground at the Valley of Fires Recreation Area, near Carrizozo, New Mexico. I’ve been here four days now. This area is in the Malpais Lava Flow and is a pretty nice area, especially since there has been a lot of rain. It is a nice campground too, with showers, electric hookups if needed (I don’t need them), not crowded at all. With my senior pass it costs $6.00 a night. I hoped for some astrophotography and finally last night it was clear and calm. I had an experience with a new night sky object too, a weather balloon.
Last night while I was setting up for planetary photography, I saw a very bright object in the east. There wasn’t supposed to be anything there of that magnitude of brightness. I had the C8 on the mount so I put in a 15X eyepiece and this is what I saw. I decided to hook up a camera and took a few photos. This is most likely a weather balloon, from what I’ve read they can be up to 25 miles high in the atmosphere. The best night I’ve ever had for imaging Jupiter. It rises to over 40 degree above the horizon and last night seeing was pretty good. I’ve never got detail like this before. One can even see detail in the Great Red Spot! This is a stack of about 12,000 frames from 3 minutes of video. Saturn was lower and as always, dimmer, so it is difficult to get as many video frames. Still, it came out OK. Saturn is almost as far away from Jupiter as Jupiter is from Earth. Twice I have come on Scaled Quail with young ones, but the young ones always scurry off and hide before I can get any photos. And Checkered-Skippers, this one on some species of composite. A new flower for me, Phemeranthus aurantiacus, Orange Fameflower. There are many species of mallows in bloom, colors range from white to red. A red mallow.
After a visit to Pierre, I’m now in the Slim Buttes in Harding County, about 25 miles east of Buffalo. Although this is one of my favorite places I haven’t been here for several years now. Not much has changed. There is a Forest Service campground at Reva Gap and it is usually nearly empty, although more people show up on weekends. As of right now, is is empty. No charge for camping, which I like!
My usual spot for Prairie Falcons did not disappoint. They are nesting on the same ledge as the last time I was here. I got some butterfly photos while in Pierre. This is a Common Wood-Nymph, posing in nice light. Gray Coppers were common too, more than I’ve ever seen in one place before. Last night I tried some Milky Way photography. I did this a few years ago at the same location and found the stars in the top center of the photo were elongated, which I attributed to having bumped the camera or poor tracking. Well, I got the same results last night, so it must be the software that is doing it. This is 24 images, taken with a 35mm lens, stitched together in Lightroom. The sky was murky, maybe smoke, so the results are not what I hoped for. The final image was nearly a gigabyte in size. Right click and open in a new window to see a larger image.
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 Crescent Nebula with the C8. I’d like to add a lot more exposure to this but it will have to wait. The Fireworks Galaxy in Cepheus. This galaxy is somewhat obscured by interstellar dust that makes it faint and gives a more reddish color. Juniper Hairstreaks are emerging now, fresh adults are quite common. This one is nectaring on Butte Candle, Cryptantha celosioides. There have been some thunderstorms. One evening I watched this dark cloud go racing and swirling under some mammatus clouds. It was pretty impressive, I took this photo but a video would have been better.
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.
Death Camas. As Susan pointed out, this plant is poisonous. It looks like a wild onion, somewhat, but has no onion odor. It is by far the most abundant flower on the prairie here right now. Nuttall’s Violet, a larval food plant for many species of fritillaries. A species of Phlox. Shootingstar. Quite common now and very colorful.NGC 6913, a large nebula area in Cygnus, with a bluish reflection nebula in the center. About two hours with the 500 f4.The Cygnus Wall, a part of the North America Nebula. I have imaged this before but not with guiding. I only got about an hour of integration before I got tired and had to quit for the night. Short June nights are not the greatest for astrophotography, I don’t get much sleep!
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 Blue Horsehead Nebula. A faint reflection nebula in Scorpio, it is large enough to fill the frame at 200mm focal length. The dust reflects blue light from bright stars in part of this interstellar dust cloud. Both this image and the image below were shot at f2.8, gathering light 2-4 times faster than I can with longer focal lengths.
Rho Ophiuchi Nebula Complex in Scorpio. It has been a long time since I’ve done this particular scene. For this image I used a Zeiss 135mm f2 lens and tracking was done on the Losmandy G11. Using this arrangement, I can dither with the autoguider and it really makes a big difference. This is by far the best image I’ve created of the Rho Ophiuchi Nebula Complex.
As always, right click on the image and open in a new tab/window to see a larger version.
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.
Here it is, M20, the Trifid Nebula. It is found in the core of the Milky Way Galaxy, rising in the early morning hours. It would look a lot better if it got higher in the sky but this is the best I can do. UPDATED: I added another hour to it Saturday night. While waiting for M20 I worked on a few other things. This is an image of The Eyes, in Markarian’s Chain, in Virgo. The largest, irregularly shaped galaxy is NGC4438. If you’ve ever watched the movie Interstellar, this galaxy is noted in Murphy Cooper’s notebook when she is is recording the Morse code from the watch. Apparently it is the galaxy that was accessed through the worm hole in the movie. Also known as Arp 120, The Eyes are about 55 million light years distant from Earth. I accumulated another hour of exposure on this, Arp 286. It is looking better.
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.
M88, a spiral galaxy in the Virgo Galaxy Cluster. I would like to put more time in this but it looks that will have to wait. This galaxy group is known at Arp 286 (Arp is the Atlas of Peculiar Galaxies, named after Halton Arp, the astronomer who developed it). The largest galaxy in the image is NGC 5566. It is the largest galaxy in Virgo but is so far away it appears small, even for the C8. Distance from Earth is about 65 million light years. I had to crop a lot but it still looks pretty good. NGC 3521, also known as the Bubble Galaxy. The large area of nebulosity surrounding the galaxy is from stars that have been torn out of the galaxy and dwarf galaxies that collided millions of years ago. A Sora I found at the golf course. It was right out in the open, very unusual for a Sora. A very cooperative male Hermit Warbler I found this morning. My prize bird for the day!Another view of the same Hermit Warbler.
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!
I’ve managed a little astrophotography, but most nights I’ve been out photographing bats or looking for snakes. Here’s the Sombrero Galaxy with the C8, first time with guiding. The Silver Streak Galaxy and neighbors. These galaxies are in the Virgo Galaxy Cluster. A very sharp shot of a Yuma Myotis getting a drink. The bat activity at Valentine Well has really dropped off but there are still quite a few of the smaller bats. One of the few bat photos I’ve taken with the wings down. The Great Horned Owls at the golf course are successfully raising their young. Light was pretty bad but it turned out OK. Another angle on the nest with better light. A Nashville Warbler at the golf course. Vermilion Flycatcher. It is hard to pass up a good shot!
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.
Unknown species of Myotis. Another pretty good shot but not quite sharp. Almost, but not quite. Yuma Myotis.From a few nights ago, M106, in Ursa Major. First time shooting this galaxy now that I’m guiding. M13, the Great Cluster in Hercules. Imaged with the C8 and guiding.
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.
