I had to make short trip back to Pierre to get a small skin cancer removed from my forehead. That was done successfully. It was too hot to stay there so I’m back out at my Black Hills campsite again. It looks the heat will only get worse for the next week or so, but it is nice here, at about one mile elevation. This morning I went for a walk in Hell Canyon, starting at the trailhead off of Highway 16. I hadn’t gone far when I found a herd of Bighorn Sheep browsing on the chokecherry bushes on the hillside. The oddest thing about these sheep is that not one is wearing a tag, neck band or anything else. A couple of years ago, every sheep I saw had some kind of marking or tag. I walked up to the spring and back to the trailhead, when I got near the truck I started seeing some Lewis’s Woodpeckers. I eventually counted nine. They all stayed too far out for photos though.
Bighorn Sheep in Hell Canyon. I counted 14 total, but couldn’t get them all in the photo. I always find it hard to pass up a good chipmunk photo. This one was posing nicely. Getting set up for astrophotography again, but the smoke from western forest fires may foil my plans for tonight. The Bubble Nebula. I started on this last week on one of the two good nights I had. I need to get more time on it, maybe tonight. This is taken with the C8 telescope. The Deerlick Group. The largest galaxy here is NGC 7331, the smaller galaxies are actually much further away and not really a group, but the name persists. I have photographed this before but this is the first time with the C8 and the extra focal length makes a lot of difference. Now I just need more time to get more exposure of it. I suppose I should add a bird photo. Here’s a juvenile Mountain Bluebird that let me get fairly close.
I’m still here at my summer campsite in the Black Hills. Weather has been near perfect and it was even good enough for an evening of astrophotography. There is a small stock pond near the camper that is usually dry but this summer there is a few inches of water from a heavy rain a couple of weeks ago. I have been watching birds coming to water there. One morning a Common Nighthawk came swooping in, again and again, finally it flew low over the water and drank! I have never seen nighthawks do this before, but it makes perfect sense. Birds that are not used to walking on the ground often do this, as do bats. Swallows and swifts are known for this behavior. I wanted to photograph this behavior and the next morning I was able to get some so-so images. Here’s the best one.
Common Nighthawk taking water. M27. Image created from 93 one minute exposures stacked in Deep Sky Stacker. Celestron C8 with .63 reducer, Canon 7DMII, guided with Lacerta MGEN III, Losmandy G11 mount.
