astrophotography

Half-moon

Posted on by Patrick
The half-moon

There’s half a moon in the sky tonight. I snapped some quick pho­tos from my deck. It’s a bit chilly so I did­n’t spend much time out there.

The half-moon

Nerdy details: 1/100 sec­ond expo­sure, ISO 100, 250mm, f/5.6, hand­held. Pho­to was cropped and the colours tweaked a lit­tle bit in GIMP.

Geminids 2020

Posted on by Patrick
A meteor streaks over the horizon

The Gem­i­nids peak tonight. I went out in the coun­try­side for about half an hour. I saw a few mete­ors with the naked eye, and I man­aged to catch a few on cam­era. This is the bright­est one, by far, a green­ish streak just above the north­east­ern horizon.

View full size.

It was so cold my cam­era battery—fully charged when I left the house—lasted only 20 min­utes. This par­tic­u­lar shot was about 10 frames (2½ min­utes) before the bat­tery died.

Autumn Aurora

Posted on by Patrick
Aurora Borealis

Space Weath­er pre­dict­ed Arc­tic auro­ras (orig­i­nal­ly the storm was pre­dict­ed to be stronger, but got down­grad­ed). Some­times that turns out, so since it was clear last night, I head­ed out of town for about an hour.

When I ini­tial­ly set up, there was noth­ing real­ly hap­pen­ing, auro­ra-wise, but I decid­ed to shoot for a while any­ways. If noth­ing else, I’d have a half-hour star trails image. The moon was full, so I’d have a nice bright fore­ground, too.

Con­tin­ue read­ing “Autumn Auro­ra” →

Image Hill; fog

Posted on by Patrick
Milky Way from behind a tree

Last night Kath­leen sug­gest­ed I check out Image Hill for some astropho­tog­ra­phy. Since it was only five min­utes’ dri­ve from the farm, I checked it out.

I got about 25 min­utes’ worth of star trails (I set my timer for 30 min­utes but my cam­era bat­tery had oth­er ideas). 

Star Trails at Image Hill
Star Trails at Image Hill
Con­tin­ue read­ing “Image Hill; fog” →

Clear skies at the farm

Posted on by Patrick
The halfway tree at night

We got to the farm last night in the dark, and the skies were clear and star­ry. So, after vis­it­ing for a bit, I took my cam­era and tri­pod out in the lane.

  • The Milky Way behind a tree
    The Milky Way behind a tree 
  • The Milky Way behind a tree
    The Milky Way behind a tree 
  • The Milky Way behind a stop sign
    The Milky Way behind a stop sign
  • Jupiter and Saturn
    Jupiter and Sat­urn (if you view full size, you can see two of Jupiter’s moons)
  • Star Trails
    Star Trails (and a LOT of high­way light)

Star trails, and a couple Perseids

Posted on by Patrick
Star trails, Aug. 11, 2020

I went to my dark spot last night from about 10:45 pm to 11:45 pm or so, and set up my cam­era. I was hop­ing to catch a few of the Per­seid mete­ors, though I knew I was too ear­ly for the peak.

I let the cam­era run for about an hour (the bat­tery actu­al­ly died at about the 0:55 mark, but close enough), and the result is the star-trails pho­to above. I found two bright(ish) mete­or trails in it, high­light­ed below. (The star trail image is bright because the sky was still faint­ly glow­ing with sun­set light, even at 10:45, when I start­ed; the mete­ors below are from lat­er on in the process.)

  • Shooting star, Aug. 11, 2020
    Shoot­ing star, Aug. 11, 2020
  • Shooting star, Aug. 11, 2020
    Shoot­ing star, Aug. 11, 2020