I was hoping for aurora, but it wasn’t there. But the stars keep moving, and so I present these two nights’ trails.
eppur si muove
Star Trails, late September
star trails
Writing Retreat 2021: The week in review
Last week I was at a rented cabin up at Minnedosa, writin’ words and takin’ photos. I had a bunch of goals for the week, but how’d I do?
Continue reading “Writing Retreat 2021: The week in review”Star Trails, June 30th
About midnight to 12:30 or so.
66 light exposures, 30 seconds each, 12mm, f/2.8, ISO 100, and 2 dark frames (same settings but taken with the lens cap on). The light on the tree came from my neighbour’s house lights.
Eppur si muove
“And yet it moves,” as Galileo is alleged to have said, though the story is probably apocryphal.
The star trails in the photo and the videos all involve 70 frames, 30 seconds each, at 11mm, f/2.8, ISO 1600. The Milky Way is faint, but it’s there.
Star Trails 2020 (so far)
I made a short video. Enjoy! (Nerds: There are a bunch of details below.)
Image Hill; fog
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, and a couple Perseids
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
Earth Day eve star trails
The Space Weather forecast called for a slight chance of aurora and the peak of the Lyrid meteor shower, so I packed up my camera gear and went out west of town. I let the camera snap away for about half an hour before I decided I was tired and came home. I mean, it was a school night, after all.
I got one very faint meteor and no aurora to speak of, but that’s OK, I got some star trails out of it, too. And a truck passed by me on the gravel road, illuminating the field for me, so there’s that too.
Nerdy details: 113 images, 15 seconds each, 11mm, f/2.8, ISO 1600, stacked in GIMP (no dark frames).
Springtime star trails
Forty-some minutes worth of Earth’s rotation. In the lower-left corner, you can watch the crescent moon and Venus setting; the moon is reflected, a bit, in the water that was on the field.
Nerd stuff: 153 light frames, 5 dark frames; each frame is 15 seconds, f/2.8, 11mm, ISO 800.
Thirty minutes, aimed south
Half an hour’s rotation of the earth sure does look interesting.
And here’s Orion, next to a power pole, with the bright lights of Souris, MB, on the horizon.
In related good news, my camera and lens appear to have survived last week’s tumble unscathed.