Flashback to the Total Solar Eclipse of 1979 !

FLASHBACK! My wife, Denese, found three photos I took of the February 25, 1979 total solar eclipse from Goldendale, Washington! 

Camera: Pentax K with Kodak Ektachrome 64 mounted on an Edmund Scientific Astroscan, which in turn wa strapped via metal pipe strapping to an old wooden legged EQ (no motor) mount. Enjoy!

Totality

 Bailey's Beads

Diamond Ring Effect

A Short Night in the Obs !

After two weeks of smoke from forest fires hindering deep sky astroimaging, the skies cleared up last night! Whoohoo!

 The Gamma Cyn Region

The bright star is the center star of what is known as

the Northern Cross

Specs: 14 minute exposure (made up of 16 individual images)

stacked with DeepSkyStacker, ISO 12800, Canon T3i

Daystar 80mm scope at f/6.5

 The Andromeda Galaxy (M 31) and it's two smaller galaxies

Specs: 15 minute exposure (made up of 15 individual images)

stacked with DeepSkyStacker, ISO 12800, Canon T3i

Daystar 80mm scope at f/6.5

The Western Veil Nebula (NGC 6960)

Specs: 16 minute exposure (made up of 27 individual images)

stacked with DeepSkyStacker, ISO 12800, Canon T3i

Daystar 80mm scope at f/6.5

 The North American Nebula

Specs: 15 minute exposure (made up of 15 individual images)

stacked with DeepSkyStacker, ISO 12800, Canon T3i

Daystar 80mm scope at f/6.5

Tr 37 region

Specs: 4 minute exposure (made up of 4 individual images)

stacked with DeepSkyStacker, ISO 12800, Canon T3i

Daystar 80mm scope at f/6.5

Faux-Total Lunar Eclipse !

While we did not see the REAL total lunar eclipse (it was not visible from the USA), the smoke from the fires around Crater Lake pushed up into central Oregon and as the full Moon rose, I captured these "look-alike" images! They look almost like the real thing, though! Enjoy!

A Moon Crater With "A Ring of Beads!"

On a whim I imaged the Moon July 18, 2018 with my Explore Scientfic AR127 scope using a Canon T3i. I didn't think much about it until I thought I would take an over-exposed image to reveal the "Earthshine" (light from the Sun, reflected by the Earth on the Moon, which is then reflected back to the Earth). 

That's when I saw a kind of weird feature near the top of the Moon in the image.

It appeared to be a "ring of beads"!

Here is a cropped image of the normal exposure:

And this is a cropped view of the over-exposed Moon:

What this is showing is that the rim around this particular large crater was having the sunlight hit just the tops of the rim where there are taller peaks to catch the light, while the floor of the crater is still in shadow! Cool!

I am not sure but it might be the crater called "Goldschmidt"

Flyover by the International Space Station (ISS)

I got a heads-up that the International Space Station would be flying overhead on July 18, 2018 at about 10:36 pm. So I set up with a 24mm wide angle lens on my Canon T3i. I mounted it on a stationary tripod and took a long single exposure of about 3 minutes.

In the lower center you can see the roof of the La Pine Observatory.

First Effort at imaging the Veil Nebula

Things have calmed down some this summer and I was able to get out and do a little astroimaging with my Explore Scientific AR127 scope. I had not intended to make this a long session so I did not do any image stacking which would have improved the quality of the Veil Nebula. This is my first effort at capturing this lovely nebula!

Another day...

Eastern portion of the Veil Nebula region

in the constellation Cygnus aka the Northern Cross

The Western portion of the Veil Nebula region

in the constellation Cygnus aka the Northern Cross

Noctilucent Clouds over La Pine !

On my way out last night to the observatory some unusual clouds were hoovering high up in the atmosphere in the west to overhead. I realized what they were: noctilucent clouds!
See the Wikipedia info on them below the pics!
(Note: clicking on the images should show a little larger view)

This was taken facing south.

You can see the Big Dipper and the Little Dipper

in this image taken towards the west.

This image was taken a few minutes later

facing south again.

Noctilucent clouds, or night shining clouds, are tenuous cloud-like phenomena in the upper atmosphere of Earth. They consist of ice crystals and are only visible during astronomical twilight. Noctilucent roughly means "night shining" in Latin. They are most often observed during the summer months from latitudes between 50° and 70° north and south of the Equator. They are visible only during local summer months and when the Sun is below the observer's horizon, but while the clouds are still in sunlight.

They are the highest clouds in Earth's atmosphere, located in the mesosphere at altitudes of around 76 to 85 km (47 to 53 mi). They are too faint to be seen in daylight, and are visible only when illuminated by sunlight from below the horizon while the lower layers of the atmosphere are in Earth's shadow.

Noctilucent clouds are not fully understood and are a recently discovered meteorological phenomenon. No confirmed record of their observation exists before 1885, although they may have been observed a few decades earlier by Thomas Romney Robinson in Armagh.[1] Doubts now surround Robinson's out-of-season records, following observations, from several points around high northern latitudes, of NLC-like phenomena following the Chelyabinsk superbolide entry in February 2013 (outside the NLC season) that were in fact stratospheric dust reflections visible after sunset.

Noctilucent clouds can form only under very restricted conditions during local summer; their occurrence can be used as a sensitive guide to changes in the upper atmosphere. They are a relatively recent classification. The occurrence of noctilucent clouds appears to be increasing in frequency, brightness and extent.