Comet Calatina (akaComet C/2013 US10 Catalina)

Well, after about a three month hiatus, the skies cleared just enough on the morning of January 20, 2016 for me to capture Comet Catalina, just before the break of dawn (5:30 am to 6:30 am).

In the process of locating the comet a south-to-north satellite crossed just west of the comet (which is faintly in the lower right hand corner). What is interesting is the satellite track is fairly flat and straight until it passes the center of the image and then becomes progressively wobbly as it nears the lower right hand corner. This is not an artifact of the digital camera but is the rotation (flipping over and over again) of the satellite itself! I have photographed many satellites (quite unintentionally) and never have I seen this effect. (Taken with a Canon T3i, 135mm, 12 seconds @ ISO 12,800 set at f/5.)
Click on the photo for a larger image to view...

Also, in my search for the comet the International Space Station (ISS) passed closely (just not as closely) to the comet as well ! The three bright stars are part of the "handle" of the "Big Dipper" (aka Ursa Major). Yes, they have names! From top to bottom Alioth, Mizar (notice the little star just to the right of Mizar, it is Alcor, part of Mizar's triple star system) and Alkaid. The "bowl" of the Big Dipper is out of sight towards the top of this image. Can you spot the greenish blue comet? (Hint: near the top center of the photo, just right of the ISS trail.) Taken with a Canon T3i, 50mm, 22 seconds f/4 at ISO 12800. Click on the photo for a larger image to view...

Finally I was able, by steps, to increase the telephoto zoom lens until I was able to center Catalina in the screen. Then I set up my hand intervalometer to capture 60 - 1 second images using the Canon T3i set at 250mm, f/5.6 @ ISO 12,800.  The seeing (air quality) was not all that good with a lot of frozen moisture in the air (and some thin ice clouds all around) so capturing any kind of tail was nearly an impossibility. However there does seem to be a faint tail pointed away from the comet in the "10 o'clock" position. Click on the photo for a larger image to view...

While this image is nothing to "write home about" the amazing thing is that it was shot with a stationary camera (Canon T3i) on a tripod UNGUIDED. This is a "stacked" image made up of about 60 - 1 second exposures using the program "Deep Sky Stacker." The purpose of a lot of short exposures instead of one long exposure is that it minimized the graininess of high ISO settings (like this one pushed to ISO 12,800) and it decreased "sky glow". "Sky glow" can easily overwhelm faint details when one uses longer exposures (see the ISS photo above and compare it with this one... the ISS image was 22 seconds and the comet photo above is the equivalent of 60 seconds!) There is always a certain amount of ambient light in the night sky, most caused by human over-lighting of their property, and some caused by the refraction of light from the Moon or the Sun (just below the horizon.) So taking lots of "subs" (photos with insufficient exposure to bring out the subject matter) is the way to go!

UPDATE: The following image was created from 10 - 9 sec images @ ISO 1600 with a Canon XTI and a f/2.8 55mm zoom lens at about 3 am Dec. 19, 2016, stacked with Deep Sky Stacker. See if you can locate the comet (click on the image for a much larger display)! One thing is for sure, it is in a hurry! It moved a great distance in just one 24 hour period!

First Quarter Moon

Nothing special about this image, just the first I have taken with my Celestron Goto 8i SE scope. I am just getting used to it and learning how to use it with a Canon DSLR attached to it. This was taken in the alt-az mode which is a bother if any object in near zenith. The air was quite turbulent with thin clouds passing by so I probably overdid the "sharpness" setting in post-production.

Enjoy!

Northern Skies without guiding test

This image of the northern night sky was taken with multiple short exposures (30 secs) without guiding (just sitting on the tripod) with my Canon t3i and then processed with Deep Sky Stacker. Deep Sky Stacker is a program that will take astrophotography images of the same subject and stack them together to make it look like a much longer exposure. This one was about 8 images. You will see that the trees are blurred but the stars are not ! It helps bring out fine detail in the northern part of the Milky Way. With a little more post production (see next image) I made the Milky Way appear even more, but this was simply a test.

Note: if you click on this first image a larger view will be shown. Then if you use your left/right arrows on your keyboard you can toggle quickly between each image.

Using GIMP Levels:

Comments or questions are always welcomed (well, as least nice ones)!

Overhead View of our Milky Way Galaxy

This shot was the result of 5 - 30 sec exposures taken with a Canon t3i and a 10mm super wide angle lens at ISO 1600. I was out in the evening hoping to catch a Draconid meteor but to no avail. Still, with a few passing thin clouds I was able to capture the beauty of this part of our galaxy. North is to the left, south to the right. (click on the image for a larger view)

Comments or questions are always welcomed (well, as least nice ones)!

Local News & TV Station carries some of my Blood Moon images!

It is always a joy to see your pics make it to the public !

KTZV in Bend Oregon

The Bend Bulletin newspaper

Comments or questions are always welcomed (well, as least nice ones)!

NASA Makes "New" Revelation: Mars Has Liquid Water

NASA apparently needs more money.

One way to get it is to get the public press all in a tizzy about something NASA has known for some time: Mars has some kind of "water" on it that produces "flows" under the right conditions.

So how do you get Congress interested? You get the press involved! And you make it "mysterious"! You tell them that on a particular date (today) they are going to tell the whole world of some "fantastic" discovery. So the press goes to work, and speculations run wild: Aliens? Life? Civilization? And all of America is waiting with anticipation...

Then the truth comes out... but not all of it reaches the average citizen and likely never reaches the members of both houses of Congress.

As a result the TRUTH about Martian water is lost in the press headlines (anything to sell a paper, fill up time on the evening news, sell ads on websites) and seldom makes it into the brief paragraph that follows the headline.

Half Truth: NASA says it has found "liquid water" on Mars.

The Other Half Truth: It isn't liquid water as we commonly know it.

• You can't drink it as it is so laden with minerals and salts. Even our sea water is not embedded with the same level or type of minerals and salts. 
• Perchlorate is the key ingredient Martian "water" that keeps "water" from freezing in the extreme cold environment of Mars (Summer: -100 degrees F at night and Winter daytime temps: -195 degrees F) And it is poisonous! It's an oxidizer in rocket fuel, but it also occurs naturally particularly in arid environments (i.e. Mars). All kinds of health problems result from ingesting even small amounts of it. Removing it from fairly "pure" water is hard enough. http://www.popsci.com/article/technology/curiosity-finds-water-and-poison-martian-soil
• Add to it all the other minerals and chemicals harmful to life, be that plant life or animal life... well, you get the picture. 
• Any effort to desalinate Martian water would take far more energy than our present desalinization plants do with sea water that is in our oceans, and that is a lot of energy (one reason you don't see a lot of desalinization plants around!) In comparison, our sea water is "pure" by Martian standards and is (would be) far less expensive to build and operate.
• And if you totally desalinate the Martian water, guess what? It FREEZES, even in Martian summer! And if it does somehow get warm enough to stay in liquid form, the lack of sufficient gravity would cause the water to evaporate and be lost into space. Hmmmm...

So as they say, "Nothing new here. Move along, folks."

The NASA scientists who "broke" the story were careful enough to state the actual composition of the Martian water. The press was not.

Comments or questions are always welcomed (well, as least nice ones)!

The "Blood Moon" of September 27, 2014

This lunar eclipse was a little harder to capture as the Moon entered totality prior to rising above the eastern horizon (the Sun having set only 15 minutes or so earlier in the west). The weather was very cool due to a stiff breeze blowing out of the north. We selected Rosland Elementary School here in La Pine for our viewing point. My goal was to capture the rising Moon next to Paulina Peak. The sky was still fairly bright, no stars, when I finally was able to locate it rising next to Paulina Peak, near La Pine, Oregon. SUCCESS !

Then as it rose and the night sky began to darken I captured it over the peak...

My wife helped me with the photography as we were using three cameras in our "expedition" and this is one she captured showing the wide field of view...

Finally, this image taken with my Bushnell telescope. That is a star to the right of the Moon.

Comments or questions are always welcomed (well, as least nice ones)!