Album Night Shots and Star Trails

Laurel River Lake near near Corbin and London, Kentucky, surrounded by the Daniel Boone National Forest. Testing out my new Sigma 14mm 1.8 lens, and Eddyline Fathom LV touring kayak on an overnight trip. The lake has two boat-in campgrounds, and you'll have the place to yourself during the week in the off season.


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BJett said:
Laurel River Lake near near Corbin and London, Kentucky, surrounded by the Daniel Boone National Forest. Testing out my new Sigma 14mm 1.8 lens, and Eddyline Fathom LV touring kayak on an overnight trip. The lake has two boat-in campgrounds, and you'll have the place to yourself during the week in the off season.


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Which campground were you at? I've only gone to White Oak, but I have a favorite site. Even when the power boats are swarming the lake, no one ever seems to be in the boat in campgrounds.

The light pollution there drives me nut for astro photos
 
wsp_scott said:
Which campground were you at? I've only gone to White Oak, but I have a favorite site. Even when the power boats are swarming the lake, no one ever seems to be in the boat in campgrounds.

The light pollution there drives me nut for astro photos
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White Oak. Campsite 18 on the point. No one around at all. Magical! Had great views east and west.
 
This year's attempt at Yellowstone night time geyser photography. The moon was several days past full so not as many stars. . . but it provided enough light that I could actually see the eruptions as well as the entire Upper Geyser Basin.

Castle Geyser:

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Part of the Upper Geyser Basin -- I think that is Lion Geyser erupting to the left.

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Of course Old Faithful. This was one of my favorites from the trip.

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The first quarter moon was right over the center of the milky way, so I pointed the camera to the north east and Cassiopeia (I think the smudge near teh middle is the Andromeda Galaxy).

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Finally some nice stargazing this week in The Needles (the previous week we had 3 nights of full moon). We saw several meteors and satellites, but we slept through the peak of the meteor shower Monday morning. I did set an alarm, but we were too tired to get up. We did get up Tuesday morning very early and saw 5 meteors, 1 had a fireball appearance, super cool.

Monday evening at camp
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Tuesday morning very early at camp, very nice
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We spent another two nights camping this week in The Needles, chilly. Good stargazing the second night, but I didn’t make it past 7:30pm, very tired. Rick stayed up and took photos, it kind of looks like a commercial for the tent company!

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I've found out some things on how to edit low light night photos and so I've been going back through old pictures giving it a try. I'm using micro 4/3 - not the best camera system for this application. Nevertheless, I've been pleased with the improvements I've been able to achieve. I think I've posted the original versions of most, if not all, of these somewhere else on BC Post. Here's a couple pictures from the Maze District of Canyonlands NP a couple years ago.
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These are from Seneca Lake in the Winds a year and a half ago. The bright glow in the notch is from the lights of Pinedale. A little bit of cloud cover present.
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The bright disk is Mars
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This one is from Badlands NP about 3 years ago. The bright Light on the left is the setting moon. I think the orange glow on the right is from the lights of Kyle, SD.
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I noticed that someone posted a picture of the sun - our star- so I thought I'd post one too from the transit of Mercury across the sun on 11/11/19. A visible transit of Mercury across the sun is a rare event. The last one was in 2016 and the next will not happen until 2032. My plan had been to try to get pictures at intervals and then composite them into a single picture. The transit was already underway when the sun rose here in Nebraska and true to form it was snowing at sunrise. It continued overcast until the event was nearly over. I was having huge frustration but we did have some clear sky near the end and I was able to get a few pictures. I was surprised that the sun wasn't showing any sunspots. Mercury is the tiny dark spot at about 2 o'clock.

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Curt said:
I noticed that someone posted a picture of the sun - our star- so I thought I'd post one too from the transit of Mercury across the sun on 11/11/19. A visible transit of Mercury across the sun is a rare event. The last one was in 2016 and the next will not happen until 2032. My plan had been to try to get pictures at intervals and then composite them into a single picture. The transit was already underway when the sun rose here in Nebraska and true to form it was snowing at sunrise. It continued overcast until the event was nearly over. I was having huge frustration but we did have some clear sky near the end and I was able to get a few pictures. I was surprised that the sun wasn't showing any sunspots. Mercury is the tiny dark spot at about 2 o'clock.

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@Curt - wow, Awesome!!!! Love that photo.

we watched it as well from the Needles, Canyonlands. A ranger had a telescope with a filter at the visitor center, very cool to watch!
 
Curt said:
I noticed that someone posted a picture of the sun - our star- so I thought I'd post one too from the transit of Mercury across the sun on 11/11/19. A visible transit of Mercury across the sun is a rare event. The last one was in 2016 and the next will not happen until 2032. My plan had been to try to get pictures at intervals and then composite them into a single picture. The transit was already underway when the sun rose here in Nebraska and true to form it was snowing at sunrise. It continued overcast until the event was nearly over. I was having huge frustration but we did have some clear sky near the end and I was able to get a few pictures. I was surprised that the sun wasn't showing any sunspots. Mercury is the tiny dark spot at about 2 o'clock.

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that's cool, I somehow missed that.
I was able to get pictures of the Venus transit a few years ago, it was pretty cool.

And yeah, right now we are in a cycle without any sunspots
 
We spent last Thursday evening at Kitt Peak National Observatory (outside Tucson). It was an incredible evening at 7,000 ft, completely clear sky, no wind, moon rose after midnight. It was a perfect evening to stargaze. Below is a link to what we saw, well, kind of.... (our telescope was smaller that evening, so less details):

kittpeak.wordpress.com

December 19, 2019 — Robert, DSD

Kitt Peak Nightly Observing Program Splendors of the Universe on YOUR Night! Many pictures are links to larger versions. Click here for the “Best images of the OTOP” Gallery and more in…
kittpeak.wordpress.com kittpeak.wordpress.com

We spent the evening with a group of 8 taking turns with a much smaller telescope, so we didn’t see as many details as in the images above. But it was still pretty surreal to zoom in on the Orion constellation and it’s famous Nebula. Also the star clusters showed up well. As an added bonus we saw several meteors, one had a lovely fireball tail. The particular telescope we used was positioned in a building where the roof was fully retracted, so it was very cold, but the added benefit was full stargazing for hours in addition to the telescope views. I highly recommend this, if you are in the area.
 
Some front country, evening spiking last night.
I stopped carrying a "real" camera on most hikes, and while these look pretty good on a phone screen (for being handheld in the dark), they become much more impressionist when you make em larger. But heck, to capture Orion handheld, no setup, no tripod, a few ounces in my pocket, and no editing... it just takes all the satisfaction out of it :oops:


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ah the noise!... it's as bad as traffic during the holidays.
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This one is for all the younger folks.
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Lincoln, Nebraska

A goal for this year is to improve my Milkyway photography. I bought a wider faster lens than anything I currently have to help with this goal. This picture is my first attempt with that lens taken a couple mornings ago. It's a 5 image stack to reduce noise. The picture was taken on the edge of a red zone on the "Dark Sky Map". I should not have been able to see the Milkyway, so I was delighted to be able to faintly make it out in the night sky, and it was more obvious on the camera screen.

To my surprise, each of the 5 photos had at least one shooting star. There is one on the right margin that was very bright and was the only one I saw with my eyes. The camera caught the very end of it's flight. I liked the shooting stars so much I left them in on the composite.

All in all I'm pleased with the result.
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I think most of those are satellite (iridium) flares, except the one on the right edge that you saw with your eyes.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Satellite_flare

Curt said:
To my surprise, each of the 5 photos had at least one shooting star. There is one on the right margin that was very bright and was the only one I saw with my eyes. The camera caught the very end of it's flight. I liked the shooting stars so much I left them in on the composite.
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