Returning For Another Look!

Last night, with only a night or so left of moonless dark time to examine Comet PanSTARRS (C/2011 L4) again before the full Moon wipes it out, even though it was a "school night", I had to go up and take another look.  Since we are 2 days closer to the orbital plane crossing on the 27th, with the tail look any different?  Actually, I misspoke in my last post, it is not a "solar spike" even though it is pointing generally towards the sun, rather, it is called an anti-tail, because it is on the side opposite the main cometary body from the normal tail.  This is common when we observe the comet as we cross the plane of its orbit - perspective allows us to see dust released long ago appearing to jut out from the coma apparently the wrong direction from the head. In this case, the "real" tail is the puny spray of material going the other direction from the bright "ray"  It is that ray that is the anti-tail...

Anyway, last evening I napped part of the night away, awakening about 1am to head up to Mount Lemmon's Geology Vista again.  The bright Moon was still high in the western sky as I drove about an hour to the site.  Instead of setting up the AP1200 mount and the 14", this time, anticipating a long anti-tail, I just set up a tripod and tracking platform to enable me to use normal or telephoto camera lenses without a lot of setup.  Starting out with my 70-200 Canon F/2.8 zoom, I set it to 90mm so I could keep Polaris and Gamma Cepheus in the frame as reference to measure the tail.  I took frames for about 40 minutes, taking the in-camera darks as well to reduce electronic noise.  The stack of the 8 three minute exposures is shown at left.  As in Sunday's post, Polaris is the bright star at left, and Errai is at right.  This image is rotated about 90 degrees from that image.  The two stars are about 13.5 degrees apart...  In this frame the tail extends over 7 degrees across the sky!  That is a big difference from the 4 degrees seen Sunday morning...  The ray was also barely spotted in my hand held binoculars.  Sorry for the gradients of brightness in the exposure - it is a combination of the edge of the Milky Way encroaching in the lower part of the field, and perhaps also some airglow or sky glow since this in only 30 degrees off the northern horizon...

Since anything worth doing is worth overdoing, I took another quick series of images with a Nikon 135mm telephoto. I only got in 3 frames before the growing twilight stopped me.  But the stack of frames, stretched ridiculously to get a better tail length is shown at right.  Here is is imagined to 8 degrees before it fades out...  Also visible is a couple satellite trails, and as above and in Sunday's post, the cluster to left is NGC 188.

I'm not sure I'll get another chance to see the comet this well with the full moon coming about the same time as orbital plane crossing, but it is sure fun to see this comet continue to put on a good show since it first came over our horizon in March!

Update:  I forgot to mention the tracking platform!  I got the Vixen Polarie tracker a couple months ago and you saw the first results in the time-lapse of Omega Centauri rising a few weeks ago.  The comet shot this morning was really the second time used for tracking and it worked very nicely.  Shown at left is a pic of it while shooting the above comet shot with the zoom lens.  Even though it has a weight limit of 3.5 pounds, I suspect I was pushing it with the big lens, but it seems to work fine.  You can see that when shooting very far North with a long lens like this and you can easily hit the body of the tracker, but that issue aside, I look forward to pushing it to longer exposures.  Shooting very close to Polaris with couple-minute exposures isn't pushing it much!  The 2 cables - the one on the camera goes to the intervalometer (exposure control), and the one for the tracking platform is an alternate power cord.  While it runs off 2 AA batteries, they only last a couple hours, so I power it through the mini-USB and a DC adaptor off a car battery...  Another thing to note - though the stars are out of focus, their color shows more clearly - and also seen between the end of the lens and edge of the frame is the fuzzy glow of the Andromeda Galaxy in the 20 second exposure!

Night of the Comets!

I've heard that a couple bright comets (visible in binoculars, NOT naked eye!) were putting on a good show, so with the brightening moon already half illuminated and it being Saturday night, time to hit the road!  Since I wanted dark northeastern skies, I chose to go up the Mount Lemmon Highway to Geology Vista.  While it looks out over the Tucson Valley with a pretty view of the lights, there is absolutely nothing to the north, so the sky in that direction is quite nice!  Also, since the bright moon was up till about 1am, there was no hurry to leave home - with Melinda working, I left about 11:30, bringing up a pair of cameras, the 14" Hyperstar, and the Meade 80mm APO triplet.

Setting up in the dark is one of my pet peeves - I
try not to do it, but sometimes, like last night, you don't have a choice.  It takes about an hour  to set up for imaging and get aligned on Polaris and fortunately with my new (to me) AP1200, for short exposures, I don't need to track, at least that was the plan...  Comet PanSTARRS (C/2011 L4) was up first - it is actually only a few degrees from Polaris, so is up all night!  But while readily visible in binoculars, it held its secret until you get a picture of it.  We're about to cross the plane of its orbit next week, and it has been developing a very nice sunward-pointing spike!  I didn't observe it visually thru the 14" (can't with the Hyperstar Lens in place), but even in a telephoto lens, it was impressive.  It looks darn near like a jetliner with its headlight on coming in to land!  The left picture is with the Hyperstar (660mm focal length), and the sunward spike juts out of the frame, so I tried the wider field of the Meade APO (480mm focal length), and it still shot out of the field!  North is approximately up in both frames.

So I switched to an 85mm telephoto lens - a Nikon F/1.8, shooting at F/2.8.  Shown here at left is the result.  The star at upper right is Polaris, the one at lower right is Gamma Cepheii (Errai).  Measuring with a ruler on the screen, the tail is OVER 4 degrees long, and likely to get longer as we cross its orbital plane next week (27th).  Unfortunately, it happens a couple days after full moon, and it may be difficult, if not impossible to observe well.  Also visible is the open star cluster NGC 188 to the left of the comet and lower right from Polaris.

The other bright comet out last night was Comet Lemmon (C/2012 F6).  It was a new comet to me, but has been putting on a good show in the Southern hemisphere the last few months.  It is just now moving north and can be seen rising to the left of the great square of Pegasus just before dawn.  The photo here is thru the Hyperstar again, and is a total of 8 minutes of exposure in a brightening sky.  It shows a nice blue ion tail to the right, as well as a dust tail below.  Both comets are on the other side of the sun from us, well over 1 AU(an astronomical unit is the earth's distance from the sun, about 93 million miles) from the sun and both 1.7 AU from earth.

It was great getting out seeing some bright comets (any time they can be seen in binoculars, they are considered bright!), and keep in practice imaging them.  I definitely need to improve my imaging skills, but fun nonetheless!

Look to the West!

One of the big sky shows of 2013 is about to start - the triple planetary conjunction of Jupiter, Venus and Mercury will be reaching its peak near the end of this month.  But already Venus is rising up out of the twilight as it rounds its orbit behind the sun.  Rising steadily as Jupiter sinks slowly behind the sun, fast-moving Mercury will pop out of the twilight also, drawing even with Venus a week from tonight on the 23rd.  For a couple days afterwards, all three planets will be visible in the same wide-angle binocular field of view and easily visible to the naked eye!  Rarely is a triple alignment visible, and rarely also so conveniently right after sunset (look about 30-40 minutes after sunset, with a clear western horizon).  Shown at left is tonight's view showing Jupiter still pretty high, and Venus still low, just over the roof line below.   For more information, check out the NASA page about the alignment.  And keep looking westwards after sunset the next couple weeks!

A Horse of a Different Color!

At first glance, this might appear to be a metal sculpture, thrown together of parts from around the garage.  It is, in fact, a bicycle, a recumbent variety which has an unusual riding position, more like a Lazyboy than your standard bicycle.  And while it is easy to dismiss such a bike as a toy, it is the most comfortable bike I've ever ridden!  Which is not to say that you can jump on it and ride across the state - it definitely takes some getting used to!  First the riding position is the big change you notice, until you get to the under seat steering - that is most likely the biggest thing to get used to.  In all bike riding, you subtly balance with minute steering changes to stay upright.  With the position and new steering, it seems a battle you are not likely to win at first!  But it does come to you eventually, and once it does, you notice that A, your butt doesn't get sore and B, neither do your hands, arms, shoulder or neck, used to support either part of your weight or keep your head upright on a normal bike.  After a longish ride (my longest is only about 15 miles), the only discomfort is  in your quads, which is normal after being off any bike for so long...

This bike was passed along to me by our RAGBRAI leader Carl, who was tasked to find a new home for it by a neighbor.  After a few sessions of practice and some minor repairs to fix a shifter, I look forward to getting out on it whenever we're back in Illinois.  Given the cost of bringing a bike up from Arizona (upwards of $200 on the airlines), I vowed to get one to stay up here when this one fell from the sky.  While shown here w/out bike helmet on one of my first rides (documented by Melinda), that had been remedied.  It is challenging enough to stay upright without worrying about cracking your skull too!  The only disadvantage that I'm finding is that climbing hills is a challenge, but it has a granny gear to grind through them.  Only keeping balanced at those slow speeds is more challenging too.  The way I weave around, I'm not sure I'm ready for the crowds of RAGBRAI riders yet, but I am looking forward to more time in the saddle, er, comfy chair!

More 3-D!

With all the flower pictures we've taken here in Illinois this trip, I've been working on more 3-D images.  If they give you headaches, tough!  I like them, so will continue working on them.  The idea of having your brain reconstruct a stereo image from 2 slightly different images is fascinating to me...  These are for cross-eyed viewing, crossing your eyes slightly to view the right picture with your left eye and the left picture with your right results in a center image with depth!  Do try it - it is amazing when it happens!  It may be easier to do it with the thumbnails, then click on the image to load the full-scale shot and try it again...  All these images were taken with my 100mm macro lens, including the moon/tree picture at the end...

First up is the recurved red trillium.  As I mentioned in the last blog - the flowers are unspectacular, but unusual, so it responds well to 3D, especially shooting with low angles and close up.  Both of these views are from the same pair of images.  They don't always come out this sharp, but the closeup shots, near the full resolution of the camera sometimes shows amazing details.  These are also all taken hand held, usually with a brief gap between them after waiting for the wind to subside...  And by the way, these are assembled in an early version of Photoshop Elements that came with one of my cameras - images are brought into "photomerge" and adjusted in alignment before the software assembles them side-by-side into the images you see here...

Next up is the white trillium (Trillium grandiflorum) and here the larger-scale image is better, showing the depth in the more-interesting center part of the flower.

And in a blatant attempt to improve the 3-D moon shot from the 5 Feb, 2012 post, presented here is tonight's version.  I still like last year's image better - funny how sometimes you can't improve on a single lucky shot, but I'll keep trying...

Our Flower-Yard!

We've been having a blast at "Ketelsen East" in St Charles, IL!  Experiencing another Spring after the all-too brief appearances in Tucson and our visit to the Carolinas last month has been very restful.  Add to that many opportunities to visit friends and family makes this loads better than our trip in February when we were both sick with the flu... We even saw our groundhog neighbor (living under the building next door), who we've called "Bruce", though I think this version is likely an offspring.  Didn't get a picture of him though - he is pretty shy.  At left is a photo of the house lit up in the evening to make it look homey...

So we've been enjoying the cool weather and the first arrival of Spring.  Last year, it hit hard and a lot earlier, so was a joy to see all the blossoms and flowers in this year's edition.  The Fox River was flooding just a few weeks ago too, so the mowers haven't been over the yards here, so we've been enjoying the "yard-flowers" too.  We wouldn't dare call them weeds!  Besides the ever-present dandelions, we've got several colors of violets, and two types of Trillium too (white and red)!  We've even got tulips that have broken free of the flower beds, and are starting to come up willy-nilly!  Shown at left here is towards the north and other structures, where they mow a lot.  Just dandelions and violets in that direction, but to the south of the house is more of a jungle of other flowering plants, including big patches of Trillium, as shown at right.

Now the Trillium we have in our yard is a less-common recurved red trillium.  It is a pretty plant, but not showy like many other flowers because the petals curve inwards and hide the flower.  It is also hard to make look very impressive - the only way is to get down in the dirt and shoot it at its own level.  Then you can peek into it.  I'm working on some 3D shots of it too, so look for that coming up.  The White variety (Trillium grandiflorum) is showier, different but definitely related and shown at right.

And even the dandelions are spectacular when looked at closely!  A year or two back I took a macro shot of one that still serves as my wallpaper on my laptop, though didn't make it into a blog post.  Here is a triple-header on the left, each at slightly different ages, so show a slightly different general appearance.  Interestingly, our second day here was a cool one - it never got over 50, and NONE of the dandelions that were open the previous day made an appearance!  After all taking a day off, it warmed up a little and they all returned...  Even after going to seed, the macro lens reveals a wealth of details that are generally little-noticed.  While the seeds are wind-dispersed, the seeds themselves also have little thorns on them that would likely also stick to clothing for transport as well...

So I was shooting the tulips scattered in our yard...  Mostly they are near flower beds, but they seem to be migrating out towards the open yard...  I suspect that the later in the Spring that our "yard" is mowed, the more likely they'll keep on moving towards the exit!  So how do you shoot a tulip in a new way?  How 'bought straight down with a macro lens?  Looks pretty cool, even with the white tulip with subtle color variations...

So a day or two later, after the above shot came
out, I was shooting another the same way - straight down, stopped down considerably so that a good portion of the flower would be in focus with the larger depth-of-field.  This one was a yellow tulip with red highlights - beautiful colors...  But wait, what is that little green particle hiding among the flower parts near the center - aphids!  In fact, if you look closely at the white one above, you can spot one of the little buggers there too.  On this yellow one, I went in for an oblique closeup for more details.  You can see little legs, perhaps some eye dots - perhaps a probiscus with which they suck plant juice.  Will have to keep an eye out for more of these little microscopic critters...

It's A 3-D World!

We are on the road again - this time to the Midwest to see our house there, as well as friends and family.  I usually bring my camera along as one of my carry-ons, but mostly don't take any photos from the plane.  Since it is considered an "electronic device" it has to be off during take off and landing, and that is mostly the interesting times with city lights or the hometown under you.

As normal, Melinda was just coming off night shift, so was pretty tired, and I took the window seat so in case anything appeared outside, I'd not be reaching over her.  Against the curved outer wall, there is even less room it seems, and way back in coach, I can barely reach down to grab the camera between my feet anyway.

But some nice shots appeared - the clear Arizona sky gave way to some scattered clouds in New Mexico, and I photographed some with their stark shadows below.  Now if any of you who have read the blog knows, I'm a 3-D fan, and there is nothing easier than shooting stereo from a plane.  Take a shot, take another shot a couple seconds later.  Meanwhile, with the plane going 500+ mph, you get a nice stereo baseline for fooling your brain into making a stereo image when they are viewed later.  These images are presented for cross-eyed viewing - cross your eyes slightly so that you view the right picture with your left eye and left picture with your right.  Your brain will combine them into a central image that shows depth!  Once you can do it with the thumbnail here, you can click on it to see it in full resolution, though you will have to cross your eyes a little more...  Hopefully these will be headache-inducing free!  The picture at left here looked like one of the spaceships from Star Trek, with its interesting shape projected over some irrigated fields...

I didn't follow our precise path, but as we headed what I assume was NE across New Mexico, we picked up some very interesting parallel cloud bands.  They were so evenly spaced that I couldn't imagine they would be random, but rather caused by some phenomenon.  I've seen parallel airglow patterns caused by gravity waves, and from that reference, they are also known as cloud streets.  I was also taken by the blackness of the sky at 37,000 feet!  Since I'm pretty tall, it is difficult to look very high in the sky through the low windows, but it showed up well in the image.  The cloud bands persisted for a good distance, perhaps 20 minutes or more, so extended over hundreds of miles on the ground.  They are still at least partly visible in this shot of an airport (sorry, don't know which one).

Deeper towards the Midwest, just before they broke up, we picked up a higher level deck of thin clouds as well that showed up well in the 3-D view.  Stereo views tend to be more interesting with more than one or two planes to attract attention, and while I didn't know if the thin layer would show up, it does just fine.

It clouded up for a while, but cleared as we neared Chicago.  Since they don't consult us on their flight path, it is always interesting to see if you can recognize anything before landing.  Lucky for us, we easily picked out the Fermilab accelerator with its dual rings, shown at left.  Nearly 4 miles in circumference, it was the most powerful particle accelerator in the world until Cern's Large Hadron Collider came on line a couple years back.  The closer, small circle is the main injector ring, and the larger circle is the Tevatron accelerator where protons and anti-protons, accelerated to nearly the speed of light rotate in opposite directions and collide to reveal details of subatomic particles.  This is located in Batavia, just a couple towns south of where we live in St Charles!  As we neared "Ketelsen East" we passed a few more landmarks, including the ballpark where the Kane County Cougars (the Chicago Cubs class "A" affiliate) play.  Another 5 or 6 miles and we would have flown over our house, but we turned east just as we reached highway 64, so never got the chance to see it from the air...

Fortunately for us, we're getting the moist, green
springtime we never get in Tucson!  We've already been within spitting distance of 100F there, but here in Illinois, it snowed just 10 days ago!  But now it is warming and the flowering trees are in full glory.  And of course, 3-D doesn't end when you get off the plane - by moving slightly between frames, you can still take advantage of  the stereo effect.  New growth always looks cool in 3-D, I think because it looks almost too perfect.  I'm not even sure what plants these are - located a few feet from each other adjacent to our house.  I'm sure we'll bore you with more flower and tree pictures over our stay here the next few days -- but it is exciting to us!