2024 Solar Eclipse - Arkansas

Here is a timelapse of the 2024 Solar Eclipse as seen from Flippin Arkansas. You can see two sunspots on the sun. The solar prominences were intensely red in color and a gorgeous site to see. Each frame is three minutes apart until the total phase when they are 3 seconds apart. And then operator error occurred and I did not take into account a meridian flip even though no tripod collision was possible. So I was only able to capture about 1/3rd of total. The photos get misaligned until I took over manual control and flipped the axis. Visually this was the most beautiful eclipse I have observed to date.

 

Tadpole Nebula & Bode's & Cigar Galaxy

This beauty is the Tadpole Nebula (IC 410) with a star cluster (NGC 1893) right in front of it. The Tadpole is about mere 12,0100 light years away.

 Bode's Galaxy M81 (lower) and the Cigar Galaxy M82(upper) are gravitationally locked into each other. Both of them are about 11.8 million Light Years away.

NGC0224 M31 Andromeda Rephotographed

Winter Wonderspace

 Some of you may have heard of the Horsehead Nebula. Unlike some nicknames of astro objects this one is completely obvious as to the why part... And as always here you go with the distance - the light from this beauty takes 1,375 years to reach us. The light from the red nebula comes from the bright stars behind it ionizing the hydrogen gas. The star Malach is so bright it is casting quite a halo!

This beautiful blue canvas of planetary nebula should be familiar to alot of us. It is the Pleiades star cluster or sometimes called the Seven Sisters star cluster. You can see it with the naked eye but depending on the light pollution in your area you may be able to only see four or five of the stars. Six is usually the maximum number of stars. This bad girl is only 444 light years of distance between us.

This is Andromeda and I have displayed it in the past but I try to get a better shot every time. This one is also visible to the naked eye if your li8gh pollution isn't too bad. So this one is 152,000 light years wide but only 2.5 million lights distance from us :) It is considered a sister galaxy to our very own galaxy.  By the way can see two smudges in the picture - those two sister galaxies to Andromeda.

Recognize this nighttime dominator. And for distance it is on average 1.2 Light Seconds away!

This NGC 2238 but also very appropriately nicknamed the Rosette Nebula and it is 130 light years in diameter but 5,000 light years away.

This old standby the Orion Nebula M42 I have taken so many times but again I try to do better every time. 1,344 light years distance and 24 light years in diameter.

Some of my favorite Life Shots

Two Arizona icons in one photo - Gorgeous sunrises and saguaro cacti

A Harris Hawk giving me the eye

Mount Hood from the window of a 737

A Hood River Valley tree withstanding all that with enduring strength

A Oregon lighthouse withstanding all that with enduring strength

Winter does occasionally visit the desert

Floating Catalina Mountains above a snow covered Sonoran Desert

Snow covered Sonoran Desert Sunrise

Arches NP Utah - This photo stands as one of my favorites as the crowd at Arches National Park was completely bewildered as to why I turned my back on the Arch in front of them. The tree was completely outside the arch but somehow found a way to grow such that the arch framed it perfectly. As I took this photo the crowd completely missed the amazing beauty that nature had offered up to them. If only we would sometimes look beyond the obvious. Dyslexia is described as a disability. I have found it be a pain when playing cards and dice games and simply trying to read or type at a normal speed... However, I have learned to relook at things several times to make sure I got it accurate. This constant reevaluation of what I see gave me the skills necessary to see what the crowd completely missed on that day At Arches. Disability sometimes yes, sometimes no...

Mount Saint Helens August of 2005- My first attempt at good composition and an eye for taking a picture that matched imagination of the final picture on the wall. Also, yes I intentionally gave it a painting like feel in post processing.

Deschutes River Valley silhouetted by Mount Hood right after a beautiful rain storm - August of 2004 this is a really bad photo but I love it because it was Angie's idea to stop the car and take the photo. I wish I would have taken a better photo,. However I learned a lot about photography on this one. So I am very nostalgic about this one. Angie thank you for endorsing this one of what would turn out to be over 700,000 photos later

Refracted Moon

 When the Moon is high enough and the clouds are high enough and thin enough! The refraction of Moon light was absolutely gorgeous... Yes I had to blow out the Moon to get the color in the clouds.

Stansbury Mountains Tooele Utah

The Stansbury Mountains as seen from Tooele Utah

 

Palisade on the Oregon Trail

 The Oregon Trail meets the Columbia River in the Columbia River Gorge and is briefly accessible before a modern freeway and highway plowed right over it. In complete Oregon fashion it was raining when I took my Palisade on this short section so I can say I drove on the Oregon Trail...

On a Whim the North Rim

 Coming back from a long road trip I decide to avoid some mountain snow and ended up heading for the Grand Canyon North Rim. That is the way most of my solo road trips go - explore if it looks good! The deciduous trees were gorgeous yellow as a bonus.

Annular Solar Eclipse

 So I was in Beaverton, Oregon for the October 14, 2023 Annular Solar Eclipse and per Oregon weather law it was cloudy. However, the clouds were thick enough to protect our eyes and cameras and thin enough to actual see and photograph it.

Jupiter Again

 

Jupiter & Saturn

Planet Night Jupiter

Right to Left moons of Jupiter: Europa, Ganymede, Io

Saturn

The One Everybody Wants to See SATURN!

Okay here it is the planet Saturn. Saturn is the sixth planet from the Sun and the second-largest planet in our solar system. Adorned with thousands of beautiful ringlets, Saturn is unique among the planets. It is not the only planet to have rings – made of chunks of ice and rock – but none are as spectacular or as complicated as Saturn's. Like fellow gas giant Jupiter, Saturn is a massive ball made mostly of hydrogen and helium.

 

Andromeda Galaxy M21 & Sister Galaxy NGC 224

 Andromeda has a diameter of about 152,000 light-years and is approximately 2.5 million light-years from Earth. I kind of blew out the center and work harder to get a better image

NGC6992 - Eastern Veil Nebula

 The Eastern Veil Nebula is at a distance of 2400 light years, and is is a cloud of heated and ionized gas and dust powered by a super nova. The delicate beauty of this nebula masks the explosive power of the super nova that created this beautiful wonder.

Arizona Century Mark - Not

While the some of the nation is basking in Arizona style temperatures here is a summary of our days of summer heat:

So we had at most 55 days in a row of 100° F or greater. We had 63 days total of of 100° F or greater and 11 days of 110° F or over. So it looks like we will most likely not reach the Century Mark this year.

We definitely are not used to double digit humidity

M20 Trifid Nebula & M21 Webb's Cross Cluster

The Trifid, meaning three lobed - I don't know about you but three lobed is not what I see!?! NGC 6514 (M20) is 4,240 Light years from my telescope. The nebulosity is lit up by the energy of  a star in middle of the dark veins. The group of stars in the Lower right of the photo is M21 Webb's Cross open star cluster. I purposely toned down the stars as to not blow out the Trifid. Webb's Cross is actually closer to us than Trifid at 3,930 light years. I took this photo on August 5-6, 2023. I took 189 frames lasting 30 seconds each. The air was pretty turbulent so I had to dump 98 frames, keeping only 91 for the stack. I will ultimately make another run at this beautiful nebula when the seeing conditions improve in the coming weeks.

 

Massive Sunspot 3354

Massive Sunspot 3354 is so large you could fit 10 earths side by side into it.

Left half Hydrogen Aplha Right Half White Light Filter 99.9% 2023-06-29 12:27

 

M17 NGC 6618 The Swan Nebula

The swan or Omega Nebula is about 6,000 light years from my telescope. However it is 15 light years wide! What is amazing is we are seeing it edge on can you if we saw it face on it would be 40 light years in diameter! NGC 6618 lies embedded in the nebulosity and causes the gases of the nebula to shine due to radiation from these hot, young stars. 2023-06-27 10:00 PM to 2023-06-28 1:00 AM 133 frames taken, 63 thrown out for turbulence. 

 

NGC6611 M16 The Eagle Nebula

 The Eagle Nebula is part of a diffuse emission nebula, about 5700 light-years distant and is actually 55 by 70 light years across. In the middle is the so called pillars of creation, as new stars are forming there.

5340 total exposure time in seconds, Camera cooled to 0°C, 30 seconds average exposure time, 178 of 247 frames processed/stacked.