Tag: Astronomy

Sunday (07-November-2010) — New Jersey

Backyard Solar Astronomy in New Jersey.

Solar image taken with a Nikon D3x camera and Questar 3.5″ telescope fitted with a sun filter (ISO 400, f/16, 1/1000 sec). I didn’t see any sunspots. A good source for solar activity is SpaceWeather.com.

Image of the Sun using a Questar Telescope (David J Mathre)
Image of the Sun using a Questar Telescope (David J Mathre)

Friday (11-December-2009) — New Jersey

Late Autumn Night Sky Over New Jersey: Star Trails and Time-lapse Video.

Images of star and jet trails plus a time-lapsed video looking south from my house in New Jersey. This was a couple of days before the Geminid meteor shower was supposed to peak, but I did catch a few meteors during the night.  A series of images were taken with a Nikon D3x and 24 mm f/3.5 PC-E lens (ISO 400, f/4, 30 sec). The star trail images are composites of 120 images combined with the Startrails program. A time-lapsed video of the entire set was also created using Adobe Photoshop CS5 export to video. When you see Orion, tell me what I did wrong…

Late Fall Night Sky Image of Star and Jet Trails. Image taken with a Nikon D3x and 24 mm f/3.5 PC-E lens (ISO 400, f/4.0, 30 sec). Composite of 120 images over 1 hour combined with Startrails program. Hour 2. (David J Mathre)
Late Fall Night Sky Image of Star and Jet Trails. Image taken with a Nikon D3x and 24 mm f/3.5 PC-E lens (ISO 400, f/4.0, 30 sec). Composite of 120 images over 1 hour combined with Startrails program. Hour 2. (David J Mathre)


Friday (23-November-2007) — Hawaii

Gone to See Hawaii. Big Island Photography Workshop with Thom Hogan. Day 6: Kona.

The workshop team stopped at Lighthaus Camera in Kona before being dropped off at the Kona airport. This was “Black Friday” — the infamous shopping day after Thanksgiving. We noticed a pile of just delivered Nikon D300 cameras behind the counter, but assumed that they were all preordered by local camera enthusiasts. After some discussions, we found out that they were available for purchase and with a 5% discount as part of their “Black Friday” sales event. At least three of us walked out with a new D300 camera body that day. I wasn’t planning of getting a D300, and had to pay cash since they didn’t accept AMEX. In his D300 review, Thom did comment that he was the last of us to get a D300. I took a few pictures with the new camera while waiting for my plane back to the mainland at the Kona airport, and had many hours to read the manual.