Category: Astronomy

Views of the sun, moon, and stars

Four-Years Ago (10-June-2013) — At Sea

Gone to See Europe. Semester at Sea Spring 2013 Enrichment Voyage on the MV Explorer. Day 45: At Sea between Stockholm and Copenhagen.

Late night or early in the morning (hard to tell this far north when there isn’t much darkness at night) I looked out my cabin window on the MV Explorer and saw the electric blue Noctilucent clouds. I read about them before (http://www.spaceweather.com/), but had never seen them.  The clouds are ice crystals that are very high that you can only see for a short time when the sun is below the horizon. One theory is the crystals are nucleated when micro-meteors pass through the upper atmosphere. We were in the Baltic Sea traveling from Stockholm to Copenhagen and the sun doesn’t set until very late I set up a camera in my cabin and and started taking pictures.(Nikon D4 camera, 28 mm f/1.8 lens (ISO 200 or 800, 28 mm, f/1.8, 1 sec)).

Noctilucent Clouds Over the Baltic Sea. From my cabin on the MV Explorer while traveling from Stockholm to Copenhagen. Image taken with a Nikon D4 camera and 28 mm f/1.8 lens (ISO 200, 28 mm, f/1.8, 1 sec). Raw image processed with Capture One Pro. (David J Mathre)
Noctilucent Clouds Over the Baltic Sea. From my cabin on the MV Explorer while traveling from Stockholm to Copenhagen. Image taken with a Nikon D4 camera and 28 mm f/1.8 lens (ISO 200, 28 mm, f/1.8, 1 sec). Raw image processed with Capture One Pro. (David J Mathre)


Noctilucent Clouds Over the Baltic Sea. From my cabin on the MV Explorer while traveling from Stockholm to Copenhagen. Image taken with a Nikon D4 camera and 28 mm f/1.8 lens (ISO 800, 28 mm, f/1.8, 1 sec). Raw image processed with Capture One Pro. (David J Mathre)
Noctilucent Clouds Over the Baltic Sea. From my cabin on the MV Explorer while traveling from Stockholm to Copenhagen. Image taken with a Nikon D4 camera and 28 mm f/1.8 lens (ISO 800, 28 mm, f/1.8, 1 sec). Raw image processed with Capture One Pro. (David J Mathre)


Noctilucent Clouds Over the Baltic Sea. From my cabin on the MV Explorer while traveling from Stockholm to Copenhagen. Image taken with a Nikon D4 camera and 28 mm f/1.8 lens (ISO 800, 28 mm, f/1.8, 1 sec). Raw image processed with Capture One Pro. (David J Mathre)
Noctilucent Clouds Over the Baltic Sea. From my cabin on the MV Explorer while traveling from Stockholm to Copenhagen. Image taken with a Nikon D4 camera and 28 mm f/1.8 lens (ISO 800, 28 mm, f/1.8, 1 sec). Raw image processed with Capture One Pro. (David J Mathre)


Sunday (04-June-2017) — New Jersey

Backyard Early Morning and Daytime Spring Nature in New Jersey.

I got up really early this morning to set a camera up to try and catch a NASA launch from the Wallops Flight Facility in Virginia. The sounding rocket was supposed to release some chemicals to form artificial clouds that would glow blue, green, and red. Unfortunately, the launch was scrubbed due to high altitude clouds. Mission Update Five-years ago I caught a previous launch from the Wallops Flight Facility. I did get enough images for a composite star-trails image. Later in the morning I took my lonely Leica T camera out to check out the new wildflowers in my backyard.

Startrails looking southeast. Backyard night sky in New Jersey. Composite of 30 images taken with a Nikon D810a camera and 16-35 mm f/4 lens (ISO 200, 16 mm, f/4, 120 sec). (David J Mathre)
Startrails looking southeast. Backyard night sky in New Jersey. Composite of 30 images taken with a Nikon D810a camera and 16-35 mm f/4 lens (ISO 200, 16 mm, f/4, 120 sec). (David J Mathre)


Seven-Years Ago (27-May-2010) — Atlantic Ocean

Gone to See the Caribbean Islands. Semester at Sea Spring 2010 Enrichment Voyage on the MV Explorer. Ultimate Travel Photography Workshop with Michael Mariant. Day 1: At Sea.

After spending the day in Nassau, Bahama we embarked on the MV Explorer for San Juan, Puerto Rico. At sunset, we saw a glimmer of a “green flash” as the sun went below the horizon.


Individual images from the Slideshow can be viewed here.

One-Year Ago (19-May-2016) — New Jersey

Backyard Springtime Nature in New Jersey.

A Chipping Sparrow, a Carpenter Bee in flight, a cluster of Rhododendron flowers, a white wildflower, a Jack in the Pulpit flower, and a ball of Dandelion seeds. I ended the day taking some pictures of the Waxing Gibbous (nearly full) Moon. All but the chipping sparrow image were taken using a Fuji 100-400 mm OIS lens. I am really liking this lens as an alternative for the Fuji X series cameras to the Nikon 80-400 mm VRII lens. The Fuji 100-400 mm lens is about the same size as the Nikon 80-400 mm lens but lighter. Also, since the crop sensor on the Fuji X cameras is 1.5x smaller than a full frame 35 mm camera — the field of view for the Fuji 100-400 mm lens is equivalent to a 150-600 mm lens.


Individual images in the slideshow can be viewed here.

One-Year Ago (15-April-2016) — Atlantic Ocean

The Semester at Sea, Spring 2016 voyage was almost over. Some of the students had their faces painted with flags from the countries we visited. Can anyone identify this flag? Then one final sunset image (and yes, that is a sunspot).

Face painting on board the MV World Odyssey. Day 101 of 102 of the Semester at Sea Spring 2016 Voyage at sea between Morocco and England. Image taken with a Nikon 1 V3 camera and a 70-300 mm VR lens (ISO 160, 173 mm, f/5.3, 1/1600 sec). (David J Mathre)
Face painting on board the MV World Odyssey. Day 101 of 102 of the Semester at Sea Spring 2016 Voyage at sea between Morocco and England. Image taken with a Nikon 1 V3 camera and a 70-300 mm VR lens (ISO 160, 173 mm, f/5.3, 1/1600 sec). (David J Mathre)
Final sunset aboard the MV World Odyssey. Day 101 of 102 of the Semester at Sea Spring 2016 Voyage at sea between Morocco and England. Image taken with a Nikon 1 V3 camera and a 70-300 mm VR lens (ISO 160, 300 mm, f/16, 1/4000 sec). (David J Mathre)
Final sunset aboard the MV World Odyssey. Day 101 of 102 of the Semester at Sea Spring 2016 Voyage at sea between Morocco and England. Image taken with a Nikon 1 V3 camera and a 70-300 mm VR lens (ISO 160, 300 mm, f/16, 1/4000 sec). (David J Mathre)

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