David's Images of the Day Photoblog
Views of the land around the world
Nine-Years Ago Today. Sunburst, crepuscular rays, and clouds over the Pacific Ocean from the starboard side of the MV World Odyssey. (21-Jan-2016, Semester at Sea).
After a night capturing images of the night sky for a time-lapse video, I pointed the camera southeast to capture the dawn. I hoped to get some brightly colored pink clouds but ended up with just some orange ones low to the horizon. If you view the image closely in a dark room, the Scorpius constellation is visible.
Nine-Years Ago Today. Sunrise Photography Club waiting for the sun to rise. Aft deck of the MV World Odyssey. (20-Jan-2016, Semester at Sea).
The forecast for the night was mostly clear, but very cold (4°F/-16°C). I only cleared the snow from the previous night for one of the telescope tripods. When it is this cold, I need to keep an external power supply plugged into the telescope. I also set up a camera with a fisheye lens pointed to the south to take images for a time-lapse video. The Orion constellation was visible for a long period of time before the moon showed up. There were lots of jet trails during the night, and when the clouds came in, they remained low in the sky.
Time-lapse video. Best observed in a dark room fully expanded.
Star trails slideshow. Individual images are available in my PhotoShelter gallery.
Nine-Years Ago Today. But I skipped that day crossing the International Date Line. The statue on the forward upper deck of the MV World Odyssey is holding back the sunburst as we crossed the Date Line. (16-Jan-2016, Semester at Sea)
The forecast for the night was light snow. So, no telescopes out observing for the night. Instead, I had a camera watch out the back door window to observe the Trolls. The camera was set in a fixed apertures mode (f/11) and auto ISO (64-6400) with the shutter speed to vary from 1/100 sec to 32 sec. The time-lapse video was created using PhotoShop and Premier.
Nine-Years Ago Today. Visible sunspots as the sun sets over the Pacific Ocean from the Deck of the MV Odyssey. (13-Jan-2016, Semester at Sea).
The sky was clear, and the Wolf Full Moon rose above the trees to the east in time for the Vespera automated telescopes to be able to view Mars going behind the moon. First a time-lapse video of the Vespera telescopes observing the night sky. It stayed mostly cloud free the entire night observation session. For some of the telescopes I programed the “Plan My Night” script to observe Mars and the others to observe the Moon during the occultation event. This is because the Moon is so much brighter than Mars different image acquisition times are needed in order to see the object without it being overexposed.
Time-lapse Video. Vespera Overnight Observation Session. Mars Occultation and Wolf Full Moon. Best viewed full screen and in a dark room.
The first slideshow is sequence showing the start of the Mars occultation using a Vespera Pro telescope programed to observe and track the Moon. Mars is the tiny disk on the lower left side of the moon. You can see Mars approach and then disappear behind the Moon. The Vespera telescope only records monochrome images when observing the Moon, so Mars is not red.
Slideshow of Mars going behind the Moon. Individual images can be found in my PhotoShelter Gallery.
The second slideshow is sequence showing the Mars occultation using a Vespera Pro telescope programed to observe and track Mars. Mars is the small red disk below the Moon. You can see Mars approach and then disappear behind the Moon. For the other planets Vespera telescope records a color (RGB) images so Mars is red. The image of the moon is overblown, so I reduced the saturation levels.
Slideshow of Mars going behind the Moon. Individual images can be found in my PhotoShelter Gallery.
The third slideshow is sequence showing the end of the Mars occultation using a Vespera Pro telescope programed to observe and track the Moon. Mars is the tiny disk on the lower left side of the moon. You can see Mars approach and then disappear behind the Moon. The Vespera telescope only records monochrome images when observing the Moon, so Mars is not red.
Slideshow of Mars returning from behind the Moon. Individual images can be found in my PhotoShelter Gallery.
Nine-Years Ago Today. Sunset from the deck of the MV World Odyssey. Semester at Sea. (07-Jan-2016, Pacific Ocean)
We had a couple of inches of snow yesterday. This morning, I went on a walkabout looking for animal tracks in the snow. I found bird, cat, fox, and rabbit tracks. I was especially interested in finding where the gaps in the deer fence were. In the past some of the larger critters (raccoons and possums) have enlarged these holes to the point where the deer finally got through. In those spots I needed to install a bottom section of plastic-coated wire fence to close the gaps. First a video of where a neighborhood cat gets under the front gate. She has used this as a way to escape being chased by a fox.
Animal Tracks in the Snow. Individual images in the slideshow are available in my PhotoShelter Gallery.
Animal tracks in the snow used to identify holes in the fence. Individual images in the slideshow are available in my PhotoShelter Gallery.
The night sky started cloud free. I wanted to have the telescopes out but wasn’t really sure how long the sky would remain clear. I set up a Nikon Z9 camera with a 8-15 mm fisheye lens pointed SSE to monitor the sky. Settings for the camera were 15 mm, ISO 800, f/11, and 120 second exposures using the intervalometer with a 4 second delay between exposures. Composites were created using PhotoShop (scripts, statistics, maximum). First image, the sky was relatively clear for the Vespera Pro telescopes to observe the moon. Second image, an 8-minute segment with a meteor trail. Third image, the sky was relatively clear for the Vespera Pro telescopes to observe M42, the Orion nebula. Fourth image, the full night showing lots of clouds passing. I’ve also included a slideshow with 28-minute star trail segments for the night. At the end there is time-lapse video of the night sky.
Star trails slideshow. Individual images are available in my PhotoShelter gallery.
