Landscape - David Mathre Photography

Wednesday (01-January-2025) — New Jersey

Fourteen-Years Ago Today. Early Morning View of Fitzroy from El Pilaf Hosteria in El Chalten. (01-Jan-2011, Argentina)

Winter Night Sky Over New Jersey.

During the day I got several alerts from the Space Weather Prediction Center indicating that there might be chance for an aurora. There are many sunspots visible during the current Solar Maximum that I have been showing over the last month. I set up several cameras just in case we get a display like we did on 11-October-2024. Unfortunately, I didn’t see evidence of an aurora. In the star trail composite images, I did see lots of jet trails, and a few of the Quadrantids meteors.

Full 360° Night Sky View

For the full sky (360°) view, I used a Nikon Z9 camera and 8-15 mm fisheye lens pointed straight up (8 mm, ISO 1600, f/8, 30 sec). The first three images are long composites 19:00-22:35 (some clouds before 20:00), 20:00-22:35 (clouds gone), and 22:38-00:30. There are a set of 30-minute composites in the slide show. And finally, a time-lapse video created using the individual 30 second exposure images. The sky is initially clear, then some passing clouds, and then clear until the camera intervalometer stopped (I must have missed a setting).

Winter Night Sky Star Trails Over New Jersey. Composite of images taken with a Nikon Z9 camera and 8-15 mm fisheye lens. 19:00-22:35

Winter Night Sky Star Trails Over New Jersey. Composite 30-minute images taken with a Nikon Z9 camera and 8-15 mm fisheye lens (8 mm, ISO 1600, f/8, 30 sec). The individual images are available in my PhotoShelter Gallery.

Time-lapse video of the 30 second exposures (2K video, 10 images/second)

Night Sky View Looking North

For the view looking north, I used a Hasselblad 907x camera with a 21 mm f/4 lens (ISO 1600, f/8, 32 sec). The star trail images were created using Photoshop (scripts, statistics, maximum). The first three images are long composites 17:45-06:22 (some clouds), the second 19:00-01:59 (no clouds), and the third a high resolution (11656 x 8742) version (no clouds). Next there is a slide show with 30-minute composites for the full night. And finally, a time-lapse video created using the individual 30 second exposure images. The sky is initially clear, then some passing clouds, clear for several hours, more clouds, then clear going into the next morning. View the high resolution (2K) video expanded to full screen in a dark room. Lots of jet trails (no drones) and a few Quadrantids meteors.

Winter Star Trails Looking North Over New Jersey. Composite of images taken with a Hasselblad 907x camera and 21 mm f/4 lens. [17:45-06:22 (some clouds)].

Winter Night Sky Star Trails Looking North. Composite 30-minute images taken with a Hasselblad 907x camera with a 21 mm f/4 lens (ISO 1600, f/8, 32 sec). The individual images are available in my PhotoShelter Gallery.

Time-lapse video of the 30 second exposures (2K video, 10 images/second)

Wednesday (25-December-2024) — New Jersey

Eleven-Years Ago Today. White Christmas – Santa captured bringing in some firewood on a snowy night by a camera with a motion detector. (25-Dec-2013, New Jersey).

Gone to See Antarctica 2014-2015: Day 10: Christmas Day on South Georgia Island

The Hurtigruten MS Fram arrived at South Georgia early in the morning. We were ferried from the ship to the island on Polarcirkel boats (a more comfortable version of the Zodiac boats). We then hiked across the island to Grytviken — an abandoned whaling village to attend Christmas Service at the Whalers Church. This is reported to be the southernmost church. It was prefabricated in Norway and dedicated 104 years ago on Christmas Day. The Christmas service was performed in Norwegian, German, and English. The church has a foot-pumped organ that the ship’s musician used to play Christmas music (as well as “A Whiter Shade of Pale” by Procol Harum). We then spent the remainder of our time on shore investigating the remaining whaling buildings in Grytviken and visiting a King Penguin rookery just outside of the village.

Hikers from the Hurtigruten MS Fram going to attend Christmas Service at the Whalers Church at Grytviken in South Georgia. Image taken with a Leica T camera and 18-56 mm lens (ISO 100, 30 mm, f/16, 1/160 sec). Raw image processed with Capture One Pro 8, Focus Magic, and Photoshop CC 2014. (David J Mathre)

King Penguins. Individual images are available in my PhotoShelter Gallery.

Seals. Individual images are available in my PhotoShelter Gallery.

Saturday (21-December-2024) — New Jersey

Ten-Years Ago Today. Magellanic Penguins (Spheniscus magellanicus) on New Island. (21-Dec-2014, Falkland Islands)

Winter Solstice Walkabout after the Snowstorm.

The snow ended and the sky cleared soon after sunrise. I set up the telescopes to observe the sun then went for a walkabout around the yard. The snow was a light powder that I was able to easily clear the driveway with a leaf blower. The tractor and the snow blower are ready but weren’t needed this time.

Images taken with a Hasselblad X2d camera and 38 mm f/2.5 lens. Individual images in the slideshow are available in my PhotoShelter Gallery.

Comet C/2023 A3 (Tsuchinshan–ATLAS)

The comet is getting fainter and the tail much shorter. You may need to look closely; the comet is in the center of the frame. The magnitude is now 10.9. The slideshow displays the 32nd, 64th, 128th, and 256th stacked composite image (5 min 20 sec, 10 min 40 sec, 21 min 20 sec, 42 min 40 sec). In the last two images there is some movement of the comet head.

Comet C/2023 A3 (Tsuchinshan–ATLAS). Images taken with a Vespera-Pro Telescope (250 mm, f/5, composites of 10 sec exposures). Individual images in the slideshow are available in my PhotoShelter Gallery

Friday (20-December-2024) — New Jersey

Fifteen-Years Ago Today. Rainbow over Maui. (20-Dec-2009, Hawaii).

Trolls Out Celebrating the Winter Solstice.

I set up a camera looking out the backdoor window to take images for a time-lapse video of the snow accumulating on a set of Trolls. The prediction was for 2 inches. By morning there was between 4 and 6 inches of accumulation. The snow was light and fluffy. I didn’t need to start up the snow blower to clear a path to the driveway. I just used a battery powered leaf blower.

Trolls Out Celebrating the Winter Solstice. Images taken with a Hasselblad X2d camera and 55 mm f/2.5 lens (ISO 1600, f/16, 64 sec exposure). One image every 10 minutes.

Apple-Cranberry Crisp

I had some Cranberries and Apples remaining from the last Fairgrown Farm CSA delivery. I used them to make a Crisp using a recipe modified from making an Apple-Pomegranate Crisp.

Tuesday (17-December-2024) — New Jersey

Fifteen-Years Ago Today. Nakalele Point Blowhole, Maui Hawaii. (17-Dec-2009)

Silhouettes of a Jet Passing in Front of the Sun.

Today, I captured an image of a jet passing in front of the sun while looking at the sunspots (we are at or near the solar maximum). I was viewing the sun with a Vespera Passengers telescope fitted with a solar filter. The exposure time for solar observations with the Vespera Passengers telescope is 300 microseconds (1/3333 sec). The Vespera Passengers takes ~30 solar images per minute. Over an hour that amounts to 0.54 seconds (or 0.015% of the time). I am not sure why the background of the image is blue. Previous observations the background was black and the sun orange. I will be contacting Vaonis support about the strange colors.

Silhouette of a jet transiting the sun with sunspots. Image taken with a Vaonis Vespera Passengers Telescope (200 mm, f/4, 1/3333 sec) with a solar filter.

Comet C/2023 A3 (Tsuchinshan–ATLAS)

The comet is getting fainter and the tail much shorter. You may need to look closely; the comet is in the center of the frame. The magnitude is now 10.7. The first image is a composite of 32 images (5 min 20 sec) and the second one is a composite of 128 images (21 min 20 sec). In the second image there is some movement of the comet head.