Skyscape - David Mathre Photography

Saturday (10-December-2011) — New Jersey

Backyard Autumn Night Sky Over New Jersey: Bird Captured Flying Past the Full Moon.

I missed the Lunar Eclipse because I am on the east coast. The sky was clear and the moon was full, so I did take some images and DSLR videos with a Nikon D3s and 600 mm f/4 VR lens + TC-E III 20 teleconverter. The D3s is limited to a 5 minute 720p HR video, so I would keep going out and restarting the videos. It was cold, and I wasn’t going to stay out there. The amazing thing when I started viewing the videos, on the very first one saw that I captured a bird flying across the moon. The duration of the transit was about 0.1 second. The frame-grab image from the video shows the bird in front of the moon. I think that it is a sea bird based on the wing shape, but hope that a bird expert can help with the identification. I’ve also included a video of the bird transit. The first pass is real time, the next six repeats are slowed down 10x.

Bird Flying Past Full Moon. Frame Grab from a DSLR Video taken with a Nikon D3s and 600 mm f/4 VR llens and TC-E III 20 teleconverter (David J Mathre)

Saturday (03-December-2011) — New Jersey

Backyard Autumn Night Sky in New Jersey: Time-lapse Video and Star Trails.

It is hard to believe that it is December. I have not posted anything since Thanksgiving. A lot of end of year activities at work, still more to clean up in the yard after the early snow storm, and finally getting caught up with the Drobo external data drive recovery and new Drobo backup. I have a few images taken with the new Nikon 1 V1 camera that I need to go back and post, along with some pros and cons about the new camera.

The sky was clear, so I put two cameras out early this morning after the moon went down for night sky images. These images were used to put together the following time-lapse video.

North View Star Trails. Summer Night in New Jersey. Image taken with a Nikon D3 and 16 mm f/2.8 mm Fisheye lens (ISO 400, 16 mm, f/4, 59 sec). Composite of 125 images combined using the Startrails program. (David J Mathre)

North View Star Trails. Summer Night in New Jersey. Image taken with a Nikon D3 and 16 mm f/2.8 mm Fisheye lens (ISO 400, 16 mm, f/4, 59 sec). Composite of 88 images combined using the Startrails program. (David J Mathre)

South View Star Trails. Late Autumn Night in New Jersey. Image taken with a Nikon D3x and 14-24 f/2.8 lens (ISO 400, 14 mm, f/5.6, 60 sec). Composite of 60 images combined using the Startrails program. (David J Mathre)

Saturday (26-November-2011) — Pennsylvania

Autumn Dawn over the Delaware River.

After being up all night for some night sky images, it looked like there could be some color at dawn. I took the chance and drove to the bridge over the Delaware river between Lambertville, NJ and New Hope, PA. The first image is a panorama of 5 images taken with the Nikon 1 V1 and 10 mm f/2.8 lens using Kolor AutoPano Giga Pro. The next two images are HDR composites using Nik HDR Efex Pro from images taken with a Nikon D3x and 14-24 mm f/2.8 lens. Bottom line, the Nikon 1 V1 may be good, but I am not giving up my Nikon D3x anytime soon.

alt_title. (David J Mathre) — Pano of the Delaware River from the Lambertville – New Hope Bridge at Dawn. Composite of 5 images taken with a Nikon 1 V1 camera and 10 mm f/2.8 lens using Kolor AutoPano Giga Pro. (David J Mathre)

Four-Years Ago (22-November-2007) — Hawaii

Gone to See Hawaii. Big Island Photography Workshop with Thom Hogan. Day 5: Volcano National Park.

Four years ago I attended a photography workshop on the Big Island of Hawaii led by Thom Hogan . We spent Thanksgiving day in and around Volcanoes National Park. Later in the afternoon we had a wonderful Thanksgiving dinner at the Volcano House Hotel with other guests at the Lodge and some local residents.

The day started shooting sunrise over the Kilauea crater. In order to record the wide range of light, I took seven images with different exposure times. These were then processed using Photomatix (a HDR program). While traveling to the next photography location, Thom and Tony spotted a Nene (the Hawaiian state bird, also known as the Hawaiian Goose). The Nene is probably distantly related to Canada geese, however the Nene do not migrate. I guess that once they found Hawaii, they decided to stay 🙂 . The Nene almost went extinct and is now protected by the state. It can also be found on some of the other Hawaiian islands. Finally, Thom helped with a composition including a fern.

Sunrise over Kilauea Volcano Crater, Volcanoes National Park Hawaii. Image taken with a Nikon D2xs and 17-35 mm f/2.8 lens (ISO 100, 28 mm, f/5.). HDR composite of 7 images using Photomatix Pro (David J. Mathre)

Nene - Hawaiian Goose, Volcanoes National Park Hawaii. Image taken with a Nikon D2xs and 80-400 mm VR lens (ISO 400, 400 mm, f/8, 1/180 sec) (David J. Mathre) — Nene – Hawaiian Goose, Volcanoes National Park Hawaii. Image taken with a Nikon D2xs and 80-400 mm VR lens (ISO 400, 400 mm, f/8, 1/180 sec) (David J. Mathre)

Fern Composition, Volcanoes National Park Hawaii. Image taken with a Nikon D2xs and 105 mm f/2.8 macro lens (ISO 100, 28 mm, f/6.3, 1/60 sec) with SB-800 fill flash (David J. Mathre)

Friday (18-November-2011) — New Jersey

Backyard Autumn Nighttime Sky Over New Jersey: Leonid Meteors.

I had two cameras out monitoring the night sky with the hope of catching a Leonid Meteor. Two of the images had small meteor trails. A bit later there was something much brighter. I am not sure if it is a meteor, however it does not have parallel lights or regular strobe flashes like a jet trail. The other possibility would be a satellite trail. The curved trail is due to the fisheye lens. I used DxO to process the image to correct for the fisheye effect (4th/final image).

Late fall night sky over New Jersey with a Leonid Meteor. Image taken with a Nikon D3 and 16 mm f/2.8 fisheye lens (ISO 200, 16 mm, f/5.6, 60 sec). Raw image processed with Capture One Pro 6, Nik Define, Photoshop CS5. (David J Mathre)