Skyscape - David Mathre Photography

Friday (03-February-2023) — New Jersey

Backyard Nighttime Sky Over New Jersey.

As a really cold mass of air moved in the night sky was very clear. Lots of stars visible even though the moon was nearly full. I moved both the Stellina and Vespera telescope/cameras to the back patio and allowed them to equilibrate to the cold temperature (14°F/-10°C). Both systems needed to have their software/firmware upgraded before being initialized. They were then programmed to collect images of Comet C/2022 E3 (ZTF). It appears that the boxier Stellina is more sensitive to wobbling in the wind. The system only accepted 33-50% of the images and even then there was some doubling/streaking of the stars. The Vespera with its curved surfaces is more aerodynamic and did not appear to be impacted by the wind. The software/firmware update improved the quality of the exported composite TIF images. Time-lapse videos were generated from the JPG images showing the movement of the comet relative to the stars. The battery for the Vespera gave up after about 5 hours, even though an external battery was attached due to the extreme cold. The Stellina does not have an internal battery. The external battery lasted a bit longer, allowing me to create a time-lapse video of the moon. You can definitely see when the wind was blowing resulting in some distorted moon images.

Stellina Deep Sky Observations. Comet C/2022 E3 (ZTF). TIF images processed with Topaz AI. Individual images in the slideshow are available in my PhotoShelter Gallery.

Vespera Deep Sky Observations. Comet C/2022 E3 (ZTF). TIF images processed with Topaz AI. Individual images in the slideshow are available in my PhotoShelter Gallery.

Daily Electric Energy Used (100.0 kWh) from Sense. Daily Solar Electric Energy Produced (38.5 kWh) from Sense. Sunny but cold. Deficit of 61.5 kWh.

Wednesday (01-February-2023) — New Jersey

Backyard Nighttime Sky Over New Jersey.

I just arrived back home from a short trip to Florida and the night sky was clear. Comet C/2022 E3 (ZTF) is now visible in the early evening sky. Both the Stellina and Vespera telescope/cameras were used to capture images. The telescopes automatically track the motion of the stars in the sky while taking 10 second images. During the time of the observations (15-63 minutes), the comet is moving, creating a tail in the image. This motion can be viewed in the time-lapse video.

Stellina and Vespera Deep Sky Observations. Comet C/2022 E3 (ZTF). JPG images processed with Topaz AI, followed by Capture One Pro. Individual images in the slideshow are available in my PhotoShelter Gallery.

Daily Electric Energy Used (79.5 kWh) from Sense. Daily Solar Electric Energy Produced (34.6 kWh) from Sense. Sun and clouds. Deficit of 44.9 kWh.

Friday (20-January-2023) — New Jersey

Backyard Nighttime Sky Over New Jersey.

After two days of cloudy skies, the sky cleared just long enough before dawn to capture images of Comet C/2022 E3 (ZTF). This time with both the Stellina and Vespera telescope/cameras. The comet is high enough above the horizon to the north-east before dawn to be viewed above my house from my patio. I use the Sky Live website to get the location of the comet, and then enter the numbers into the Singularity application. Within minutes, both the Stellina and Vespera had the comet centered and start taking images.

Daily Electric Energy Used (79.9 kWh) from Sense. Daily Solar Electric Energy Produced (23.1 kWh) from Sense. Sun and clouds. Deficit of 56.8 kWh.

Tuesday (17-January-2023) — New Jersey

Backyard Nighttime Sky Over New Jersey.

The sky cleared just long enough before dawn to capture images of Comet C/2022 E3 (ZTF). This time just with the Vespera telescope. The comet is high enough above the horizon to the north-east before dawn to be viewed above my house from my patio. I use the Sky Live website to get the location of the comet, and then enter the numbers into the Singularity application. Within minutes, both the Vespera had the comet centered and start taking images.

Vespera Deep Sky Observations. Comet C/2022 E3 (ZTF). JPG images processed with Topaz AI, followed by Capture One Pro. Individual images in the slideshow are available in my PhotoShelter Gallery.

Daily Electric Energy Used (99.7 kWh) from Sense. Daily Solar Electric Energy Produced (9.2 kWh) from Sense. Cloudy. Deficit of 90.5 kWh.

Sunday (15-January-2023) — New Jersey

Backyard Nighttime Sky Over New Jersey.

After several days of clouds and rain, the skies finally cleared. I had both the Stellina and Vespera systems out. There currently several active sunspots. During the night I captured images of the Andromeda Galaxy (M31), Orion Galaxy (M42), Rosette Nebula (NBC 2237), Satellite Cluster (NGC 2244), Pinwheel Galaxy (M101), and the Moon. Also, I used the manual mode to search for the Comet C/2022 E3 (ZTF). It was finally high enough to be viewed to the northeast over the house from my patio. I used the Sky Live website to get the location, and then just plugged the numbers into the Singularity application. Within minutes, both the Stellina and Vespera systems had the comet centered and started taking images.

For the following images, I processed the final JPG image with Topaz AI, followed by Capture One Pro. For the raw TIFF images, I needed to use Capture One Pro first, followed by Topaz AI. Follow the link to my PhotoShelter Gallery for larger views of the images. The nebulae images taken using the dual H-alpha, O-III filter are more vivid.

Vespera Deep Sky Observations. JPG images processed with Topaz AI, followed by Capture One Pro. Individual images in the slideshow are available in my PhotoShelter Gallery.

Vespera Deep Sky Observations. TIF images processed with Capture One Pro followed by Topaz AI. Individual images in the slideshow are available in my PhotoShelter Gallery.

Since it was a dark night, I also set up a camera to capture images for a composite star and jet trails view looking north. Polaris isn’t exactly at the celestial north point. The file size is 11656 x 8742 (403.4MB).

alt_title. (David J Mathre) — Star and Jet Trails looking north. Composite of 110 images taken with a Hasselblad X2d camera and 30 mm f/3.5 lens (ISO 64, 30 mm, f/8, 323 sec). Raw images processed with Phocus and Capture One Pro. Composite created with Photoshop (scripts, statistics, maximum). (David J Mathre)

Daily Electric Energy Used (92.8 kWh) from Sense. Daily Solar Electric Energy Produced (33.3 kWh) from Sense. Sunny. Deficit of 59.6 kWh.

Weekly Electric Energy Used (618 kWh) from Sense. Weekly Solar Electric Energy Produced (121 kWh) from Sense. Deficit of 497 kWh.