One-Year Ago (12-February-2013) — Norway

Gone to See Norway 2013. Chasing the Northern Lights. Day 15: Tromsø.

One Ship Makes it Through the Green Cloud Above Kvaløya (Whale) Island in Norway. Image taken with a Nikon D800 camera and 16 mm f/2.8 fisheye lens (ISO 800, 16 mm, f/2.8, 30 sec).

Northern Lights and Meteor Trail on Kvaløya (Whale) Island in Norway. Image taken with a Nikon D800 and 16 mm f/2.8 fisheye lens (ISO 800, 16 mm, f/2.8, 30 sec).. (David J Mathre)
Northern Lights and Meteor Trail on Kvaløya (Whale) Island in Norway. Image taken with a Nikon D800 camera and 16 mm f/2.8 fisheye lens (ISO 800, 16 mm, f/2.8, 30 sec).. (David J Mathre)

Saturday (15-December-2012) — New Jersey

Late Fall Night Sky Anomaly. Super-Nova or Geminid Meteor Coming at Me?

The sky was clear Thursday night. I had three cameras out to capture Geminid meteor trails. Friday night the sky was also clear, so stayed up again to capture any late Geminid meteor trails. After being up two nights in a row, I really needed to catch up on some sleep. When I started to review the images today, I found an anomaly in the star trail image between 2-3 AM Friday morning. The images for this composite were taken on a Nikon D4 with a 14-24 f/2.8 lens. I have trouble with condensation on this lens and this night was no different and because it was cold frost formed on the center on the lens. The result is that light getting to the center of the image is significantly attenuated. I didn’t expect to see anything in the center area because of the frost — but there was one bright star. The unusual star is actually brighter than Sirius. I went back and reviewed the individual images, and found that this “star” only appeared at 02:19 AM — not before and not after. I checked the images from the other two cameras. The D800 with a 16 mm f/2.8 fisheye lens covered the same space, and indeed it also captured the same anomaly. I didn’t see any news about a super-nova, so did I capture an image of a Geminid meteor coming right at me? Good thing that they burn up in the atmosphere!!

Late Fall 02:00 to 03:00 AM Sky Star Trail (with anomaly) in New Jersey. Composite of 60 Images taken with a Nikon D4 and 14-24 mm f/2.8G lens (ISO 200, 14 mm, f/2.8, 59 sec) using Star Trails. (David J Mathre)
Late Fall 02:00 to 03:00 AM Sky Star Trail (with anomaly) in New Jersey. Composite of 60 Images taken with a Nikon D4 and 14-24 mm f/2.8G lens (ISO 200, 14 mm, f/2.8, 59 sec) using Star Trails. (David J Mathre)
Late Fall 02:18 AM Sky in New Jersey. Image taken with a Nikon D4 and 14-24 mm f/2.8G lens (ISO 200, 14 mm, f/2.8, 59 sec). (David J Mathre)
Late Fall 02:18 AM Sky in New Jersey. Image taken with a Nikon D4 and 14-24 mm f/2.8G lens (ISO 200, 14 mm, f/2.8, 59 sec). (David J Mathre)
Late Fall 02:19 AM Sky (with anomaly) in New Jersey. Image taken with a Nikon D4 and 14-24 mm f/2.8G lens (ISO 200, 14 mm, f/2.8, 59 sec). (David J Mathre)
Late Fall 02:19 AM Sky (with anomaly) in New Jersey. Image taken with a Nikon D4 and 14-24 mm f/2.8G lens (ISO 200, 14 mm, f/2.8, 59 sec). (David J Mathre)
Late Fall 02:20 AM Sky in New Jersey. Image taken with a Nikon D4 and 14-24 mm f/2.8G lens (ISO 200, 14 mm, f/2.8, 59 sec). (David J Mathre)
Late Fall 02:20 AM Sky in New Jersey. Image taken with a Nikon D4 and 14-24 mm f/2.8G lens (ISO 200, 14 mm, f/2.8, 59 sec). (David J Mathre)
Late Fall 02:18 AM Sky in New Jersey. Image taken with a Nikon D800 and 16 mm f/2.8 fisheye lens (ISO 200, 16 mm, f/2.8, 59 sec). (David J Mathre)
Late Fall 02:18 AM Sky in New Jersey. Image taken with a Nikon D800 and 16 mm f/2.8 fisheye lens (ISO 200, 16 mm, f/2.8, 59 sec). (David J Mathre)
Late Fall 02:19 AM Sky (with anomaly) in New Jersey. Image taken with a Nikon D800 and 16 mm f/2.8 fisheye lens (ISO 200, 16 mm, f/2.8, 59 sec). (David J Mathre)
Late Fall 02:19 AM Sky (with anomaly) in New Jersey. Image taken with a Nikon D800 and 16 mm f/2.8 fisheye lens (ISO 200, 16 mm, f/2.8, 59 sec). (David J Mathre)
Late Fall 02:20 AM Sky in New Jersey. Image taken with a Nikon D800 and 16 mm f/2.8 fisheye lens (ISO 200, 16 mm, f/2.8, 59 sec). (David J Mathre)
Late Fall 02:20 AM Sky in New Jersey. Image taken with a Nikon D800 and 16 mm f/2.8 fisheye lens (ISO 200, 16 mm, f/2.8, 59 sec). (David J Mathre)

Saturday (17-November-2012) — New Jersey

Backyard Autumn Night Sky in New Jersey: Leonid Meteor Trails.

I had two cameras out all night last night. I captured images of a few Leonid Meteors. I now need to put together some time-lapsed movies of the night sky. It is clear again tonight, so will try again with some different angles.

Late Fall Night Sky and Leonid Meteors Trail over New Jersey. Composite of two images taken with a Nikon D4 and 14-24 mm f/2.8 lens (ISO 100, 14 mm, f/2.8, 1 min). (David J. Mathre)
Late Fall Night Sky and Leonid Meteors Trail over New Jersey. Composite of two images taken with a Nikon D4 and 14-24 mm f/2.8 lens (ISO 100, 14 mm, f/2.8, 1 min). (David J. Mathre)
Late Fall Night Sky and Leonid Meteors Trail over New Jersey. Images taken with a Nikon D800 and 16 mm f/2.8 fisheye lens (ISO 100, 16 mm, f/2.8, 1 min). (David J. Mathre)
Late Fall Night Sky and Leonid Meteors Trail over New Jersey. Images taken with a Nikon D800 and 16 mm f/2.8 fisheye lens (ISO 100, 16 mm, f/2.8, 1 min). (David J. Mathre)
Late Fall Night Sky and Leonid Meteors Trail over New Jersey. Images taken with a Nikon D4 and 14-24 mm f/2.8 lens (ISO 100, 14 mm, f/2.8, 1 min). (David J. Mathre)
Late Fall Night Sky and Leonid Meteors Trail over New Jersey. Images taken with a Nikon D4 and 14-24 mm f/2.8 lens (ISO 100, 14 mm, f/2.8, 1 min). (David J. Mathre)
Late Fall Night Sky and Leonid Meteors Trail over New Jersey. Images taken with a Nikon D800 and 16 mm f/2.8 fisheye lens (ISO 100, 16 mm, f/2.8, 1 min). (David J. Mathre)
Late Fall Night Sky and Leonid Meteors Trail over New Jersey. Images taken with a Nikon D800 and 16 mm f/2.8 fisheye lens (ISO 100, 16 mm, f/2.8, 1 min). (David J. Mathre)

Monday (13-August-2012) — New Jersey

Backyard Summertime Night Sky Over New Jersey.

Perseid Meteor Shower. I know that I said that I was going to go out to get more images of Clearwing Hummingbird moths, but the sky was finally clear last night and I had an opportunity to view the Perseid Meteor Shower. I set up two cameras on the back deck — a Nikon D4 camera with a 16 mm f/2.8 fisheye and a Nikon D800 camera with a 14-24 mm f/2.8 lens. Each was set to take 30 sec images (ISO 400, f/2.8). With the D800 camera and 14-24 lens I took the time to take a set of images to find out where I got the best focus for stars at infinity. For the 16 mm fisheye lens I just used infinity on the lens. This was a mistake. The images I got with the 14-24 lens where I spent the time to test the focus were a lot better, especially with the 32 MB sensor on the D800 camera.

The first image below is a single exposure with a meteor trail using the D800 & 14-24 mm lens. I really don’t understand the physics of other images on the internet of the Perseid Meteor Shower that show long exposures of the night sky (1-6 hours) that show multiple meteor trails where both the stars and the ground/landscape don’t move.

I have included several ~1 hour star trail images that are composites of the 30 second images (using the Startrails.exe program). The sky in New Jersey is not that dark, and the glow in the bottom of the image is the light from Princeton and Trenton. If you look close, several do show 1 or more meteor trails that were visible in New Jersey.

Perseid Meteor Trail. Summer Night Sky in New Jersey. Image taken with a Nikon D800 and 14-24 mm f/2.8 lens (ISO 400, 14 mm, f/2.8, 30 sec). (David J Mathre)
Perseid Meteor Trail. Image taken with a Nikon D800 camera and 14-24 mm f/2.8 lens (ISO 400, 14 mm, f/2.8, 30 sec). (David J Mathre)
Startrails Looking For Perseid Meteors. Summer Night Sky in New Jersey. Composite of images taken between 2113h and 2200h with a Nikon D800 and 14-24 mm f/2.8 lens (ISO 400, 14 mm, f/2.8, 30 sec) using the Startrails program. (David J Mathre)
Startrails Looking For Perseid Meteors. Composite of images taken between 2113h and 2200h with a Nikon D800 camera and 14-24 mm f/2.8 lens (ISO 400, 14 mm, f/2.8, 30 sec) using the Startrails program. (David J Mathre)
Startrails Looking For Perseid Meteors. Summer Night Sky in New Jersey. Composite of images taken between 2200h and 2300h with a Nikon D800 and 14-24 mm f/2.8 lens (ISO 400, 14 mm, f/2.8, 30 sec) using the Startrails program. (David J Mathre)
Startrails Looking For Perseid Meteors. Composite of images taken between 2200h and 2300h with a Nikon D800 camera and 14-24 mm f/2.8 lens (ISO 400, 14 mm, f/2.8, 30 sec) using the Startrails program. (David J Mathre)
Startrails Looking For Perseid Meteors. Summer Night Sky in New Jersey. Composite of images taken between 2300h and 2400h with a Nikon D800 and 14-24 mm f/2.8 lens (ISO 400, 14 mm, f/2.8, 30 sec) using the Startrails program. (David J Mathre)
Startrails Looking For Perseid Meteors. Composite of images taken between 2300h and 2400h with a Nikon D800 camera and 14-24 mm f/2.8 lens (ISO 400, 14 mm, f/2.8, 30 sec) using the Startrails program. (David J Mathre)
Startrails Looking For Perseid Meteors. Summer Night Sky in New Jersey. Composite of images taken between 0000h and 0100h with a Nikon D800 and 14-24 mm f/2.8 lens (ISO 400, 14 mm, f/2.8, 30 sec) using the Startrails program. (David J Mathre)
Startrails Looking For Perseid Meteors. Composite of images taken between 0000h and 0100h with a Nikon D800 camera and 14-24 mm f/2.8 lens (ISO 400, 14 mm, f/2.8, 30 sec) using the Startrails program. (David J Mathre)
Startrails Looking For Perseid Meteors. Summer Night Sky in New Jersey. Composite of images taken between 0100h and 0200h with a Nikon D800 and 14-24 mm f/2.8 lens (ISO 400, 14 mm, f/2.8, 30 sec) using the Startrails program. (David J Mathre)
Startrails Looking For Perseid Meteors. Composite of images taken between 0100h and 0200h with a Nikon D800 camera and 14-24 mm f/2.8 lens (ISO 400, 14 mm, f/2.8, 30 sec) using the Startrails program. (David J Mathre)
Startrails Looking For Perseid Meteors. Summer Night Sky in New Jersey. Composite of images taken between 0200h and 0313h with a Nikon D800 and 14-24 mm f/2.8 lens (ISO 400, 14 mm, f/2.8, 30 sec) using the Startrails program. (David J Mathre)
Startrails Looking For Perseid Meteors. Composite of images taken between 0200h and 0313h with a Nikon D800 camera and 14-24 mm f/2.8 lens (ISO 400, 14 mm, f/2.8, 30 sec) using the Startrails program. (David J Mathre)