Four-Years Ago (15-June-2011) — New Jersey

Backyard Night Sky Over New Jersey.

Late Spring Full Moon. Image taken with a Nikon D3x and 600 mm f/4 VR lens + TC-E III 20 (ISO 100, 1200 mm, f/16, 1/100 sec) on a Gitzo tripod and Wimberley Head. Raw image processed with Capture One Pro, Focus Magic, and Photoshop CS5

Late Spring Full Moon over New Jersey. Image taken with a Nikon D3x and 600 mm f/4 VR lens + TC-E III 20 (ISO 100, 1200 mm, f/16, 1/100 sec) on a Gitzo tripod and Wimberley Head. Raw image processed with Capture One Pro, Focus Magic, and Photoshop CS5 (David J Mathre)
Late Spring Full Moon over New Jersey. Image taken with a Nikon D3x and 600 mm f/4 VR lens + TC-E III 20 (ISO 100, 1200 mm, f/16, 1/100 sec) on a Gitzo tripod and Wimberley Head. Raw image processed with Capture One Pro, Focus Magic, and Photoshop CS5 (David J Mathre)

Sunday (24-May-2015) — New Jersey

Backyard Springtime Night Sky Over New Jersey.

Startrails Looking North From My Backyard in New Jersey. Composite of 400 images taken with a Fuji X-T1 camera and 14 mm f/2.8 lens (ISO 200, 14 mm, f/2.8, 30 sec). Raw images processed with Capture One Pro and Photoshop CC. In the past I used the startrails.exe program to create the composite image. This time I made the composite using Scripts/Statistics Stack Mode = Maximum within Photoshop CC 2015.

Startrails looking North from Backyard. Composite of 400 images taken with a Fuji X-T1 camera and 14 mm f/2.8 lens (ISO 200, 14 mm, f/2.8, 30 sec). Raw images processed with Capture One Pro and Photoshop CC. In the past I used Startrails.exe to create the composite. This time I used Scripts/Statistics Stack Mode = Maximum within Photoshop CC 2015. (David J Mathre)
Startrails looking North from Backyard. Composite of 400 images taken with a Fuji X-T1 camera and 14 mm f/2.8 lens (ISO 200, 14 mm, f/2.8, 30 sec). (David J Mathre)

Monday (02-December-2013) — New Jersey

Late Autumn Backyard Night Sky Over New Jersey.

Star Trails and Time-lapse Video using the new Nikon Df camera and the 58 mm f/1.4G lens that came with the camera.

Star Trails. Backyard Night Sky Over New Jersey. Composite of images from 19:29-22:12 taken with a Nikon Df camera and 58 mm f/1.4 lens (ISO 100, 58 mm, f/2, 30 sec). Images processed with Capture One Pro, and composite created with Photoshop CC Pro (scripts, statistics, maximum) (David J Mathre)
Star Trails. Backyard Night Sky Over New Jersey. Composite of images from 19:29-22:12 taken with a Nikon Df camera and 58 mm f/1.4 lens (ISO 100, 58 mm, f/2, 30 sec). Images processed with Capture One Pro, and composite created with Photoshop CC Pro (scripts, statistics, maximum) (David J Mathre)


Saturday (30-November-2013) — New Jersey

Backyard Nighttime Autumn Sky Over New Jersey.

Into the Vortex. Early Morning Backyard Star Trails (and one meteor trail). Composite of 300 images taken with a Nikon D3x camera and 14-24 mm f/2.8 lens (ISO 100, 14 mm, f/4, 59 sec) over a 5 hour period combined using startrails.exe.

alt_title. (David J Mathre)
Into the Vortex. Early Morning Backyard Startrails. Composite of 300 images taken with a Nikon D3x camera and 14-24 mm f/2.8 lens (ISO 100, 14 mm, f/4, 59 sec) combined using startrails.exe. (David J Mathre)

Saturday (14-September-2013) — New Jersey

Backyard Late Summer Nighttime Sky Over New Jersey.

Last night the sky was clear, and the waxing gibbous moon (61%) bright, so I set up a couple of cameras with big lenses out on the deck. One of the systems (Nikon D4 camera TC-E III 20 teleconverter and 600 mm f/4 VR lens (ISO 400, 1200 mm, f/8, 1/60 sec)) was set to record video (1080p, 30 fps). While reviewing the videos I noticed one with something (a bird?) passing in front of the moon. Played back at 10 fps shows the transit to occur over 25 frames.