Night Sky - David Mathre Photography

Three-Years Ago (27-August-2016) — New Jersey

Backyard Summertime Night Sky Over New Jersey.

Star and jet trails plus clouds. Images taken with a Nikon D810a camera and 14-24 mm f/2.8 lens (ISO 200, 14 mm, f/4, 120 sec). Raw images processed with Capture One Pro, and the composite generated with Photoshop CC (statistics, maximum). One problem I continue to have is moisture condensing on the lens as temperature cool over the night. Especially with wide angle lenses with lots of glass surface area. You can see how the condensation blurs things in the final image. I’ve read about adding electrical resistance thermal tape to heat the lens, but worry about damage and optical artifacts. I’ve also added a time-lapse video of the night sky show.

Star Trails and Clouds Looking South. Composite of 50 images (01-50) taken with a Nikon D810a camera and 14-24 mm f/2.8 lens (ISO 200, 14 mm, f/4, 120 sec). (David J Mathre)

Star Trails and Clouds Looking South. Composite of 50 images (51-100) taken with a Nikon D810a camera and 14-24 mm f/2.8 lens (ISO 200, 14 mm, f/4, 120 sec). (David J Mathre)

Star Trails and Clouds Looking South. Composite of 50 images (101-150) taken with a Nikon D810a camera and 14-24 mm f/2.8 lens (ISO 200, 14 mm, f/4, 120 sec). (David J Mathre)

Star Trails and Clouds Looking South. Composite of 50 images (151-200) taken with a Nikon D810a camera and 14-24 mm f/2.8 lens (ISO 200, 14 mm, f/4, 120 sec). (David J Mathre)

Four-Years Ago (27-August-2015) — New Jersey

Backyard Summertime Night Sky Over New Jersey.

Star trails looking north and the waxing gibbous moon (both a composite and time-lapse video).

Startrails Looking North. Composite of 60 images taken with a Nikon D800 camera and 10.5 mm f/2.8 fisheye lens (ISO 100, 10.5 mm, f/4, 120 sec). Raw images processed with Capture One Pro with the composite processed using Phototshop CC Statictics/Maximum. (David J Mathre)

Waxing Gibbous Moon. Composite of 12 images taken with a Nikon D3s camera and 600 mm f/4 VR lens (ISO 200, 600 mm, f/11, 1/250 sec). (David J Mathre)

Three-Years Ago (17-August-2016) — New Jersey

Backyard Summertime Night Sky Over New Jersey.

Night Time Thunderstorm. Two minute time-lapse video. Moon, Clouds, Lightning. Approximately 3000 Images taken between midnight and 4 AM from my backdoor using a Nikon D810A camera and 24 mm f/3.5 PC-E lens (ISO 800, 24 mm, f/4, 4 sec). At one point I had to move the camera away from the door during a heavy downpour. Time-lapse video created from the in camera jpg images using Photoshop CC. This was the fourth night in a row that we have had thunderstorms.

Monday (12-August-2019) — New Jersey

Backyard Summertime Night Sky Over New Jersey.

Night three trying to capture some of the Perseid Meteor Shower. Again with two cameras out 1) Nikon D810a camera with a 8-15 mm fisheye lens (ISO 800, 8 mm, f/4, 8 sec) and 2) Nikon D850 with a 19 mm f/4 PC-E lens (ISO 800, 19 mm, f/4, 8 sec). The sky was mostly clear, but the moon was bright. After reviewing the images, I did see a few meteor trails. Mainly in the fisheye images where more of the sky was covered.

Click on the above image to access the individual images in the slideshow

Daily Electric Energy Used (56.1 kWh) from Sense and Daily Solar Electric Energy Produced (75.2 kWh) from SolSystems and Locus Energy. Electrical Energy surplus for the day was 19.1 kWh.

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Sunday (11-August-2019) — New Jersey

Backyard Summertime Night Sky Over New Jersey.

Night two trying to capture some of the Perseid Meteor Shower. This time with two cameras out 1) Nikon D810a camera with a 8-15 mm fisheye lens (ISO 800, 8 mm, f/4, 8 sec) and 2) Nikon D850 with a 19 mm f/4 PC-E lens (ISO 800, 19 mm, f/4, 8 sec). After reviewing the images, not must luck. In order to process this many images I have four Surface computers running full time and at full power. By full power, I mean all four cores on the Microsoft Surface Studio 2 (with a dedicated video processor) are running hot — close to 100 °C (45 watts). The computer automatically shuts down if these temperatures are exceeded. The Microsoft Surface Book 2 (with a dedicated video processor) has this bad habit when being stressed to run only on the battery until the battery runs out even though it is plugged into an external power supply. So I had to go back and forth between the four computers to monitor how they were doing. My power usage for the day was nearly 4 kWh larger just because of the extra processing work being done by the computers and servers. Just glad it was a bit cooler outside and the sun was out most of the day to charge the solar panels.

Click on the above image to access the individual images in the slideshow.

Daily Electric Energy Used (51.5 kWh) from Sense and Daily Solar Electric Energy Produced (77.1 kWh) from SolSystems and Locus Energy. Just glad that it was cooler outside, even though the sun was out most of the day. Electrical Energy surplus for the day was 25.6 kWh. The weekly stats 384 kWh used, 440 kWh generated for a surplus of 56 kWh.