Tag: Night Sky

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



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.



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.

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Saturday (10-August-2019) — New Jersey

Backyard Summertime Night Sky Over New Jersey.

The weather forecast indicated the night sky would be relatively clear for a couple of nights. I hope to capture some of the annual Perseid Meteor Shower. The moon would be out for part of each night, so not ideal conditions. But I figured I would try. I set up a Nikon D810a camera with a 8-15 mm fisheye lens (ISO 800, 12 mm, f/4, 8 sec) to capture images all night (2550 images in total). It takes a lot of time to process all of the images for a Time-lapse video, and several Star Trail images. Lots of Jet Trails. How many Meteor Trails do you see?  The Time-lapse Video is best viewed in a dark room.


Click on the above image to access the individual images in the slide show.


Daily Electric Energy Used (61.8 kWh) from Sense and Daily Solar Electric Energy Produced (73.43 kWh) from SolSystems and Locus Energy. I needed to clean the oven, and cooked dinner in the oven adding 3.7 kWh to the total used. Daily net surplus 11.6 kWh.

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Saturday (17-November-2018) — New Jersey

Backyard Autumn Nighttime Sky Over New Jersey.

Earlier in the evening it didn’t look promising for a clear sky. I checked again after midnight, and did see Orion and some other stars. I set up two cameras same as the previous clear nights to take images for star trails, and if lucky catch a launch of a rocket from Virginia at 04:01. Unfortunately, I only got 15 minutes of clear skies before the clouds rolled back in. I did check again at 04:00 for 5 minutes, but it was still overcast and I didn’t see the launch.

alt_title. (David J Mathre)
Star Trails (00:45-00:59). Composite of images taken with a Nikon D810a camera and 19mm f/4 PC-E lens (ISO 200, 19 mm, f/5.6, 120 sec). Raw images processed with Capture One Pro and the composite generated with Photoshop CC (statistics, maximum). (David J Mathre)
alt_title. (David J Mathre)
Star Trails (00:45-00:59). Composite of images taken with a Nikon D850 camera and 8-15 mm fisheye lens (ISO 800, 10 mm, f/5.6, 30 sec). Raw images processed with Capture One Pro and the composite generated with Photoshop CC (statistics, maximum). (David J Mathre)

Sunday (11-November-2018) — New Jersey

Backyard Autumn Nighttime Sky Over New Jersey.

Second night in a row the sky was clear, so I set up two cameras to record the night sky (and hope to see some meteors).

alt_title. (David J Mathre)
Night Sky Over New Jersey. Composite of images (19:00-05:29) taken with a Nikon D810a camera and 19 mm PC-E lens (ISO 200, 19 mm, f/5.6, 120 sec). (David J Mathre)


alt_title. (David J Mathre)
Night Sky Over New Jersey. Composite of images (19:00-05:29) taken with a Nikon D850 camera and 8-15 mm fisheye lens (ISO 800, 10 mm, f/5.6, 30 sec). (David J Mathre)


Individual images in the slideshow can be viewed here.