Christmas Eve Evening Sky

The last glow of the sun accentuated a Christmas Eve sky as seen from the parking lot at Noelridge Christian Church in Cedar Rapids, Iowa on Monday, December 24, 2018. This image is a 1/320-second exposure at f/4.5, ISO 3200, 18mm focal length and looks west at 5:00 pm CST. Air temperature was 27 degrees F. Official sunset on this day was at 4:39 pm. Nikon D7200 DSLR camera.

Read more...

Christmas Full Moon Shots

Shown here are three shots of the full moon, captured one day removed from the winter solstice, shot in quick succession at 9:43 pm CST, Saturday, December 22, 2018. The rising moon was passing in and out of a thin layer of clouds as seen from Brentwood Drive NE in Cedar Rapids, Iowa. Each hand-held camera image is a 1/200-second exposure at f/5.6, ISO 5000 and 300mm focal length. Nikon D7200 DSLR camera.

Read more...

More Comet Wirtanen

Clouds were quickly encroaching the view when I was able to get this capture of the 8.8 magnitude Comet 46P/Wirtanen (arrow) at 9:52 pm CST, Saturday, December 15, 2018. Minutes later and then throughout most of the night the sky was cloudy. Above the comet is the Pleiades star cluster, and at lower left is the 0.84 magnitude star Aldebaran in the constellation Taurus. This image, captured from my back deck in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, is a 5 second exposure at f/5.6, ISO 8000 and 52mm focal length.

One day later and Comet Wirtanen was at its closest approach to Earth. The comet (arrow) is 53 degrees above the horizon in the southeast sky. This image was captured from Bowman Woods Park in Cedar Rapids, Iowa at 7:47 pm CST, Sunday, December 16, 2018. The image is a stack of four frames--3 sky and one ground--with each sky image a five second exposure at f/3.5, ISO 2500 and 18mm focal length. The constellation Orion can be seen just above the horizon. Air temperature was 31 degrees F.

Zoomed in version of the comet (arrow) at 7:58 pm. Four image stack. Each frame is a five second exposure at f/5.6, ISO 6400, 55mm focal length. The Pleiades star cluster is prominently seen at upper right. Nikon D7200 DSLR camera.

Read more...

Comet Can't Evade Camera

On the night of Friday, December 14, 2018, Comet 46/PWirtanen was a fuzzy 4th magnitude blob. From my light polluted vantage point in Cedar Rapids, Iowa viewing it with the naked eye would be challenging, and as it turned out I could not make it out. But more surprising was the fact that I also couldn't locate it with my pair of binoculars. Apparently it resembled too closely nearby stars. So my last chance was the camera--(and viola')--there it appeared! The image posted here was captured at 9:26 pm CST from Bowman Woods Park looking SSE. Air temperature was 25 degrees F. The comet, located just over 7 million miles from Earth, was 62 degrees above the horizon at this moment. Image is a 5-second exposure at f/4, ISO 10,000 and 70mm focal length. Nikon D7200 DSLR. The identical image shown below contains visual information about the image.

Read more...