The Owl and the Cigar

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At the upper left of this image is the spiral galaxy M108 and at the lower right is the planetary nebula, M97, also known as the "Owl Nebula".  Both of these object are in the constellation Ursa Major, now seen high in the sky during this Spring season.

Looking like a big, fat cigar, M108 is a spiral galaxy viewed edge on.  Unlike most spirals, there is no bright central bulge seen here, apparently because the there is so much dusty matter hiding it from our view.  These dusty knots are easily seen in the enlarged image.

The two dark spots make this nebula look like a spooky owl.  Classified as a planetary nebula, it is no planet, but a star toward the end of its life.  The star in the center of the nebula is literally blowing its outer layers into space creating an ever enlarging bubble.

Even though it may seem like these two objects are relatively close to each other, it is far from it.  The Owl Nebula is 3,000 light years from us and well within our Milky Way galaxy, but M 108 is about 45 million light years away, 15 thousand time further away than the Owl.  If you look real close at the enlarged image and your monitor is not adjusted too dark, you'll see a very small galaxy to the lower right of the Owl (right next to a star).  Just to the left of the Owl are a few even fainter galaxies all at enormous distances from us.

In this graphic of Ursa Major, there is a small rectangle just below the bowl of the Dipper.  This is the area taken up by the top picture.

The almost two hour exposure of the image is a combination of 11 ten minute shots taken with my 190mm Mak/Newt f/5.3 telescope.

Eagle Nest with Babies

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These are captured frames from a streaming video of a pair of bald eagles in the process of raising three babies.  On this date 4-3-2011, two of the three eggs have hatched.  The images below show one of the eagles feeding the oldest baby, born on 4-2-2011 scraps of rabbit meat.  The other baby born today, can't quite take food scraps yet.  Take a look at this marvelous live video feed from the nest in Decorah, Iowa at this link:
Decorah Eagles

Jupiter and Mercury Conjunction

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The word "conjunction" may bring back memories of english class, but it's a totally different meaning in astronomy.  In this case it means the meeting of two or more celestial objects in the sky.  In this case, Jupiter and Mercury were just about 2 degrees apart on the evening of March 15, 2011.  Watch them in the western sky for the next few evenings and you'll see Jupiter drop lower in the sky and Mercury rise higher.

This image was taken with my Driod X cell phone.

Even though these planets seem to be very close together, they are actually billions of miles apart.  Mercury is a little over 93 million miles away, but Jupiter it about 550 million miles.  If you  were to view the Sun and these planets from out in space they would look like the graphic below.

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Winter Scenes with my new Droid X cell phone

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We got about 4 or 5 inches of snow overnight, giving me a chance to try out my new camera.  

The Winter scenes above were taken with the camera on my new Droid X cell phone.  The camera installed on the latest phones are pretty remarkable.  Clicking on the images above will give you an image that is 1600 X 902 pixels.  This is only about half of what the 8 MPs camera actually gets, which is 3264 X 1840.  The quality of the images is amazingly good, considering the lens is only about 1/16" in diameter.  This lens does double duty, since it is also used for HD video that can be watched on a big screen HD TV (something I need to try as soon as I get an HD cable that connects the phone and the TV).

This in no way takes the place of my Canon  camera and lenses.  I have quite a bit more control with my Canon equipment than I do with my Droid X, but for a point and shoot camera, I can be sure to get a high quality image when I don't have my Canon with me.  I just have to be aware of its limitations, but for a phone, it can take some really nice pictures at a moments notice.

It's A Wonderful Life - Stephan's Quintet

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What galaxy photo do you think has been seen by more people than any other?  Your first thought might be that it could be the Andromeda galaxy, but I'm thinking it might be a group of galaxies instead.  In one of the most watched movies of all time, the 1946 movie "It's A Wonderful Life", there is a short scene at the beginning of the movie where God an two angles are talking.  God and one angel are represented by galaxies and a star represents a third angel.  These galaxies, called the Stephan's Quintet and are the subject of my latest astro photo above. I snatched the second image from the movie on YouTube:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I_lR6HEdOb8

My image, taken last Fall, is a three hour exposure using my 7.5" Mak/Newtonian, 1000mm focal length telescope.  Stephan's Quintet is the group of 5 galaxies at lower left.  At the upper right is the beautiful spiral NGC 7331.

NGC7331 is the largest member of a cluster of galaxies, some of which you see above and below the galaxy. At 49 million light years away, NGC 7331 is similar in size to our own Milky Way galaxy.  The other galaxies are further away a varying distances.  A unusual thing is going on with this galaxy.  Astronomers have determined that the central bulge of stars in NGC7331 are rotating opposite that of the rest of the galaxy.  This was probably caused by infalling material, probably from smaller galaxies millions of years ago.

Stephan's Quintet was discovered by Edouard Stephan in 1877, however, only four of the five are actually part of the group.  The largest galaxy in the grouping only seems to be close, since it is 7 times closer to us (40 million light years), while the other four galaxies are 290 million light years away.  Click on the above image to bring up a larger image and notice that they are not normal spirals, but are distorted and have long arcing arms.  This is because the galaxies are violently colliding with each other.  Over millions of years, they will merge into one large elliptical galaxy.  To see a really nice Hubble Telescope image and more interesting information go to:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Stephan%27s_Quintet_Hubble_2009.full.jpg

How To Take Pictures Of Waterfalls

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Waterfalls are a magical show of sight and sound.  Capturing these tumbling cascades of rushing water with your camera is not hard, but taking one that you will treasure requires some forethought and planning.  This particular waterfall, called Soco Falls, was taken just east of Cherokee, North Carolina not far from the Blue Ridge Parkway and the Smokey Mountains.  It is located on a winding road with a very small parking area near the road.  A 5-minute hike down to a wooden platform on the steep hillside gives you a nice view of the falls.  Click here for directions to the falls.

I took a few pictures but the lighting was not good.  The falls were lit by a high afternoon sun, with dark shadows and bright highlights.  I wanted more subdued light so I came back late in the evening, when the sun was no longer shining directly on the scene.  Instead of shooting from the wooden platform looking down on the falls I decided to hike down near the creek below the falls.  Carrying a camera and a tripod was not easy on the slippery path of rocks and mud (later I found out that a few people have fallen to their death at these falls).

With my camera on a tripod, I set my zoom lens to its widest view, 18mm.  To get the silky-water look you need a fairly long exposure, so I set my camera to aperture priority mode.  Aperture priority lets you set the f/stop (its aperture) manually while the camera sets the shutter speed automatically.  The larger the f/stop number you use, the longer the shutter speed has to be to get the same amount of light into the camera's sensor.  The setting for this picture was f/22 with a shutter speed of 8 seconds and an ISO 200.  The other thing that you need is a shutter release cable otherwise just you touching the camera's shutter button will blur the image.

Long exposures to capture the moving water is almost impossible in bright sunlight, so wait for more subdued lighting.  Cloudy, even rainy days are perfect.  Stop down the lens for long exposures to get the silky-water look.  And finally, taken lots of pictures from many viewpoints.  One is bound to be just the one you are looking for.

How To Take Pictures of Lightning

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Not a Winter scene for this cold first month of a new year, but a Summer scene I took back in 2007.  This was taken from the Astronomical Society of Kansas City's dark sky site south of K.C.  Instead of viewing stars on this particular night, we were viewing one of natures marvelous light shows instead.  The lightning was far away from us.  The smoke you see near the horizon is coming from a power plant about 12 miles away, so the lightning is striking some distance beyond that.

Taking pictures of lightning is fairly easy.  First and foremost, take them from a good distance away and not in the middle of the storm itself.  Needless to say, lightning strikes are extremely dangerous.  Instructions for Digital Single Lens Reflex cameras are shown here, but non-slrs can also be used, you'll just have to read your camera instruction book to learn how to set it in manual mode.  And of course learning how to use your camera's various modes is always a good thing.

1. You'll need to have a camera that allows you to set it manually.  Most of the time auto exposures and auto focus do not work in this type of situation, so you'll need to set your camera to manual mode.  Once in manual mode set it to "Bulb".  This setting allows you to hold the shutter open and take long exposures.
2. You will also need a shutter release cable to allow you to open the camera's shutter without physically touching the camera.  Touching the camera during a long exposure will of course jiggle it ruining the image.
3. A tripod is a must, since hand holding the camera during a long exposure will also ruin the picture.
4. Getting a good focus is a little bit tricky, but easy if you know how.  You first need to auto focus the camera on a distant object.  This could be a distant street light or something bright enough so that the camera can focus.  The camera will not focus on darkness or very dim light, so if you leave auto focus on while trying to image the lightning, the auto focus will not have time enough to lock on a brief lightning flash, so it's best to focus on something bright, then turn auto focus off.  The camera will now be in focus so long as you dont touch the camera's focus ring or zoom.
5. Set the ISO speed to about 400 or so.
6. Once the camera is set, put it to where the lightning is flashing the most, open the shutter with the cable release and wait for it to flash.  Once you see a flash or two, close the shutter.  Take a look at the camera's LCD screen to see how it turned out, then quickly open the shutter again.

You can get more than one lightning strike on the same image, like I did in the above image, but be aware that sometimes too many will wash out the image.  It's all trial and error, so just keep shooting.  It's just like fishing.  Once in a while you'll get a big one.