Sentimental Journey

We were up in Phoenix today (Karri had a workshop, so I went with and wandered around after dropping her off) and I found my way to the Arizona Wing of the Commemorative Air Force Museum at Falcon Field in Mesa. As luck would have it, the B-17 "Sentimental Journey" was there giving rides to paying customers and the rest of us museum visitors got to get pretty close to this remarkable machine and got to watch it take off and land. Pretty cool! And a great museum too. This image was taken at 55mm focal length with an exposure of 1/100 seconds at f/16, ISO 100.

Over the Rainbow

Some rain mixed with a setting sun made a perfect combination to generate a complete double rainbow over the UofA campus this evening. Here you can see a bright main rainbow with a fainter outer rainbow. Also visible is the bright innner sector and a secondary inner rainbow. BTW, that's the Flandrau Planetarium below the rainbows. This image was taken with the kit lens at 18mm focal length with an exposure of 1/125 seconds at f/7.1, ISO 100.

Sunset

I don't think I can take too many sunset pictures. This one was from last night on Kitt Peak. I took a long sequence and should have some HDR fodder as well. This type of sunset isn't very pretty for astronomers, but the night turned out quite well as the clouds cleared after sunset. This image was taken with my 24mm lens with an exposure of 1/200 seconds at f/8, ISO 100.

Morning Twilight

Last Wednesday morning after a productive night of observing, the twilight grows bright as sunrise approaches. Some distant clouds are lit orange and the Earth's shadow sinks in the last moments of twilight. The Spacewatch 36 inch dome is still open (that was my next stop before heading to bed) and the Steward Observatory 90 inch Bok telescope dome and Kitt Peak 4-meter Mayall telescopes are at right. This image was taken with my 24mm lens at f/2.8 with an exposure of 1/250 seconds, ISO 400.

That bright ol' Moon

The last night of my 8 night run and it's bright enough to read a paper up here on Kitt Peak tonight, so I took advantage of the Moon to take its picture through an 1880s vintage 5 inch Alvin Clark refractor that rides on the side of the ol' 36 inch. It is the oldest telescope on Kitt Peak mounted on the side of the 2nd oldest telescope on the mountain top. This image used eyepiece projection with no lens on my camera and hence, a little aberation on the lower right edge of the Moon. The exposure of 1/100 seconds at ISO 400. The area around bright rayed crater Tycho seems to have the best focus and Aristarchus almost looks like a headlight near the terminator at right. North is at bottom right, west at bottom left. I literally hand held the camera behind the eyepiece for this shot.

Snow and clouds

It snowed during the day on Sunday and overnight on Sunday night with about 1-2 inches accumulated. Most of the snow was gone by the time I got up on Monday except for on the north sides of hills and buildings, and under trees. This view towards the south ridge of Kitt Peak from the top of the 36 inch dome looks into areas that are still snow covered. This image was taken with my 24mm lens with an exposure of 1/400 seconds at f/8, ISO 100.

Pea Soup....

The fog rolled in Saturday night and it was still foggy on Sunday afternoon - with a prediction of snow, it was obvious there'd be no observing on Sunday night. This image was taken with my 24mm lens with an exposure of 1/80 seconds at f/5.6, ISO 100.

It won't be clear tonight!

My first 3 nights of the new year started out great with 3 clear nights (though the wind was a bit high on the 3rd), but Saturday afternoon this stuff started coming in - by sunset it was mostly cloudy and we had fog most of the night. This image was taken with my 24mm lens with an exposure of 1/2500 seconds at f/5.6, ISO 200.