Lightning from Kitt Peak

Saturday night featured some impressive lightning storms in the distance as I was preparing to observe from Kitt Peak.  Most of the lightning storms were probably at least 30 miles away.  Here are a few of my favorite shots from the evening.

Here is the storm around sunset when it was south of Tucson.  You can see precipitation and there was plenty of lightning.  Lightning is hard to capture with short daytime exposures and the only bolt I got before sunset is blurred by camera motion.....  This image was taken with my 18-250mm telephoto at 18mm focal length on my Canon 70D with an exposure of 1/15 seconds at f/8, ISO 100.

These 2 shots are looking southeast past the McMath Solar Telescope with the Spacewatch 1.8-meter telescope dome at the far right.  The images were taken with my 18-250mm lens at 18mm focal length with an exposure of 15 seconds at f/5.6, ISO 1600.

This final image is looking back towards Tucson where the storm moved over the western half of the city.  This bolt is hitting near Ajo Road just right (southeast) of Cat Mountain and there is lots of rain falling left (north) of the lightning strike.  This image was taken with my 18-250mm lens at 87mm focal length and an exposure of 25 seconds at f/8, ISO 1600.

Tonights Moon

I set up my Celestron 8 inch EdgeHD today on the off chance I might be able to see the Falcon 9 Jason 3 launch from Vandenberg this morning.  I didn't (except for the live feed on the web) but I did test out my 0.7x focal reducer on the Sun (with solar filter) and then after the Moon rose a bit later, I slewed over to take a look at it.  The first photo below is from about sunset while the 2nd one was taken earlier in the afternoon with the image in bright blue daylight.

This image was taken with an 8 inch f/10 EdgeHD telescope with my Canon 70D with an exposure of 1/200 seconds at ISO 400.  I applied an unsharp mask to sharpen the image a bit. 

This image was taken earlier in the day in bright blue skies with the same setup and an exposure of 1/1600 seconds at ISO 400 with similar use of an unsharp mask.  Seeing was less steady.

Bandon LIghthouse

In the Summer of 2014, we visited Oregon, doing volcanoes southbound and then up the coast visiting lighthouses.  This is the Bandon Lighthouse on the south side of the Coquille River.  I was born across the river in Bandon and spent the first 8 years of my life enjoying this lighthouse and the beach south of the South Jetty across the river here.  This image was taken with my Canon 20D using my Sigma 18-250mm zoom.

Here is the same image but converted to black and white.

Kitt Peak covered in Snow and clouds.

Not a good night for observing on Kitt Peak.  The Steward Observatory 90 inch Bok Telescope is just visible through the summit level clouds as the Sun sets on the western horizon.  This image was taken with my Galaxy Note 4 camera on Friday night, January 8th.

The view of the setting sun through a layer of clouds on Kitt Peak on Friday night, January 8th taken with my Galaxy Note 4 camera.  The moutnaintop was covered in snow.