4-Meter telescope in moonlight

The 4-meter Mayall Telescope atop Kitt Peak is bathed in moonlight as we use it to observe Near-Earth Asteroids observed with the WISE spacecraft.  This shot is taken with a 10mm fisheye lens with an exposure of 120 seconds at f/2.8, ISO 400.

84 inch and snow

I hiked around the mountain mid-afternoon on Sunday. We were having a few snow flurries, but much of the snow that had fallen over night and early in the morning was still around. Here, the Kitt Peak 84 inch telescope sits on top of a snow covered hill. This image was taken with my 24mm lens with an exposure of 1/500 seconds at f/7, ISO 100.

The 90Prime comet - another view

Here's another angle on the "90Prime Comet" as its dewar is filled with Liquid Nitrogen. This image was taken with my 10mm fisheye lens with an exposure of 1 second at f/6.3, ISO 100.

Topping the 90Prime dewar

We spent the evening last night training to use the 90Prime camera on the Steward Observatory 90 inch telescope for a night of observing this Thursday. One of the things that needs to be done is to top the CCD camera dewar with Liquid Nitrogen to keep the detector cold and reduce noise when observing faint objects. This image shows the 90 inch telescope with the prime focus camera dewar at right with what looks like a comet coming from the end of the dewar. That is just the nitrogen gas venting as the liquid is forced into the dewar. This image was taken with my 10mm fisheye lens with an exposure of 20 seconds at f/22, ISO 100. The long exposure not only allowed the motion of the venting to be smeared but also helps keep the entire image in focus with the small f-stop. It also gives a really cool star pattern to the lights in the background due to diffraction affects in the optics.

4-m at dewar fill position

Modern telescopes need to have their instruments attended to before most nights - in this case, the dewar that keeps the Mosaic detectors cold to reduce background noise must be filled. Dave the Observing Assistant who runs the telescope all night is at far left on the orange platform and the telescope is pointed low so that he can get at the dewar. The black cylinder is the secondary mirror support for the Cassegrain focus and is also the "Prime Focus" cage. The Mosaic detectors are mounted at Prime focus with the mirror removed from the bottom of the cage. In the old days, the observer would ride inside the prime focus cage all night, guiding on a field star to get one of those spectacular photos you probably remember from your grade school science class. This image was taken with my 10mm fisheye lens with an exposure of 1/15 seconds at f/3.2, ISO 400.

4-meter, another view

Here's another view of the KPNO 4-m Mayall telescope, taken from the northwest side of the telescope shortly after the louvers on the west side were opened. This image was taken with my 10mm fisheye lens with an exposure of 5 seconds at f/8, ISO 100.

KPNO 4-m Mayall Telescope

Guess where I am tonight - Ok, the photo gives it away. I am at the Kitt Peak 4 meter Mayall telescope learning how to use the Mosaic camera for a Target of Opportunity observing program this spring involving WISE spacecraft discoveries. This image was taken in twilight as the telescope was being prepared for the night. Unfortunately, the humidity has closed us down for the time being, but it's fun to type this from the control room next to the telescope. This image was taken with my 10mm fisheye lens with an exposure of 1/10 seconds at f/2.8, ISO 400.

Andrea & the Catalina Schmidt

My good friend Andrea Boattini stands next to the Catalina Schmidt which is the survey telescope for the Catalina Sky Survey on Mt. Bigelow in the Catalina mountains. This image was taken with my 10mm fisheye lens with an exposure of 1/50 seconds at f/3.5, ISO 800. I used this telescope with film back in 1992 before it was converted to using a CCD camera.

Jupiter

I dropped my sweetie off at the Catalina Observatory with some students for a weekend education program held there at the 61 inch telescope. This view of Jupiter was made with eyepiece projection from the 61 inch (1.54-m) Kuiper Telescope on Mt. Bigelow north of Tucson. The exposure of 1/200 seconds. you can clearly see the red spot, a giant storm that has persisted on Jupiter since it was first recognized in early telescopes. It was difficult to focus the image while hand-holding the camera to the eyepiece. Best image quality was hit and miss as you tried to align the camera with the eyepiece in the dark while focusing the camera lens or telescope.

Steward Observatory and Sundial

Another great thing about my new 10mm fisheye is the great deapth of field you get. In this shot, the nearby sundial and the dome that houses the 21 inch reflector of Steward Observatory on campus are both brought into focus at the same time. This image was exposed at 1/30 seconds at f/10, ISO 400. Converted to black and white in Picasa.

WIYN up close

A closer view of the WIYN telescope. This image was taken at 149mm focal length with an exposure of 1/500 seconds at f/9, ISO 200.

Tumamoc Telescope

This is one of the telescopes on Tumamoc Hill. It's about a 10 inch Newtonian. I believe the UofA's astronomy club used this telescope. It was pretty dusty inside the dome....

Tumamoc Telescopes I

This is the dome of the 20 inch telescope on Tumamoc Hill. It was built here in the late 1960s or early 1970s. It was used quite extensively in the 1980s to image comet Halley.

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.

Self portrait II

After looking at the photos of telescopes and astronomers in the Life magazine archives on Google, I was inspired to convert this self portrait taken one morning last week into a sepia toned B&W shot. This image was taken at 18mm focal length with an exposure of 0.6 seconds at f/8, ISO 400, cropped to nearly square format and converted to B&W and sepia toned in Picasa.

Self portrait, part I

Here's a self portrait I took one morning last week standing next to the 36 inch telescope. The image was made at 18mm focal length with an exposure of 1/2 second at f/8, ISO 400 with fill flash. The image is cropped to about 40% of the original frame.

SMT on Mt. Graham

The Submillimeter Telescope on Mt. Graham is one of our next door neighbors not far from the VATT. This is a view into the telescope building to the telescope itself. This image was taken at 18mm focal length with an exposure of 1/250 seconds at f/10, ISO 100.

Rocks and Dome

I know I've published a photo of the Spacewatch 36 inch dome from this angle before, but every shot has a different look with different lighting. The sunset lighting was particularly striking the other night. This image was taken at 18mm focal length with an exposure of 1/125 seconds at f/11, ISO 100.

Mt. Wrightson and Mt. Hopkins

With the air so clear last week, I also got this shot of Mount Wrightson and Mount Hopkins in the Santa Rita mountains south of Tucson. On top of Mt. Hopkins at right, you can even see the white building of the MMT observatory. In between the two peaks is Josephine Peak. Somehow, Josephine rated both a peak and a saddle, as Josephine Saddle is the saddle between the eastern complex which Mt. Wrightson is the tallest point on and the western complex which Mt. Hopkins is the tallest point of. Josephine Saddle is one our favorite areas to camp after about a 4 mile hike from the trailhead down in Madera Canyon. This image is cropped from a frame taken at 300mm focal length with an exposure of 1/400 seconds at f/8, ISO 100.