Lightning storm near Kitt Peak

Last night while waiting to observe on the 4-Meter Mayall telescope on Kitt Peak, a lightning storm passed to the southwest of Kitt Peak.  Here is some lightning to the southwest of the mountain with the Steward Observatory 90 inch Bok telescope building lit by the Moon in the foreground.  The image was taken with my Canon 6D with my 50mm lens at f/8, ISO 1600 with a 20 second exposure.

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.

Morning twilight from the 90 inch.

We were observing at the Steward Observatory 90 inch Bok Telescope last week and this was the view we had of the morning twilight sky.  On the left is the dome of the telescope and you can see the lights of Tucson on the left near the dome in the distance.  In the sky, the brightest "stars" roughly in line is Jupiter, Mars, Rigel and Venus bottom to top (Venus is the brightest).  On the right is the McMath Solar Telescope.  This image was taken with my Canon 70D and 10mm fisheye lens with an exposure of 13 seconds at f/4, ISO 400.

This is the view south from the Bok Walk on the south side of the 90 inch dome.  High overhead is the slightly brighter than last quarter moon with Orion to its left.  The Spacewatch 36 inch dome is the most prominent dome below the Moon.  This image was taken with my 10mm fisheye lens on my 70D with an exposure of 13 seconds at f/4, ISO 400.

The 90 inch Bok Telescope

I've been on Kitt Peak the whole year (ok, tonight's the 4th of 4 nights...).  The last 2 nights I have been observing with the Steward Observatories 90 inch Bok telescope.  Tonight was not a very useful night as thin cirrus was present even at the start and it only got thicker as the night progressed.  Finally, we paused our observing and I took the opportunity to take some images of the telescope still pointed on the sky at our last target.  This image was taken with my 10mm f/2.8 fisheye on my Canon 70D with an exposure of 30 seconds at f/5.6, ISO 6400.  I painted the scene with my LED flashlight.

Lunar Halos on Kitt Peak

In case anyone is wondering why I'm not doing any observing early this evening, the sky over Kitt Peak is covered by a thin haze and the first quarter moon is producing a very bright halo in the sky. This image includes the Spacewatch 36 inch telescope dome in an image with my 10mm fisheye lens on my 70D with an exposure of 8 seconds at f/2.8, ISO 400.  The 22 degree halo is quite prominent in this image.

I took a little hike over past the Steward Observatory 90 inch Bok Telescope and got this heavenly picture of the lunar halo around the dome.  You can see that they were open, though I can't imagine they are getting any useful data....  The exposure was 20 seconds at f/5.6, ISO 1600 with my 10mm fisheye lens on my 70D.  Not only is the 22 degree halo prominent, but I think you can also make out the 46 degree halo faintly, especially in the preview image.

And finally at the top of Kitt Peak, here is the 4-meter Mayall telescope under the moonlit sky.  This exposure with my 10mm lens on my 70D was 20 seconds at f/5.6, ISO 1600.  It almost looks like daylight in this image, but I can assure you, it was just a long exposure in the moonlight.  The 4-meter was also open despite the cirrus all over the sky.  The faint 46 degree halo appears to visible in this image as well which convinces me that it really was visible.

90 inch in moonlight

Here's another image from last months observing run on the 90 inch Bok Telescope. The Moon shines in the upper left and Cassiopeia is visible through the aperture of the dome just below center. This image was taken with my 10mm fisheye lens with an exposure of 30 seconds at f/2.8, ISO 400.

90 inch and the Moon

I took this image last month when we were using the 90 inch Bok Telescope on Kitt Peak. We were waiting for the moonlit cirrus to clear out, so I set up my camera and used my LED flashlight to indirectly light up the telescope. The telescope itself is green (as you can see in some of my other photos) but the LED flashlight gives it a blue tint. This image was taken with my 10mm fisheye lens with an exposure of 30 seconds at f/2.8, ISO 400.

Tucson from Kitt Peak

Looking back towards Tucson from the 90 inch Bok Telescope on Kitt Peak. This image was taken with a 30 second exposure at f/2.8 with my 10mm fisheye lens.

Hey, stand still, I'm taking a long exposure!

Dave and Bill work at the 90 inch Bok Telescope on Kitt Peak while I took some pictures of the telescope. In this case, the exposure of 2 seconds at f/2.8 with my 10mm fisheye lens with the camera at ISO 200.

Spiderman works on the 90 inch

Who do you call when your leaky telescope dome needs repairing? Spiderman, of course. This image was taken at 55mm focal length with an expsoure of 1/400 seconds at f/10, 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.