Galaxys, stars, a meteor and a dome.

The beginning of morning twilight has started so the sky is very blue.  Near the top left of this image is a meteor streaking through the sky in the edge of our Milky Way Galaxy.  If you look closely just below the top of the dome and about halfway between the dome and the band of the Milky Way, you can see the most distant object visible to the unaided eye (in a dark sky, anyway) - the Andromeda Galaxy.  Watch out because the Andromeda Galaxy is on a collision course with the Milky Way and one day, our two galaxies will merge into a giant mess at least for a while.  Don't worry, it's still a few billion years in the future, but be sure to mark you calendars.....  This image was taken with my 10mm fisheye at f/2.8 with an exposure of 30 seconds and ISO 1600.  The dome houses our 1.8-meter Spacewatch Telescope on Kitt Peak.

A bonus image from a little earlier than the previous image.  The International Space Station is orbiting rather close to the terminator - the boundary between day and night on Earth so that it is visible longer after sunset and before sunrise.  Here is the ISS this morning over the 4-meter dome on Kitt Peak.  The trail starts above the north star, Polaris, and ends above the constellation of Cassiopeia in the Milky Way as it moved from left to right in this image.  This exposure was taken with my 10mm fisheye lens at f/2.8, ISO 800 and a 30 second exposure.  The domes, along the horizon left of the 4-meter dome are the Steward Observatory 90 inch Bok Telescope and the 36 inch Spacewatch Telescope.

ISS and a meteor from Kitt Peak

Tonight featured a very nice, relatively bright pass of the International Space Station overhead.  Ever since I was a young boy watching SkyLab fly over, I've almost always waved at a manned spacecraft that I watched fly overhead.  It's cool to think of the humans aboard that little light silently zipping across the sky.  I am on Kitt Peak tonight in the middle of 8 nights up here.  The last 6 nights are at "home" at the Spacewatch Telescopes.  I took my Canon 70D outside with my 10mm f/2.8 fisheye lens so that I could catch the moonlit cirrus along with all things celestial and some domes and it worked great in a series of 30 second exposures at ISO 400.  The Moon is surrounded by a halo which the ISS flew through in a couple frames before this shot.  This shot is special not just because of the bright trail of the ISS on the right half o the frame above the 90 inch and 4-meter telescopes, but also because a meteor trail appears to the left of the ISS and to the right of the Moon, just going into the faintish lunar halo.  Some recognizable constellations are in the sky as well, just left and above the ISS trail is the Big Dipper.  The sharp eyed amongst you will be able to spot the Little Dipper and Leo as well.  Besides the 90 inch and 4-meter domes at right, you can see the Spacewatch 36 inch dome just right of center and below the Moon is the "Super-LOTUS" which observes gamma ray bursts from its roll off dome.

Geminid?

A probable Geminid meteor streaks through the sky over Kitt Peak last Sunday night (December 12/13). The meteor appears at left over the McMath Solar Telescope. Orion is prominant right of center with the constellation Gemini near center top. The fisheye distortion in this 2 minute exposure with my 10mm fisheye at f/2.8 (ISO 800) may account for the meteor pointing closer to Leo than Gemini.

Leonid fireball train

In the next exposure, you can still see the train blowing in the winds in the upper atmosphere. The meteor left this trail behind which I could trace out in images stretching over about half an hour! Must have been pretty neat to see. This image was taken with my 10mm fisheye lens with an exposure of 2 minutes at f/2.8, ISO 800.

Leonid Fireball

I took 99 exposures overnight from my light polluted back yard hoping to catch some bright Leonid meteors. In this frame taken over 2 minutes starting around 04:55:49 AM MST, a bright fireball flashed across the sky in the south part of Orion on the right side of this fisheye image of the night sky. Leo is on the left part of the frame (trace the image of the fireball back towards the left and you'll pass through Leo - hence the name of the meteor shower). It must have been spectacular to watch. I was asleep at the time as the camera kept its vigil outside with a timer remote faithfully exposing image after image. This image was taken with my 10mm fisheye lens with a 2 minute exposure at f/2.8, ISO 800.

Meteor & Mars

An Aurigid Meteor flashes through the constellation the shower takes its name from. The planet Mars is at right just above center with the Hyades cluster that marks the head of Taurus the Bull at upper right. The meteor was moving from bottom to top and shows a distinctive green appearance at the start of the trail. The general orange glow of the sky is due to the city lights that dominate my northeastern sky. I was able to see 22 Aurigids last night with a peak rate of 5 in one 5 minute period about 20 minutes before the predicted time of the peak. This image was taken with my 24mm lens with an exposure of 30 seconds at f/1.8, ISO 400.