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.

Halos and domes

The two Spacewatch telescope domes are shown against a sky with the Moon and its halo. The 1.8-m telescope dome is on the left and the 36 inch Mosaic camera dome is just right of the Moon. This image was taken with my 10mm fisheye lens with an exposure of 30 seconds at f/2.8, ISO 400.

Halo around the dome

Another shot from Sunday night, this one shows the lunar halo apparently around the dome of our 1.8-m Spacewatch telescope. This image was taken with my 10mm fisheye lens with an exposure of 30 seconds at f/2.8, ISO 400.

Of halos and telescopes

Cirrus is keeping me from observing, but not from getting pretty pictures of the sky and telescopes on Kitt Peak. The Moon is producing a nice halo (unless you're trying to observe faint asteroids and comets in which case it is a bad halo). At lower right is the Spacewatch 36 inch telescope dome. This image was taken with my 10mm fisheye with an exposure of 30 seconds at f/2.8, ISO 400.

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.

Sunset downtown

The sun sets behind the Courthouse in downtown Tucson.  I captured this image as I headed for the bus stop using the 5Mpixel camera in my Droid.

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.

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.

Sonoran Sunset III

When out taking photographs, don't forget to look the other way. As my previous 2 images show, I was out shooting the sunset, but the view the other direction was pretty nice too. This image was taken with my 24mm lens with an exposure of 1/25 seconds at f/4, ISO 200.

Sonoran Sunset II

Another view of the sunset in the Tucson Mountains. This is a wider view with a few more colors and the rays from the sun which is trying to peek out from behind the clouds. This image was taken with my 24mm lens with an exposure of 1/500 seconds at f/5.6, ISO 200.

Sonoran Sunset approaches

This view of an a partly cloudy sunset was taken west of the Tucson Mountains not far from McCain Loop road off of Kinney Road. The suns rays beam down on the landscape with a Saguaro Cactus surrounded by typical desert plants like Ocotillo and Palo Verde. This image was taken at 70mm focal length with an exposure of 1/6400 seconds at f/5.6, ISO 800. I'd use a slower ISO normally, but I think I had forgotten to set it slower after using the camera for some astrophotography in the days before.....

Satellite, domes and Milky Way

A Satellite speeds along its orbit paralleling the summer Milky Way in this fisheye image of the sky taken at the end of June from Kitt Peak. The dome faintly lit by light from Tucson and from the sky near center is that of the Spacewatch 1.8-m telescope. This image was taken with my 10mm fisheye lens with an exposure of 30 seconds at f/2.8, ISO 400.

Spacewatch 36 inch telescope

While on the subject of telescopes, here is a fisheye image of the Spacewatch 36 inch telescope on Kitt Peak. This telescope was built in 1921 and housed in a dome on the UofA campus in Tucson until the early 1960s when it was moved up to Kitt Peak. Spacewatch took over the telescope in the early 1980s and has kept it busy finding asteroids ever since. Today, it uses a mosaic camera which covers 2.9 square degrees per image and reaches fainter than about magnitude V=21 regularly. This image was taken with my 10mm fisheye lens with an exposure of 1/30 seconds at f/2.8, ISO 400.

Fisheye sunset

A view of sunset from Kitt Peak using my 10mm fisheye lens. Nice sunset - for photography. But not so night for Astronomy. This image was tkan with my 10mm fisheye lens with an exposure of 1/60 seconds at f/8, ISO 100.

Spacewatch 1.8-m telescope

One thing that is hard to photograph with a "normal" lens are telescopes inside of domes. You just can't quite fit the telescope in the frame since you can't get far enough away from the telescope. But a fisheye makes the task easy! This is the Spacewatch 1.8-m telescope on Kitt Peak. We use it to observe asteroids and comets. This image was taken with my 10mm fisheye lens with an exposure of 1/15 seconds at f/2.8, ISO 400.

Hangin' with George

Last Friday afternoon, I played photographer at my sweeties school Halloween dance. While setting up, I took this self portrait (which one is me?). "George" is on the left - no, really. He was lit with some LEDs and said some scary things (that we couldn't really hear anyway with the music playing loudly in the next room). I used a 1 second exposure to capture the glowing eyes and both an on camera flash and remote triggered flash to light the subject(s). The lens was set at 22mm focal lengthw at f/6.3 at ISO 400.