Mike's Astro Photos

Archive for 2012

Jun.12 2012

Solar Eclipse Party – Lake Tahoe

by , under Solar

I met up with some friends in Lake Tahoe to observe the solar eclipse on May 20th, 2012. Here’s a panoramic picture from our spot at the Sand Harbor beach near Incline Village.

Panorama of Lake Tahoe from Sand Harbor - May 20th, 2012

I traveled with two huge checked bags stuffed with astronomy and meteorite hunting gear, a pelican camera case and a full back pack. It was worth the hassle and we had great equipment to observe and photograph the eclipse. Here’s a picture of me setting up the astrotrac travel mount and the Cornado Personal Solar Telescope.

Setting up Solar Telescope for Eclipse

Everybody loved the solar telescope and you could see flames shooting off the side of the sun. People were taking photos of the eye piece with iphones and quick shot cameras. This actually worked pretty well. Here’s a picture of totality taken with a canon power shot pointed at the eye-piece of the telescope.

2012 Solar Eclipse Totality Seen Through Cornado PST

Here’s a photo of the eclipse projected on a piece of paper using binoculars. This method actually works amazingly well, but you have to be careful people don’t actually look at the sun through the binoculars. Some folks just don’t know any better.

Solar Eclipse Projection Method

I setup my DSLR camera with a 400mm telephoto lens and some solar paper. This is effectively a telescope and the combo allowed for good viewing as well as photos.

Observing Equipment - Astrotrac Pier with Cornado PST and Canon 5d, Solar Paper and 100-400mm Telephoto Lens

I programmed the camera to shoot a picture every few seconds throughout the eclipse. Here’s a photo of the peak taken with the DSLR and solar paper.

Totality of May 20th 2012 Solar Eclipse

Solar Eclipse of May 20th 2012 Solar Eclipse

And here’s a composite photo of the various phases.

Annular Solar Eclipse of May 20th, 2012

We tore down the gear and then all headed out for a great dinner.

Eclipse Team at Dinner

I highly recommend planning an eclipse trip or an eclipse observing session the next time one comes around. It’s enlightening and lots of fun!

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May.13 2012

Sutters Mill Meteorite Hunt – Coloma CA

by , under Comets & Meteors

Sutter's Mill & Moon - May 4th, 2012

On April 22nd, 2012 a large daytime fireball raced across the California and Nevada skies at the early morning hour of 7:50 PST. Thousands of eye witnesses saw the fireball and about 100 reported it to the American Meteor Society. Two lucky folks captured the meteor on film. Lisa Warren from Reno Nevada was walking her dog, had her camera with her and was able to photograph the fireball as it came down. A few weeks later, a video of the fireball surfaced that was serendipitously captured by a film-maker that morning.

Using just the termination azimuth from Lisa Warren’s photo, meteor-radar experts Marc Fries and Rob Matson scanned the doppler radar looking for something odd. They found it, just over Coloma CA, a large abnormal doppler radar return over 8 miles long and 2 miles wide. This was in fact a cloud of meteorites falling to the ground.

Within less than 48 hours of the fall, meteorite hunter Robert Ward was under the radar return and found the first fragment at the Lotus Henningsen park in Lotus CA. As the hours and days went on, dozens of more fragments were recovered from the park and surrounding areas.

A meteorite fall like this happens in the USA only once every 1-2 years and this one in particular is very special because this specific type of meteorite is extremely rare. In fact, it is possible this is a new type that has never been classified. The rarity of this stone  not only puts a high scientific value on the fall, but also a high financial value. While I’m not in it for the money, I could not pass up an opportunity to find a meteorite and right now there is no better place on the planet to find a fresh meteorite than Coloma CA.

Cronan Ranch, Pilot Hill, CA - April 30th, 2012

I flew out with a friend on April 29th, exactly one week after the fall and stayed in a great cabin in Coloma along the American River right in the middle of the strewnfield. Before leaving I analyzed the witness reports and picture and determined a trajectory path that cut just south of the radar returns on a heading of 280º WNW. I studied the land and found Cronan National Park on the upper end of the strewnfield — this would be a perfect location to search and I knew stones had to be there. We searched this park the first day and the last day we were there.

By the second day I had connected with my meteorite hunting friend Larry Atkins and he invited me to join his group of meteorite hunters, which included Scott Johnson and Keith and Dana Jenkerson of KDMeteorites.com. We had a lot of fun hunting together and Dana had communicated with most of the landowners in the area and gotten permission to hunt 1000s of acres of private property. Getting search permission is one of the more time consuming and tedious aspects of meteorite hunting and it was great to have a pro taking care of this for us.  The group agreed targeting properties adjacent to areas where meteorites were already found was the best strategy. This made perfect sense to me and finds were being reported all around us, but try as we might we couldn’t make a find the entire week and most of the other guys had been there for 5 days before me.

One of the problems with this fall, is the fragments are very spread out. Only one meteorite is being found for every fifty acres searched. Dozens, possibly hundreds of meteorite hunters were scouring the entire area and making very few finds. The first three weeks most of the finds were coming from locals who have found the meteorites on their driveways and yards and meteorite hunters are having a very difficult time as brute force gridding and zombie hunting are simply not working. The hunting is very difficult because most of the ground is either 4 foot tall grass or woods. There is lots of poison oak and also briar patches, rattle snakes and mountain lions, oh my.

Team Coloma - Keith Jenkerson, Larry Atkins, Scott Johnson, Mike Hankey

On a typical day, we would wake up at dawn and usually be in the field searching between 8-9 and then work solid until 7 PM. I lost seven pounds while I was there.   At the end of each day we would head to a local tavern in Coloma called the Sierra Nevada House where the restaurant and bar was a meteorite party every night. Locals and hunters would show off and sell their finds, scientists, hunters and local finders would eat dinner together at big tables taking up the entire dining room. Local kids would come up to the meteorite tables asking, ‘can we see the meteorite’, their parents just as or more interested than them to examine and study the stones. The entire town of Coloma, known for the first discovery of gold in CA and responsible for the subsequent gold rush, was now experiencing a new kind of rush, a meteorite rush.

By the last day I was really tired physically and fatigued mentally. Long hours of draining work with no finds had taken their toll. I was also getting irritable and wanted to break away from everyone and go out on my own. Its not smart to hunt alone so I asked Larry Atkins to go with me and we would head back to the Cronan Ranch because I knew meteorites were there. As the week progressed and more finds were reported a line started to develop and this line went right through the ranch. I was more confident than ever meteorites were there and I was a little mad at myself for not just going with my gut originally. Here it was my last day, and I had only searched in the spot I favored once.

Keith Jenkerson and Larry Atkins Hunting Meteorites in Coloma CA, May 2012

While there are lots of benefits to hunting with a group and everyone in our group was smart, cool and easy to get along with, I was having some anxiety dealing with the group and overtime it was getting worse. One of the things bothering me (and others) was the split. The way this group worked was everything would be split evenly among all group members even if you made a find hunting away from the group. While there were some good reasons and logic backing this up, I found the concept to be socialistic. Having too many people in the group also diluted the shares to the point of it not being worthwhile. Many of the other groups out there work on the finders keep rule, which is of course the default meteorite hunting code of law. Without overriding finders keepers, with a split agreement, problems can occur within groups. Its unfortunate that selfishness and self gain are the primary motivators for most meteorite hunters and I must admit it was nice to not have to worry about this while hunting with this group. However, once personal gain is removed from any work equation motivation will be hit and things will breakdown. Personally I think there’s a middle ground in-between the finders-keepers and socialistic splits and this is how I will try to work in the future.

As the week progressed I started to feel like it was harder for me to find my mojo while hunting with the group. All people and living things emit energy that draws from, fuels and impacts our own energy. For me to get in the zone with meteorite hunting, I need to meditate , concentrate and focus and sometimes this can be difficult with lots of people around. With competing interests of where to hunt and what to do I was getting distracted and it was hard for me to concentrate. I had to break away from the group the last day and just do my own thing.

So Larry and I agreed to set out on our own and were in the field by early morning. We had a pre-determined path that would start on the north eastern end of the field at Magnolia Ranch, and then hug the river south until we got to the meteor trajectory line. As a meteoroid enters the atmosphere and fragments, the lighter stones fall first and get blown by the wind. The heavier stones continue on the trajectory farther and are blown less by the wind. By cutting across the strewnfield in a North to South manner all the way to the trajectory line we would greatly improve our chances of crossing paths with a meteorite.

Mike Hankey, Keith Mueller and Larry Atkins - May 5th, 2012

We first made our way down to the river and ended up running into a local named Keith Mueller. Keith had actually witnessed the fireball while fishing on 4/22. He described it as two fast moving fireballs that followed each other one after the other. The second was slightly lower in the sky than the first. Curiosity and amazement of the fireball led Keith  to the Cronan Ranch and it was his first day ever hunting meteorites. Larry and I talked to Keith for a while and explained to him what to look for and how to hunt. We also explained why this meteorite is so important to science. We parted ways Keith was heading north and we were heading south. About ten minutes later Keith ran back and caught up with us. He said, we ‘blew his mind’ and he had more questions. We talked for a bit and then I invited him to hunt with us.

We set out, and made our way to the up-down trail. This is a pretty tough trail and I was moving a little slow so I let Keith walk in front of me. I remember him saying, ‘Are you sure’, and I was like ya go ahead. Not five minutes later, when we got to the top of the hill, we were all clustered together and Larry cut left into a grassy field. Keith and I followed, not a foot apart and a second later, he says, ‘woa, is this one.’ At the time I was looking at the ground where the meteorite was, but Keith was blocking my view. As soon as he stepped away the meteorite was clear as day and amazingly obvious and remarkable. While I was disappointed I had given up this find to a complete stranger, the happiness that I had just to be part of a find and see a meteorite in situ for the first time in my life overwhelmed  any negative feelings or jealousy I had for Keith. Knowing that we had worked together to achieve success was more important than the individual accomplishment. We agreed that it was a group find and credit would be shared by all three of us, but because we had no prior agreement in place, both Larry and I had to accept that the rock was Keith’s property. As such, I had to buy the rock from Keith.

17.7g Sutters Mill Meteorite In Situ - May 5th, 2012

I believe that things happen for a reason and the Universe and coincidences and random events have meaning that can be interpreted and used to improve and guide our lives. I may have made a mistake, by not making a ‘deal’ with Keith before we started hunting together and thus failed over to the finders-keepers rule. I do regret not working out the business end of things before we stumbled on the stone, not because it cost me more money, but because the other members of our team who I worked with earlier in the week missed out on what would have been their cut. It was not intentional on my part, and while they understood, they were still disappointed.  For me financially, it didn’t make much difference. Had I done things right, Keith would have been the 7th member of the group and I would have still had to buy out 6/7ths of the group. I dont doubt or second guess myself or the  way this went down. I believe this experience was a test of my character and a learning experience but most importantly a way to get me back to California. They say the finder’s name of every meteorite is written on the stone before it falls to Earth. Keith’s name was on that stone, but my name is on another.

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Apr.24 2012

New California Meteorite

by , under Comets & Meteors

Congratulations to Robert Ward who found the first fragment from the April 22nd, California fireball earlier today. A meteorite recovery in just under 2 days is miraculous and a brilliant display of skill and knowledge. Credit is due also to Marc Fries who successfully identified and published the radar return on his blog. For more info, visit Marc’s Radar Meteorite site.

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Apr.07 2012

Messier 100

by , under Galaxies

Here’s a long exposure photograph of the spiral galaxy Messier 100. I collected the data for this picture over several nights in late February this year.  Exposure times were 2 hours each of Red, Green and Blue color channels and 2 hours 40 minutes of Luminance. Total exposure time: 8 hours and 40 minutes.

Messier 100 - February 26, 2012

Messier 100 - February 26, 2012

Click the image above for a larger picture, or download this high res version of m100 3630×2420.

Located roughly 55 million light years from Earth, Messier 100 is a grand design spiral galaxy estimated to be 160,000 light years wide.

Photo Details
Messier 100
RGB 2 hours each
Luminance 2 hours 40 minutes
Total exposure 8 hours 40 minutes
Camera: SBIG ST8300
Guider: SBIG 402 with MMOAG Off Axis Guider
Telescope: RCOS 14.5
Mount: Paramount ME
Location: Freeland MD
Date: 02/20/2012, 02/26/2012
Software: The SkyX, CCDSoft, FocusMax, CCDAutoPilot, CCDStack, Photoshop
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Apr.03 2012

Venus Pleiades and Satellite

by , under Planets

Here’s a picture of Venus and the Pleiades tonight along with a satellite shooting through. The satellite was captured over the course of two frames and the gap of light in the satellite train is the quick second between exposures. The oblong shape of the planet is caused from clouds floating through the shot.

Venus, Pleiades and Satellite - April 3rd 2012

Venus, Pleiades and Satellite - April 3rd 2012

I tried finding the satellite on calsky but wasn’t able to locate it. The picture was taken at 9:45 from Freeland MD, if anyone is interested in tracking it down.

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Apr.02 2012

Venus with The Pleiades

by , under Planets

Here’s Venus with the Pleiades from about 30 minutes ago. Its still up if you want to check, look west. Tomorrow night they will be even closer.

Venus and The Pleiades - April 2nd, 2012

Photo details: 8 second tracked exposure using WO FLT 98 APO, April 2nd 2012 @

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Mar.30 2012

Supernova in M95

by , under Galaxies

An amateur astronomer discovered a supernova in the galaxy Messier 95 on March 16th, 2012. Two weeks later, the supernova continues to shine bright. Here’s a picture of M95 I took earlier this week. The supernova is the star to the lower right of the galaxy core. No one knows for sure when the supernova first erupted, but this object is not seen in pictures of the galaxy taken before March 20th.

Super Nova in M95 - March 26th 2012

Super Nova in M95 - March 26th 2012

Messier 95 is an estimated 38 million light years away from Earth, which means the star in this galaxy would have exploded over 38 million years ago. A supernova is the most powerful release of energy in the Universe. This supernova from a far distant galaxy outshines some of the other stars in the picture, which are all in our local Milkyway Galaxy. This gives you a relative idea about how bright and powerful supernovas are.

Photo Details
Messier 95
RGB: 3 hours (1 hour each)
Luminance: 2 hours
Total Exposure Time: 5 hours
Camera: SBIG ST8300
Guider: SBIG 402 with MMOAG Off Axis Guider
Telescope: RCOS 14.5
Mount: Paramount ME
Location: Freeland MD
Date: 03/26/2012, 03/27/2012, 03/29/2012
Software: The SkyX, CCDSoft, FocusMax, CCDAutoPilot, CCDStack, Photoshop
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Mar.26 2012

Moon, Venus, Jupiter and the Pleiades

by , under Planets

Here are a few photos of an interesting conjunction with the Crescent Moon, Venus, Jupiter and the Pleiades earlier tonight.

Moon, Venus, Jupiter - March 26th, 2012

Moon, Venus, Jupiter - March 26th, 2012

A close up as they set behind the trees…

Moon, Venus and Pleiades - March 26th, 2012

Moon, Venus and Pleiades - March 26th, 2012

The Moon and Venus at full zoom on the telephoto camera lens.

Crescent Moon and Venus - March 26th, 2012

Crescent Moon and Venus - March 26th, 2012

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Mar.24 2012

A Meteor with Jupiter and Venus

by , under Comets & Meteors, Planets

March has been an amazing month for planet viewing. Jupiter, Venus and Mercury are visible in the west just after sunset while Mars is rising in the east. By 10 PM Saturn is also visible in the east. These planets are the brightest objects in the night sky and the experience can be greatly enhanced with binoculars or a low powered telescope

Here’s a photo from March 14th of Jupiter, Venus and a meteor. Venus is the bright object in the lower side of the picture. Jupiter is to its right. The Pleiades is also visible in the upper left.

Meteor with Jupiter and Venus - March 14th, 2012

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Mar.06 2012

Mars on March 6th, 2012

by , under Planets

Here’s a photo of Mars taken from Freeland  MD on the night of March 6th, 2012 at 12:13 EST.

Mars - March 6th, 2012 - 04:13 UT

Mars - March 6th, 2012 - 04:13 UT

I am still learning how to do planetary photography and this is one of the first Mars photos I’ve ever taken. I’m using a DMK astronomy video camera with RGB filters and registax software to capture, process and stack the video. This data was collected using a RCOS 14.5 telescope without a barlow lens. I do not have my procedure down quite yet.

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Feb.18 2012

Messier 106

by , under Galaxies

Last night was the first fully clear night we’ve had in weeks and with only a crescent moon popping out after 3:30, it was the perfect night for some astrophotography. I am still fine tuning aspects of my system and spent the first few hours of the night running tests, measuring various things and tweaking knobs in an effort to make improvements to polar alignment, PEC & collimation. I’ve gotten a new software suite from CCD Ware that really lets you fine tune these things. I didn’t want to waste the entire night tinkering so I moved on after making a little progress. Also on my list of procedural improvements, is mastering CCD Auto Pilot, which I’m getting better at, but still not entirely there. Last night I actually had a CCDAP5 session going great, but it lost the guide star after 2 frames and then lost the ability to plate solve. Not wanting to waste the night’s opportunity with tinkering, I rolled back to my non-automated procedures and started imaging the spiral galaxy Messier 106.

Messier 106 - February 17th, 2012

Photo Details
Messier 106
RGB 4X600s / 2 hours total exposure
Camera: SBIG ST8300
Guider: SBIG 402 with MMOAG Off Axis Guider
Telescope: RCOS 14.5
Mount: Paramount ME
Location: Freeland MD
Date: 02/17/2012(RGB)
Software: The SkyX, CCDSoft, FocusMax, CCDAutoPilot, CCDStack, Photoshop
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Feb.07 2012

2012-02-01 Texas Fireball Trajectory Solutions

by , under Comets & Meteors

There was a big fireball in texas last week. Some people estimated the mass at ‘bus sized’. The meteor had a shallow entry angle, a low speed and triggered a window rattling sonic boom that was heard and felt by 100s of people. These are all positive signs that suggest a meteorite dropping fireball. The meteor was captured on 3 all sky cameras: one in Coleman TX, one in Oklahoma City Oklahoma and one in Mayhill NM. The NM camera located at New Mexico Skies Remote Observatories and operated by NASA’s Meteor Office runs a software program called ASGARD which outputs all of the azimuth and elevation angles required to compute the trajectory in a very nice email. The other two cameras are part of the Sandia Sentinel All Sky Camera network. No predetermined values were distributed with the videos so I had to reduce the solutions by hand. This process is something I accomplish with a sky mapping program and photoshop. Its not perfect, and the far away cameras have a larger margin of error. This is a version one cut of the solutions so take it with a grain of salt. I will continue to make improvements to the trajectory and fold in witness data.

I computed 3 total trajectory solutions: 1) TX & OKC 2) TX & NM 3) OK & NM.  These solutions were created using the intersecting planes formula published in the Fireball Working Group by Rob Matson. Last summer with Rob’s help, I translated his tutorial into an excel spread sheet and then converted the formulas into a perl script. Its very handy for computing 3D fireball trajectory solutions. My preferred solution is the TX & OKC combo and is shown on the map in red. Here’s a map of the 3 cameras and the three unique solutions from way up high.

Texas Fireball - 2012-02-01

Texas Fireball - 2012-02-01

Here’ another view a little closer in.

Texas Fireball - 2012-02-01

Texas Fireball - 2012-02-01

And here’s a close up of the current preferred termination point. If this were correct there would be meteorites along or near this red line, closer to the side favoring the wind, most likely the southeastern side. Residents living near Greenville should be on the look out for small black rocks.

Texas Fireball - 2012-02-01

Texas Fireball - 2012-02-01

Here’s an overhead view of the preferred trajectory.

Texas Fireball - 2012-02-01

This trajectory model is based on estimated information and should be consider as just an estimate. I am willing to share my source information, so if you would like to know the underlying values used for these calculations or you would like a google earth KMZ version of these solutions, send me an email with “TX 2012 KMZ” in the subject and I will send you the KMZ.

It is my understanding that other scientists are also working on the trajectory for this fireball so there should be at least 1 more trajectory model published in the next week or two.

UPDATE 2012-02-08

Bill Cooke of NASA’s Meteor Office published his trajectory solution and also gave me the AZ / EL values he calculated for all of the cameras. I also added values for a camera from Austin thanks to Pat Branch. This input data yields five unique solutions using all possible camera combos. All five solutions are near identical. WOW.

TX Fireball Trajectory V2

You can download the Google Earth KMZ file here. (unzip and then open file with Google Earth).

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Jan.27 2012

NGC 2175

by , under Nebula

Here’s a recent astrophoto of NGC 2175, an open cluster centered in the Monkey Head Nebula. Found in target rich Orion, this nebula is a huge cloud of hydrogen gas covering an area larger than the full moon. The star cluster is visible to the aided eye and was first discovered before 1654 by  Giovanni Batista Hodierna.

NGC 2175 & The Monkey Head Nebula - January 24th, 2012

Click the picture above for a larger image, or download this huge full resolution desktop wall paper version.

Photo Details
NGC2175
RGB 6X600s / 3 hours total exposure
Camera: SBIG ST8300
Guider: SBIG 402 with MMOAG Off Axis Guider
Telescope: RCOS 14.5
Mount: Paramount ME
Location: Freeland MD
Date: 01/20/2012(RGB), 01/24/2012
Software: The SkyX, CCDSoft, FocusMax, CCDAutoPilot, CCDStack, Photoshop
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Jan.18 2012

Jupiter – 1/18/12

by , under Planets

Here’s a picture of Jupiter with 3 of its moons from earlier tonight.

Jupiter - January 18th, 2012

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Jan.09 2012

Jupiter

by , under Planets

Here’s a picture of Jupiter and one of its moons. I think the moon is Ganymede, but I’m not 100% sure. I am just getting into planetary work and this is my first serious re-attempt at photographing Jupiter. Planetary photography is a bit different than deep space and requires different cameras, software and techniques. I’ve still got some work to do, but this turned out better than I expected.

Jupiter - January 8th, 2012 7:43 PM EDT

Photo Details
RCOS 14.5 Telescope
Paramount ME Equatorial Mount
DMK41AU02 Astronomy Camera
1000 frames of RGB
Stacked in Registax 5

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