Pic of the Day

Penumbral Lunar Eclipse

February 10, 2017

    This is a composite of 5 exposure of last nights penumbral lunar eclipse. The sky had a thin layer of clouds, but it was not possible to expose for the wide range of values of the clouds. Thus I made different exposures to capture the various values of glowing clouds from the moonshine. 

Note: Though I am from Alabama, the term moonshine here refers to the light of the moon, not the home grown elixir made from corn.

Penumbral Lunar Eclipse

February 10, 2017

(the above image is a composition of 5 different exposures combined in photoshop)

Nikon D800, Nikkor 500mm f/4 lens

Penumbral Lunar Eclipse

February 10, 2017

Nikon D800, Nikkor 500mm f/4 lens with 1.4 teleconveter making an effective 750mm lens

Pic of the Day

Comet Lovejoy, C/2014 Q2 (green dot right of center):

taken from Horse Cove; Gurely, Alabama 

Nikkor 50mm 1.8, 10 seconds @ f1.8, ISO 2500

Comet Lovejoy, C/2014 Q2: taken from Horse Cove; Gurely, Alabama

Nikkon 300mm f2.8; 6 seconds @ f2.8; ISO 5000

     I went out this evening to find Comet Lovejoy.  It is a naked-eye object, but was not very birght.  Once I found it with binoculars it was easy to see without optics.  Comet Lovejoy dosen't have much of a dust tail.  In the bottom photo you can see a spec of the tail (at about 9:00).  With longer exposures the tail is more visible, but the background is much lighter.  According to Sky & Telescope the green glow comes from molecules of diatomic carbon (C2) fluorescing in ultraviolet sunlight.

Learn more at:

www.skyandtelescope.com/astronomy-news/observing-news/spot-comet-lovejoy-tonight-122920141/