Great American Eclipse!

                                                                                                               August 21

As soon as I got up, I looked out the window and saw a wall of low clouds blocking the Sun. To avoid being run over by clouds on The Great American Eclipse day, I packed up the camera and the tripod and headed out to the Dos Picos County Park in Ramona, a rural town just east. Since it was a Monday morning, not a single person was there in the park. 

Many times in the past, I had taken close up shots of the eclipsed Sun and so decided to create a Time-lapse movie of the eclipse. For those interested,
                  Camera:    Canon T3i
                       Lens:    Tamron 16 - 300 mm (covered with Solar film)
       Intervalometer:    Phottix TR 90
 Continuous images:    744 images with 10 seconds gap


                                                                    The first Time-lapse is from just before the eclipse started to beyond the mid point.

                                                                    The second Time-lapse continues from beyond the midpoint to the end of the eclipse.

ISS Over San Diego!

Last week, almost every day, the International Space Station (ISS) was visible from San Diego.  Though I have watched the ISS 100s of times, I have the same level of excitement; getting outside the house and eagerly waiting for ISS to show up above the horizon and the pure joy of watching it cross the sky and disappearing in to the earth's shadow.

April 14:

Orion at bottom left and Auriga at top right. 20:57 PM.

21:05 PM

April 15:

Gemini at top left and part of Ursa Major at right. 20:12 PM

20:13 PM

Super Moon: November 2016

The elliptical orbit of the moon around the earth makes the distance between them anywhere between 222,000 miles to 252000 miles. When there is a Full Moon at the closest point, it is called a Super Moon. The Super Moon this month was on November 14th morning. The last time the Moon was this close was on 1948 and the next one will be on November 25th, 2034.  Took the following images from the backyard at around 5:30 AM on November 14th.

Perseids - 2016

The Perseid Meteor Shower peaked last Thursday (August,11th) night. This year, due to the presence of Jupiter, more meteors were predicted. I waited for the moon to set (around 1 AM) and set up my camera to take continuous long exposure (29 seconds) shots. Within 45 minutes, i spotted 7 meteors and some of them were very bright, leaving a smoke trail as they burned up in the atmosphere.

This one was lower in the sky, right behind the chimney and the tree.

Another bright Perseid Meteor.

This was the brightest, leaving a smoke trail.

Startrails created by putting together all the shots. The bright short lines crossing the concentric circles are the Perseid meteors from the first 3 photos.
If you are able to see dotted lines across the entire image, they are planes. There are at least 4 planes in this composite.

Time lapse video created using the photos. The short bright flashes are the Perseid Meteors. 

These bursts happen during the early few seconds of the video.

                                                    Link to last year's Perseids

Cosmic Quintet !!!

For the first time since 2005, the 5 "naked-eye planets" (Mercury, Venus, Mars, Saturn and Jupiter) are visible at the same time. The moon has been moving along the planets as if it is the guide showing the path. This celestial dance has been going on since Jan. 20th and will last until Feb. 20th. If you are interested in watching the 5 planets, you need to get up at least 45 minutes before sunrise and look from south east to south west. If you are really keen on spotting Mercury, you need get away from your house and go to a open area with an unobstructed view of the horizon. Mercury is the innermost planet, stays close to the Sun and doesn't rise up very high in the sky.

Graphics showing the 5 planets. Courtesy: NASA.

Going from left bottom corner to right top corner:
Moon -> purple M. White arrow -> Mercury. Green arrow -> Venus. Blue arrow -> Saturn. Red arrow -> Mars. Yellow arrow -> Jupiter.
Stitch of 4 shots. San Dieguito Road. 2/6/2016, 5:45 AM.

Moon, Venus and Mercury above the peak of "Black Mountain". To the right of Moon is Venus. Mercury is below them.
The mountain at the center (farther away) is the "Iron Mountain".

Towards the right edge of this shot is the big constellation "Scorpius" (refer NASA graphics, above).
Straight above the street lamp (almost to the top) is Saturn.
To the right of Saturn is Antares (a "Red Super Giant" star) which is part of the Scorpius constellation.
Antares is really, really, really massive !!! How massive, you may ask.
If placed at the center of of our Solar System, Antares' outer surface will lie between the orbits of Mars and Jupiter :)

Moon, Venus and Mercury.

Moon, Venus and Mercury.

All the newspapers and websites are talking about only 5 planets being visible. In fact, a 6th planet is also visible. Let us see who spots it first :)

@Night: San Diego: Lunar Craters!

Having taken many pictures of Lunar eclipses and Planets with the Moon, tried getting some closeup images of the Lunar craters. All of these images were captured with attaching a Canon T3i to a 6" Dobsonian telescope using a Celestron 8mm eyepiece.

Venus, This Morning!

The bright and shiny Venus hid behind the crescent moon this morning (occultation).  I was waiting for Venus to just touch the Moon but the clouds blocked the view!

@Night: Santorini

                                                                                    Santorini, Greece
                                                                                June, 2015

While on vacation,  I definitely don't pack up my camera after sunset. Taking night time and early morning photos pose some unique challenges. Due to low light conditions, you have to take long exposure shots. If there are some bright lights in your frame, long exposure will washout the details. Often, you will be the only person standing outside in a cold, dark and unfamiliar location. Given all the challenges, I absolutely enjoy the experience. More than my day time photos, I like my night time photos. 
      

Armeni Village, Oia, Santorini.
June 25, 2015. 9:06 PM.

Armeni Village: Panaromic view from out side our cave!
June 26, 2015. 6:13 AM.

Long exposure is needed to get the buildings exposed correctly. But, the moon gets washed out.
June 24, 2015. 11:52 PM.

So, I hid the moon behind the tree branches. The constellation Scorpio and Saturn are at the left side.
June 24, 2015. 11:56 PM.

View of Oia from the northern tip of Santorini.
June 24, 2015. 9:06 PM.

June 24, 2015. 9:12 PM.

Restaurants at Oia.
June 25, 2015. 9:01 PM.

The two bright planets are Jupiter and Venus.
June 25, 2015. 9:35 PM.

Supermoon Lunar Eclipse

Sunday's Supermoon Lunar Eclipse is definitely a rare astronomical event. You may think that Lunar Eclipses are common. That is true but this is a "Supermoon Lunar Eclipse" !!!. What is a Supermoon? The moon's orbit around our earth is not a perfect circle. When the moon is at the closest point to to the earth (Perigee), it is called a Supermoon.  During Perigee, the moon appears 14% bigger. The combination of an Eclipse with the Supermoon is very rare. In the last century we have had only 5 Supermoon Lunar Eclipses. The last one was in 1982 and the next one will be in 2033.

Went to a neighborhood canyon area (San Dieguito trail head) with unobstructed view of the east.
As usual, there were many hot air balloons in the sky with people watching the Sunset over the Pacific.

If these balloons had stayed up  in the sky for 10 more minutes,
they would have a watched a rare Supermoon Lunar Eclipse from a vantage point!

The  Lunar eclipse started at 6:07 PM (San Diego time) but the Moonrise time for San Diego was 6:34 PM.
When the Moon cleared the horizon, the partial eclipse had started already.
Partially eclipsed moon rising from behind "Iron Mountain".

From the canyon area, rushed home to capture this mesmerizing Total Eclipse moment!
Sheila and I had our dinner outside, watching the Supermoon Eclipse ;)

Since I had already taken many close up shots of eclipsed moon, i wanted to try something different this time. I will put up my experiment in the next post.


Previous  Lunar Eclipse posts:
 
Blood Red Moon 

Just For Nithila 

கண்ணுக்குள் நூறு நிலவு :) 

There Goes My Total Lunar Eclipse 

Getting Ready For Sunday's Total Lunar Eclipse !!!

On Sunday, there is going to be a Total Lunar Eclipse. I am praying to the weather Gods to keep San Diego clear of clouds. This is the last of the 4 consecutive Total Lunar Eclipses (called the Tetrads). This Eclipse is not visible form India. Those interested in watching or taking photographs, please refer EclipseWise.com
Tried some test shots today.

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