@Night San Diego: Cabrillo National Monument!

                                                                                                                      April 22

On September 28, 1542, Juan Rodriguez Cabrillo, sailed in to San Diego Bay.  He was the first European explorer to set foot on present day California. High above where he landed, on the cliffs of the Point Loma peninsula is the Cabrillo National Monument (CNM), one of my favorite places in San Diego! CNM offers beautiful, panoramic and spectacular 360 degree views of San Diego Bay, Downtown, Coronado island and the Pacific ocean. The place shuts down at 5 PM. I always used to think how am I going to find a way to access this place at night. When I heard of an evening fundraiser event held there by the CNM Foundation on April 22nd, I signed up. After an excellent dinner on the patio overlooking the Pacific, I was roaming the monument grounds up to 10 PM, taking night sky photos.

Juan Rodriguez Cabrillo

San Diego Downtown. View from Cabrillo National Monument.

The Old Point Loma Lighthouse, built in 1855.

Spiral staircase of the lighthouse.

Constellations Canis Major and Orion.

Constellation Orion on the left, the "V" of Taurus and Pleiades right above the roof.

"The Path to Orion".

Constellations Canis Major, Orion, Taurus and Pleiades over the Pacific!

Jupiter (bright object above center) in the constellation Virgo.
Constellation Corvus above the lighthouse.

Orion landing!

Constellation Auriga over the lighthouse.

April 22nd was Earth day and April 24th was Hubble Telescope's birthday! With my birthday sandwiched in between, I couldn't think of a better way to celebrate these very important events!!! ;)

@Night: OU

                                                                                           Norman, OK
                                                                                November 11, 2016

Previous post: A Stroll Down Memory Lane: OU

OU Visitor Center.

Evans Hall.

Bizzell Library.

Bizzell Library.

Bizzell Library.

Football Stadium.

Felgar Hall.

Student Union.

Student Union.

Campus Corner, Boyd Street.

@night: Istanbul

                                                                                   Istanbul, Turkey
                                                                                June, 2015

The Bhosphorous bridge: connects Europe & Asia.

The 9-story tall Galata Tower, built in 1348.

@night: Istanbul

@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.

@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.

@Night: San Diego. Saturn !!!

While Jupiter and Venus are lighting up the western sky, Saturn is rising in the south east. Saturn's rings are fully facing the earth ( checkout  Lord of the Rings ) and I hope to do more imaging of Saturn through the summer.

Saturn is just 1.2 billion Kilometers from earth :)
Canon T3i connected to Orion XT6 Dobsonian Telescope.
ISO 400, 1/3 secs
June 9th, 20:12:20 hrs

My first video capture of Saturn!  Any jittering and rotation you perceive are due to atmospheric disturbances :)
 

@Night: San Diego. Jupiter !!!

                                                                                

 The brown lines are Jupiter's cloud bands, a permanent feature of Jupiter.
Canon T3i connected to Orion XT6 Dobsonian Telescope.
ISO 1600, 1/125 secs.June 6th. 21:22:47 hrs.

Play the video to watch Jupiter as it drifts across my telescope's eye piece. My first ever attempt to record a video of a planet! Jupiter has at least 67 moons !!! The 4 dots you see in the video are known as the Galilean moons. They are the largest 4 moons (Io, Europa, Ganymede and Callisto) of Jupiter and were discovered by Galileo around January of 1610.

@Night: Isla Del Sol, Bolivia

                                                                       Isla Del Sol, Bolivia
                                                                             June 2014

Milky Way rising over Lake Titicaca. The yellow light pollution near the horizon is from La Paz, Bolivia.
June 22, 2014; 7:23:48 PM

We spent just 1 day there and this is my 4th post about Isla Del Sol. This is an awesome place for the body, mind and soul.  While arriving there was an adventure, the Sunset was spectacular and the island was beautiful, the night sky was out of this world, literally :)

The large bright object to the right of the tree trunk is the Large Magellanic Cloud (LMC). 
June 23, 2014; 5:11:08 AM

The Small Magellanic Cloud (SMC) is the small blotch to the right and top of the Large Magellanic Cloud (LMC).
Both the LMC and SMC are considered as satellite galaxies to our Milk Way galaxy and are not visible
from Northern hemisphere locations. You can view them from India. 
June 23, 2014; 5:46:06 AM

The southern part of the Milky Way, visible only from the southern hemisphere.
The dark clouds visible in this shot were worshiped by Incas and associated with Inca's mythology.
The 2 bright stars at the center are the Alpha and Beta Centauri, referred to as the "eyes of the Llama" by the Incas.
To their right is the dark cloud called "Coalsack" and to its right is the Southern Cross. 
June 22, 2014; 7:32:07 PM

Early in the morning. Due to the motion of the earth around the Sun, the Milky Way appears to be setting.
As a reference, what ever is towards the top in the first photo is towards the bottom in this photo :) 
June 23, 2014; 4:42:31 AM

Moon over the Sun island. Venus is rising just above the mountain peak. 
June 23, 2014; 4:53:09 AM

Moon, Venus and Pleiades (7 sisters, Krithika) to the left of Venus.
 June 23, 2014; 5:21:40 AM

Moon, Venus, Pleiades and Taurus just rising above the mountain peak. 
June 23, 2014; 5:31:39 AM

Taurus ( the inverted "V" ) is below Venus and above the mountain peaks.
Even with the moon shining, so many stars were visible clear and bright, thanks to the 13,000 feel elevation. 
June 23, 2014; 5:48:49 AM

What a place to enjoy the day time views as well as the night skies !!! Our guide, Rodrigo, showed us the piece of land he had bought in Isla Del Sol. He is planning to build a house and retire here :). Lucky Guy !!!