That's pretty cool, but doesn't it seem more likely to be a rock in the guy's own chute pack? I mean the odds of being that close to a meteorite gotta be pretty slim, don't they?
I'm flummoxed as to why that "meteor" isn't burning up coming through the atmosphere.
The "burning up" phase of a meteor's fall is actually it rapidly slowing down. Smaller rocks like the one in the video will slow down very quickly, likely while still in the upper atmosphere, all the way down to terminal velocity. At which point it would look no different from a rock dropped off a very tall building. Or out of a plane for that matter.
Not saying that the video is real, but that detail at least, is probably accurate.
So is it possible that a meteor could enter the Earth's atmosphere at a relatively slow speed and not burn up at all, due to the velocity and trajectory of the earth as it travels through space matching the asteroid to a very close degree? Kind of like a plane refuelling in flight, as it were.
Kerbal Space Program tells me that even if you could set up that scenario (which would require almost identical orbits for the Earth and the rock) the Earth's gravity would speed the rock up enough to generate heat on re-entry.
But small rocks fall to earth all the time for sure, and they are not flaming balls of fire the entire way. I think in the 90's there was video of a meteor lighting up over a baseball game, and then the next day there was a lady on the news who found the rock had crushed the trunk of her car. It was not a smoldering ruin, pretty much just looked like someone dropped a rock on her car from high up.
Yea, it's going to take a lot of convincing for me to believe it.
I want to believe, but I saw it on the internet, so I inherently distrust it.
Also there is another small dark object in the video a second or so before the rock. Bottom left corner near the sun glare at 1:11 in the linked video. Could just be the plane or another skydiver. Maybe another piece of rock? Whatever it is I'm sure it's aliens.
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FishmanPut your goddamned hand in the goddamned Box of Pain.Registered Userregular
Phil Plait wrote up an analysis of the Meteoroid Skydive close encounter on his blog. Summary: it looks exactly how you'd expect to see such a close encounter, and while there's not enough evidence to definitively rule out a terrestrial source or digital fakery, the fact that everything is consistent with it being an actual, real encounter gives it at least the plausibility of potential truth.
That's unbelievably cool. Your new name is cool guy. Let's have sex.
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FishmanPut your goddamned hand in the goddamned Box of Pain.Registered Userregular
In other news, LADEE, the Lunar Atmosphere and Dust Environment Explorer, is nearing mission completion and is about to go out with a bang.
Having spent the last few months in a low Lunar orbit attempting to analyse lunar dust particulates in the Moon's practically non-existant atmosphere, the craft is about to run out of fuel. Later this week, it will execute its last orbital correction. It will then stay in orbit long enough to be hit by the April 15 Lunar Eclipse, which will plunge the moon into darkness and drop the temperature into the 'possibility of components freezing and/or exploding' zone, which, you have to admit, is pretty metal.
Depending on how well it survives that prolonged inky black absence of all light and energy, it will slowly drop lower and lower in lunar orbit before crashing into the dark side of the Moon - possibly after doing more science on the way. Which, on a scale of metal things in space, rates roughly around this:
*Yes, it's a Dark Side of the Moon joke. No, I don't care that Pink Floyd is actually prog rock.
Anyway, because they have no way of knowing exactly when this impact is going to happen, NASA is now taking bets as to when LADEE descends from its great gig in the sky. In the 'Take the Plunge' Challenge, open to anyone, you to can place your guess as to when the interplanetary probe will perform its final rendevous, silently and spectacularly, as it shreds itself across several kilometers of dusty lunar plain (or impacts straight into the side of a mountain). Anyway, you to can place you bet down to see when you think the craft will hit the lunar surface.
That's unbelievably cool. Your new name is cool guy. Let's have sex.
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FishmanPut your goddamned hand in the goddamned Box of Pain.Registered Userregular
So in about 8 hours we'll hit the first total Lunar Eclipse of the year, followed by 3 more between today and late 2015. This is a pretty friendly one, though, visible to pretty much all of the Americas and the Pacific, becoming visible at Moonrise for Australia.
The notable thing about this one, however, will also be it's proximity in the sky to Mars, which is at a close point of approach and as bright as it's been in 7 years. The Lunar Eclipse, sometimes referred to as a 'blood moon' for the reddish tinge that scattered light in the Earth's atmosphere lends it, next to the sky by the Red Planet, which I personally think has been looking particularly ruby in the sky the past few weeks. It should make for a great photo opportunity.
Sadly, the forecast here is for increasing cloud with a chance of rain, so while I'm crossing my fingers, I'm not hopeful that I'll get that magic break in the cloud to allow me to see or photograph it myself. But I'll probably still slip out into the back yard and check, either way.
To find out what time the Eclipse is taking place in your local timezone, hit up the calculator at dateandtime.com here. It seems to tell you when the middle of the eclipse occurs (i.e. the moon is in direct opposition), so be aware that totality begins/ends about 45 minutes before/after and it's a partial eclipse for around an hour before/after that. So all up, the moon is in total or partial eclipse for over 3 hours tonight.
And remember that while all this celestial lightshow is occurring overhead, somewhere up there is NASA's LADEE explorer, running perilously close to the redline of its operating envelope and on the verge of suicidal nosedive into the moon. Totally. Metal.
Watched Earth's shadow start creeping across the moon for a bit as I went for my midnight jog, got home and went to wake my daughter up to watch the rest with her and now it's too cloudy to even see the moon
Using NASA's Kepler Space Telescope, astronomers have discovered the first Earth-size planet orbiting a star in the "habitable zone" -- the range of distance from a star where liquid water might pool on the surface of an orbiting planet. The discovery of Kepler-186f confirms that planets the size of Earth exist in the habitable zone of stars other than our sun.
Scientists have succeeded in creating the first organism with “alien” DNA. In normal DNA, which can be found within the genes of every organism , the twin strands of the double helix are bonded together with four bases, known as T, G, A, and C. In this new organism, the researchers added two new bases, X and Y, creating a new form of DNA that (as far as we know) has never occurred after billions of years of evolution on Earth or elsewhere in the universe. Remarkably, the semi-synthetic alien organism continued to reproduce normally, preserving the new alien DNA during reproduction. In the future, this breakthrough should allow for the creation of highly customized organisms — bacteria, animals, humans — that behave in weird and wonderful ways that mundane four-base DNA would never allow.
I had to wade through conspiracy videos reporting on 'armies of two mother clones' and whatnot to find this. And it doesn't even have the bit where they create alien DNA and make the damn thing.
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FishmanPut your goddamned hand in the goddamned Box of Pain.Registered Userregular
Pfft. Agents Fox Mulder and Dana Scully discovered the fifth and sixth DNA nucleotides back in the mid-90's.
Scientists have succeeded in creating the first organism with “alien” DNA. In normal DNA, which can be found within the genes of every organism , the twin strands of the double helix are bonded together with four bases, known as T, G, A, and C. In this new organism, the researchers added two new bases, X and Y, creating a new form of DNA that (as far as we know) has never occurred after billions of years of evolution on Earth or elsewhere in the universe. Remarkably, the semi-synthetic alien organism continued to reproduce normally, preserving the new alien DNA during reproduction. In the future, this breakthrough should allow for the creation of highly customized organisms — bacteria, animals, humans — that behave in weird and wonderful ways that mundane four-base DNA would never allow.
Scientists have succeeded in creating the first organism with “alien” DNA. In normal DNA, which can be found within the genes of every organism , the twin strands of the double helix are bonded together with four bases, known as T, G, A, and C. In this new organism, the researchers added two new bases, X and Y, creating a new form of DNA that (as far as we know) has never occurred after billions of years of evolution on Earth or elsewhere in the universe. Remarkably, the semi-synthetic alien organism continued to reproduce normally, preserving the new alien DNA during reproduction. In the future, this breakthrough should allow for the creation of highly customized organisms — bacteria, animals, humans — that behave in weird and wonderful ways that mundane four-base DNA would never allow.
FishmanPut your goddamned hand in the goddamned Box of Pain.Registered Userregular
Hello stars thread! I have been out and about again.
A couple weeks ago I happened to be travelling through the lovely dry altitudes of Joshua Tree National Park. Mmmmm, dry desert air. And Rocks! And trees*!
Unfortunately I spent much of my visit in a state of near exhaustion, a result of multi-hour hikes in rarified atmosphere and high temperatures during the day, but I was able to sneak out on one evening to take some star snaps (star snaps, he says, like it's just a matter of whipping out a point-and-shoot and pushing a button). Unfortunately on that one evening I was forced to cut my night shorter than I had hoped, but more on that later... on to the show!
Having scouted out some likely locations earlier in the day (see: multi-hour hikes), I descended on what was undoubtably the favourite location for some night photography: Joshua Tree's Arch Rock.
I wasn't very happy with my first shot of Arch Rock, but don't worry, I get better.
Indeed, wandering up there at near 11pm on a Wednesday, I was surprised to find that I was not the only person there. Another photographer was setting up to shoot a timelapse of Scorpio and the Milky Way rising up over the horizon above Arch Rock, and was planning a 4 hour shoot through the evening.
This had never happened to me before.
But apparently this is what you can expect at such locations - indeed, the fellow photographer warned me that on the weekend there might be as many as a dozen guys there, all with their tripods and shooting equipment. There's something of a comaraderie between those insane enough to be out in the middle of the night when they should be sleeping, or at least that's what I inferred, as the local (well, he was from Santa Monica, but that's still more local than me) gave me a warm welcome and shared his insights and suggestions for shots and we talked away the hour or so we were out there together, glad for a little company during the otherwise solitary night. And for me, there's nothing like a little extra learning to be had from someone who's skills and experience are further along the track than my own. It's like taking a shortcut to knowledge.
My favourite shot of the evening: Scorpio slowly rising over Arch Rock.
Red Antares pokes up just over the rim low on the arch, almost touching. The brightest point within the constellation of Libra near the mid-right of picture is Saturn, just 2 or 3 days before it reaches opposition and brightest point for the year, while the similarly bright star near the extreme top right is Spica in the constellation of Virgo, currently near Mars in the night sky; sadly Mars did not quite make into frame.
Also, because sleep deprevation and being out at midnight when you should be abed is indicative of a slightly unhinged personality, occassionally you just start doing screwy things and just experimenting to see what happens.
Light painting!
Armed with a three-colour head torch, I can bathe objects in a mix of red, blue, and/or green light, just for shits and giggles. Here I've lit up the arch with a mix of Red and Blue light of differing amounts, giving it a psychadelic purple hue against the dark sky (mixed with the Moonlight that was already bathing it in a moderate white light). Light painting is something I'm still trying to work out, but I found this particular experiment outcome entertaining.
Anyway, our bromance ran its course and I had more shots planned elsewhere and his timelapse was set to start, limiting my ability to move about without disrupting his shot, so we shook hands and parted ways and I continued on to Cap Rock.
Cap Rock is a precariously balanced slab that juts out over a large granite upthrust like a cap - hence the name. It was a simple and easily accessible area with a few Joshua trees and some interesting boulder formations on the way to where I planned to finish the evening. Unfortunately by the time I got even so far as Cap Rock, clouds were beginning to creep up over the sky, blocking both the stars I was hoping to shoot as background as well as the moonlight I was using to highlight the landscape. they were still quite low, but getting closer and closer as I set up my shots - and the constant flow of planes taking redeye flights across the continental US out of LAX was not helping things either.
Cap rock and, well, I'm not sure. I'm pretty sure I'm looking North or Northwest-ish here, with a setting Moon off to the left, but I can get so turned around when I'm visiting the northern hemisphere unless I'm really careful, and when I'm looking north I can't recognise jack without a guide. I take pretty much all my bearings from the Southern Cross and the South celestial pole, so when that's not available and all the constellations get upside-down I get a bit lost. Maybe Polaris is the bright thing? Shit, I gotta work this out.
Looking back the other way, however, I'm back on familiar ground.
Scorpio has now almost fully risen up from the horizon, standing here on it's tail between the two rock formations, with Saturn and Spica much as they were in the earlier shot (dammit, Mars didn't make it in this one, either). But you can see here the earliy front runners of the clouds that would prematurely end my shoot, the slight fuzzy obstructions near the center of Scorpio and off to the right. That fuzzy bit rising up from the horizon and angling off to the left isn't a cloud, though - it's the Milky Way.
Sadly, with the clouds ever encroaching on the night sky and the unending stream of transcontinental planes limiting how often i could take shots, I was forced to call off early and didn't make it to the last location I had hoped to find something - the region around Hidden Valley, with it's ample interesting rock formations and plant life. indeed, on the drive back down out of the park, I was overtaken by the clouds entirely and had to endure a short desert rainfall - I hope my fellow astrophotographer had either weatherproofed his equipment or managed to bring it in before the rain reached him. Either way, I suspect he migh not have got the full set of shots he was hoping for before the clouds obscured the sky.
Despite this, I was exceedingly happy with the shots I got at Arch Rock and count the entire evening a success, at least as far as my own personal goals went. With an unfavourable Moon I was never going to get great dark sky pics, but it's presence gave me an excellent contrasting light to illuminate Arch Rock and other such features around the park, so I hit my preferred location first and was pretty happy to come away with a shot containg a bright Saturn and rising Scorpio as I did. All up, it was a pleasant night out and about shooting the American Night sky.
* The Joshua Tree, despite its name, is not actually a tree. It's actually a type of Yucca, and therefore an Agave. Or something.
I've said it before, Fishman, but your pictures are amazing and you are great and I want to take rad photos of the stars too every time you make one of these posts.
How would I go about getting started? What sort of camera do you use? Is it expensive? Keep in mine that I'm a complete photography neophyte, much less an astrophotographer
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FishmanPut your goddamned hand in the goddamned Box of Pain.Registered Userregular
@Fishman curious readers want to know: what equipment are you sporting?
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LuvTheMonkeyHigh Sierra SerenadeRegistered Userregular
It's questions for Fishman time!
Have you considered buying a telescope and shooting with your DSLR attached to it? I know the premium for any decent optics down there will be steep but I'm fairly sure you'd take to it quickly.
FishmanPut your goddamned hand in the goddamned Box of Pain.Registered Userregular
Oh my. Right, I will answer what I can as best I can.
Before I answer anything, I will say that I was a star nerd first and became a photography nerd after. It used to be, back in my teenage years or student days, I'd go out and lie on a hillside or sit out in the yard when getting back from a midnight shift and look at the sky. Watch for meteors, or satelites, or the odd space station/shuttle/rocket thing. I wasn't really fanatic about it, and I didn't know what I was looking at for a long time, but everything that followed started from being interested in the night sky. So if you're in this thread, you've probably already at about the same place I started from.
When it came to actually taking pictures, it wasn't until I got my first DSLR that I moved into taking astral pics. I enjoy regular phography as well, so it was a natural progression as I was picking up one new hobby to mix it with my existing love of the night sky. And learning to shoot the night sky taught me a lot about cameras and settings and being a better photgrapher, but also becoming interested in astrophotography has also taught me a lot about what's up there in the sky, so the two hobbies have dovetailed nicely. I know much more about astronomy because of photography, and much more about photography because of astronomy.
I've said it before, Fishman, but your pictures are amazing and you are great and I want to take rad photos of the stars too every time you make one of these posts.
How would I go about getting started? What sort of camera do you use? Is it expensive? Keep in mine that I'm a complete photography neophyte, much less an astrophotographer
As I said, I didn't really take to astrophotography until I got a DSLR, which is probably the easiest way to get started. I've heard of some people who shoot with a cellphone camera, usually hooked up to a telescope in some fashion, and some who use point-and-shoot cameras, but for best results and the most flexible base to work from, you need to be able to manually set shutter speed and apature settings (i.e., leave the shutter open for 20-30 seconds and as wide as it goes) to let as much light in as possible.
I shoot on a mid-range 'enthusiast' Sony DSLR, which is considered a pretty decent quality camera, but there definitely are better (especially as it's now 4 years old). Canon, for instance, put out a Camera (the 60Da) that is specifically tuned for astrophotography. And above that there are professional grade full-frame DSLR cameras. But this is my second camera, and I got started on an entry level DSLR, which I shot perfectly acceptable pictures on, including some I still think are as good as anything I've done since. Entry-level DSLRs aren't all that expensive these days, but will still set you back about the same as a new game console, or at least they do here.
That's really a starting point, but from there you'll find all manner of additional things to spend more money on. The second thing you'll need is somewhere to put your camera so that it remains as still as possible while you're taking a shot. You can get by with a beanie baby, but it won't be long before you're looking at tripods as a more versitile option. And then, are you really happy with a default lens? Really, you probably want something wide angle, almost fisheye, to get as much sky as possible into a single shot. And beyond that, there's all manner of things you can start adding..
So, you can get started with a modest outlay and start shooting pretty well with very little, but there's really no upper end to how much you spend as you keep adding more bits and pieces to your kit. Like any hobby really; you can be as engaged and serious about it as you choose to be.
Fishman curious readers want to know: what equipment are you sporting?
So as I said, these days most of my astro is done on a Sony a550, and with that I usually use a DT 11 - 18mm F4.5 - 5.6 lens, which is a very wide angle lens for maximum sky and landscape. To that I have added a tripod, and a remote so that I don't bump the camera when I'm pressing the shoot button (you very quickly learn how disruptive movement is to long exposures). That's basically it, although I sometimes use some of my other lenses, such as the long zoom I used last month to shoot the Moon. Again, I didn't buy all this at once; I started with one thing, and have added bits and pieces over the course of 5-6 years as I wanted or needed. And I will probably continue to do so; my current camera usually starts showing noticable star trails (that is, the procession of the stars across the sky) after only about 20 seconds. A higher quality full-frame camera would probably allow me 30 seconds, which would allow that much more light to reach the camera sensor, giving even more detailed shots.
Three other things I find absolutely near necessary are things you might already have lying around the place: a car, a coat and a warm hat. The car lets you get dark distant locations and interesting places, and in the depths of night you'll really need a good hat and coat. It's no fun trying to change camera settings in the middle of the night when your fingers are trembling from the cold.
Have you considered buying a telescope and shooting with your DSLR attached to it? I know the premium for any decent optics down there will be steep but I'm fairly sure you'd take to it quickly.
Yes. Very much yes. For best results, though, I'd probably want something computer controlled, so that I could take long exposures and have the computer controlling the tracking. For looking into a telescope, your eyes might not notice the stars slowly moving across the sky. But when you're extremely zoomed in, that ever-so-slight movement is easily picked up by a lengthy exposure on a camera, so unless your telescope is also moving to follow the sky, you're likely to end up with a slightly blurred picture as whatever you're looking at most those factions of a degree across the view. Which really takes the whole prospect to an entirely new level of 'holy shit, that's expensive'.
But yeah. It's not unknown for me to get back from a night out and find myself looking at telescopes and shipping rates online before I even fall into bed. It's a dangerous hobby, this one. Often, 'the next step up' comes with another new expense - which is why I also tend to explore trying different techniques, such as light painting or star trails, which allow me to continue to explore and expand my abilities without any additional investment beyond what I already have at this time.
Have you considered buying a telescope and shooting with your DSLR attached to it? I know the premium for any decent optics down there will be steep but I'm fairly sure you'd take to it quickly.
Yes. Very much yes. For best results, though, I'd probably want something computer controlled, so that I could take long exposures and have the computer controlling the tracking. For looking into a telescope, your eyes might not notice the stars slowly moving across the sky. But when you're extremely zoomed in, that ever-so-slight movement is easily picked up by a lengthy exposure on a camera, so unless your telescope is also moving to follow the sky, you're likely to end up with a slightly blurred picture as whatever you're looking at most those factions of a degree across the view. Which really takes the whole prospect to an entirely new level of 'holy shit, that's expensive'.
But yeah. It's not unknown for me to get back from a night out and find myself looking at telescopes and shipping rates online before I even fall into bed. It's a dangerous hobby, this one. Often, 'the next step up' comes with another new expense - which is why I also tend to explore trying different techniques, such as light painting or star trails, which allow me to continue to explore and expand my abilities without any additional investment beyond what I already have at this time.
Oh yeah definitely. I've been researching buying a telescope here in the near future. Have had an interest in doing so for years but money. One thing I've learned is astrophotography means serious investment. Modern computerized equatorial mounts do a very good job tracking by themselves though (with their own computer, I should say). If you have any quality zoom lenses it may be worth starting with just a mount and attaching your camera+lens directly to it. You won't get any deep space objects but some wide-field nebula may be doable. I'll be purchasing purely for visual to start as I have little beyond point&shoot photography experience.
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The "burning up" phase of a meteor's fall is actually it rapidly slowing down. Smaller rocks like the one in the video will slow down very quickly, likely while still in the upper atmosphere, all the way down to terminal velocity. At which point it would look no different from a rock dropped off a very tall building. Or out of a plane for that matter.
Not saying that the video is real, but that detail at least, is probably accurate.
But small rocks fall to earth all the time for sure, and they are not flaming balls of fire the entire way. I think in the 90's there was video of a meteor lighting up over a baseball game, and then the next day there was a lady on the news who found the rock had crushed the trunk of her car. It was not a smoldering ruin, pretty much just looked like someone dropped a rock on her car from high up.
Still looks like he tossed a rock above his head to me though.
I want to believe, but I saw it on the internet, so I inherently distrust it.
Also there is another small dark object in the video a second or so before the rock. Bottom left corner near the sun glare at 1:11 in the linked video. Could just be the plane or another skydiver. Maybe another piece of rock? Whatever it is I'm sure it's aliens.
Having spent the last few months in a low Lunar orbit attempting to analyse lunar dust particulates in the Moon's practically non-existant atmosphere, the craft is about to run out of fuel. Later this week, it will execute its last orbital correction. It will then stay in orbit long enough to be hit by the April 15 Lunar Eclipse, which will plunge the moon into darkness and drop the temperature into the 'possibility of components freezing and/or exploding' zone, which, you have to admit, is pretty metal.
Depending on how well it survives that prolonged inky black absence of all light and energy, it will slowly drop lower and lower in lunar orbit before crashing into the dark side of the Moon - possibly after doing more science on the way. Which, on a scale of metal things in space, rates roughly around this:
*Yes, it's a Dark Side of the Moon joke. No, I don't care that Pink Floyd is actually prog rock.
Anyway, because they have no way of knowing exactly when this impact is going to happen, NASA is now taking bets as to when LADEE descends from its great gig in the sky. In the 'Take the Plunge' Challenge, open to anyone, you to can place your guess as to when the interplanetary probe will perform its final rendevous, silently and spectacularly, as it shreds itself across several kilometers of dusty lunar plain (or impacts straight into the side of a mountain). Anyway, you to can place you bet down to see when you think the craft will hit the lunar surface.
The notable thing about this one, however, will also be it's proximity in the sky to Mars, which is at a close point of approach and as bright as it's been in 7 years. The Lunar Eclipse, sometimes referred to as a 'blood moon' for the reddish tinge that scattered light in the Earth's atmosphere lends it, next to the sky by the Red Planet, which I personally think has been looking particularly ruby in the sky the past few weeks. It should make for a great photo opportunity.
Sadly, the forecast here is for increasing cloud with a chance of rain, so while I'm crossing my fingers, I'm not hopeful that I'll get that magic break in the cloud to allow me to see or photograph it myself. But I'll probably still slip out into the back yard and check, either way.
To find out what time the Eclipse is taking place in your local timezone, hit up the calculator at dateandtime.com here. It seems to tell you when the middle of the eclipse occurs (i.e. the moon is in direct opposition), so be aware that totality begins/ends about 45 minutes before/after and it's a partial eclipse for around an hour before/after that. So all up, the moon is in total or partial eclipse for over 3 hours tonight.
And remember that while all this celestial lightshow is occurring overhead, somewhere up there is NASA's LADEE explorer, running perilously close to the redline of its operating envelope and on the verge of suicidal nosedive into the moon. Totally. Metal.
3DS: 1289-8447-4695
EDIT: Woo, there we go.
Also my camera seems to get shittier every time I use it.
Secondly check it out
http://www.extremetech.com/extreme/182119-first-living-thing-with-alien-dna-created-in-the-lab-we-are-now-officially-playing-god
http://steamcommunity.com/id/pablocampy
I had to wade through conspiracy videos reporting on 'armies of two mother clones' and whatnot to find this. And it doesn't even have the bit where they create alien DNA and make the damn thing.
A picture taken with a nice camera from inside the ISS
ugh, science journalism
synthetic =/= alien
you =/= alien
Holy fuck, I love everything about this picture.
A couple weeks ago I happened to be travelling through the lovely dry altitudes of Joshua Tree National Park. Mmmmm, dry desert air. And Rocks! And trees*!
Unfortunately I spent much of my visit in a state of near exhaustion, a result of multi-hour hikes in rarified atmosphere and high temperatures during the day, but I was able to sneak out on one evening to take some star snaps (star snaps, he says, like it's just a matter of whipping out a point-and-shoot and pushing a button). Unfortunately on that one evening I was forced to cut my night shorter than I had hoped, but more on that later... on to the show!
Having scouted out some likely locations earlier in the day (see: multi-hour hikes), I descended on what was undoubtably the favourite location for some night photography: Joshua Tree's Arch Rock.
Indeed, wandering up there at near 11pm on a Wednesday, I was surprised to find that I was not the only person there. Another photographer was setting up to shoot a timelapse of Scorpio and the Milky Way rising up over the horizon above Arch Rock, and was planning a 4 hour shoot through the evening.
This had never happened to me before.
But apparently this is what you can expect at such locations - indeed, the fellow photographer warned me that on the weekend there might be as many as a dozen guys there, all with their tripods and shooting equipment. There's something of a comaraderie between those insane enough to be out in the middle of the night when they should be sleeping, or at least that's what I inferred, as the local (well, he was from Santa Monica, but that's still more local than me) gave me a warm welcome and shared his insights and suggestions for shots and we talked away the hour or so we were out there together, glad for a little company during the otherwise solitary night. And for me, there's nothing like a little extra learning to be had from someone who's skills and experience are further along the track than my own. It's like taking a shortcut to knowledge.
Red Antares pokes up just over the rim low on the arch, almost touching. The brightest point within the constellation of Libra near the mid-right of picture is Saturn, just 2 or 3 days before it reaches opposition and brightest point for the year, while the similarly bright star near the extreme top right is Spica in the constellation of Virgo, currently near Mars in the night sky; sadly Mars did not quite make into frame.
Also, because sleep deprevation and being out at midnight when you should be abed is indicative of a slightly unhinged personality, occassionally you just start doing screwy things and just experimenting to see what happens.
Armed with a three-colour head torch, I can bathe objects in a mix of red, blue, and/or green light, just for shits and giggles. Here I've lit up the arch with a mix of Red and Blue light of differing amounts, giving it a psychadelic purple hue against the dark sky (mixed with the Moonlight that was already bathing it in a moderate white light). Light painting is something I'm still trying to work out, but I found this particular experiment outcome entertaining.
Anyway, our bromance ran its course and I had more shots planned elsewhere and his timelapse was set to start, limiting my ability to move about without disrupting his shot, so we shook hands and parted ways and I continued on to Cap Rock.
Cap Rock is a precariously balanced slab that juts out over a large granite upthrust like a cap - hence the name. It was a simple and easily accessible area with a few Joshua trees and some interesting boulder formations on the way to where I planned to finish the evening. Unfortunately by the time I got even so far as Cap Rock, clouds were beginning to creep up over the sky, blocking both the stars I was hoping to shoot as background as well as the moonlight I was using to highlight the landscape. they were still quite low, but getting closer and closer as I set up my shots - and the constant flow of planes taking redeye flights across the continental US out of LAX was not helping things either.
Cap rock and, well, I'm not sure. I'm pretty sure I'm looking North or Northwest-ish here, with a setting Moon off to the left, but I can get so turned around when I'm visiting the northern hemisphere unless I'm really careful, and when I'm looking north I can't recognise jack without a guide. I take pretty much all my bearings from the Southern Cross and the South celestial pole, so when that's not available and all the constellations get upside-down I get a bit lost. Maybe Polaris is the bright thing? Shit, I gotta work this out.
Scorpio has now almost fully risen up from the horizon, standing here on it's tail between the two rock formations, with Saturn and Spica much as they were in the earlier shot (dammit, Mars didn't make it in this one, either). But you can see here the earliy front runners of the clouds that would prematurely end my shoot, the slight fuzzy obstructions near the center of Scorpio and off to the right. That fuzzy bit rising up from the horizon and angling off to the left isn't a cloud, though - it's the Milky Way.
Sadly, with the clouds ever encroaching on the night sky and the unending stream of transcontinental planes limiting how often i could take shots, I was forced to call off early and didn't make it to the last location I had hoped to find something - the region around Hidden Valley, with it's ample interesting rock formations and plant life. indeed, on the drive back down out of the park, I was overtaken by the clouds entirely and had to endure a short desert rainfall - I hope my fellow astrophotographer had either weatherproofed his equipment or managed to bring it in before the rain reached him. Either way, I suspect he migh not have got the full set of shots he was hoping for before the clouds obscured the sky.
Despite this, I was exceedingly happy with the shots I got at Arch Rock and count the entire evening a success, at least as far as my own personal goals went. With an unfavourable Moon I was never going to get great dark sky pics, but it's presence gave me an excellent contrasting light to illuminate Arch Rock and other such features around the park, so I hit my preferred location first and was pretty happy to come away with a shot containg a bright Saturn and rising Scorpio as I did. All up, it was a pleasant night out and about shooting the American Night sky.
* The Joshua Tree, despite its name, is not actually a tree. It's actually a type of Yucca, and therefore an Agave. Or something.
How would I go about getting started? What sort of camera do you use? Is it expensive? Keep in mine that I'm a complete photography neophyte, much less an astrophotographer
Phobos transiting Deimos in the Martian Sky, as seen from Curiosity rover.
Have you considered buying a telescope and shooting with your DSLR attached to it? I know the premium for any decent optics down there will be steep but I'm fairly sure you'd take to it quickly.
Before I answer anything, I will say that I was a star nerd first and became a photography nerd after. It used to be, back in my teenage years or student days, I'd go out and lie on a hillside or sit out in the yard when getting back from a midnight shift and look at the sky. Watch for meteors, or satelites, or the odd space station/shuttle/rocket thing. I wasn't really fanatic about it, and I didn't know what I was looking at for a long time, but everything that followed started from being interested in the night sky. So if you're in this thread, you've probably already at about the same place I started from.
When it came to actually taking pictures, it wasn't until I got my first DSLR that I moved into taking astral pics. I enjoy regular phography as well, so it was a natural progression as I was picking up one new hobby to mix it with my existing love of the night sky. And learning to shoot the night sky taught me a lot about cameras and settings and being a better photgrapher, but also becoming interested in astrophotography has also taught me a lot about what's up there in the sky, so the two hobbies have dovetailed nicely. I know much more about astronomy because of photography, and much more about photography because of astronomy.
As I said, I didn't really take to astrophotography until I got a DSLR, which is probably the easiest way to get started. I've heard of some people who shoot with a cellphone camera, usually hooked up to a telescope in some fashion, and some who use point-and-shoot cameras, but for best results and the most flexible base to work from, you need to be able to manually set shutter speed and apature settings (i.e., leave the shutter open for 20-30 seconds and as wide as it goes) to let as much light in as possible.
I shoot on a mid-range 'enthusiast' Sony DSLR, which is considered a pretty decent quality camera, but there definitely are better (especially as it's now 4 years old). Canon, for instance, put out a Camera (the 60Da) that is specifically tuned for astrophotography. And above that there are professional grade full-frame DSLR cameras. But this is my second camera, and I got started on an entry level DSLR, which I shot perfectly acceptable pictures on, including some I still think are as good as anything I've done since. Entry-level DSLRs aren't all that expensive these days, but will still set you back about the same as a new game console, or at least they do here.
That's really a starting point, but from there you'll find all manner of additional things to spend more money on. The second thing you'll need is somewhere to put your camera so that it remains as still as possible while you're taking a shot. You can get by with a beanie baby, but it won't be long before you're looking at tripods as a more versitile option. And then, are you really happy with a default lens? Really, you probably want something wide angle, almost fisheye, to get as much sky as possible into a single shot. And beyond that, there's all manner of things you can start adding..
So, you can get started with a modest outlay and start shooting pretty well with very little, but there's really no upper end to how much you spend as you keep adding more bits and pieces to your kit. Like any hobby really; you can be as engaged and serious about it as you choose to be.
So as I said, these days most of my astro is done on a Sony a550, and with that I usually use a DT 11 - 18mm F4.5 - 5.6 lens, which is a very wide angle lens for maximum sky and landscape. To that I have added a tripod, and a remote so that I don't bump the camera when I'm pressing the shoot button (you very quickly learn how disruptive movement is to long exposures). That's basically it, although I sometimes use some of my other lenses, such as the long zoom I used last month to shoot the Moon. Again, I didn't buy all this at once; I started with one thing, and have added bits and pieces over the course of 5-6 years as I wanted or needed. And I will probably continue to do so; my current camera usually starts showing noticable star trails (that is, the procession of the stars across the sky) after only about 20 seconds. A higher quality full-frame camera would probably allow me 30 seconds, which would allow that much more light to reach the camera sensor, giving even more detailed shots.
Three other things I find absolutely near necessary are things you might already have lying around the place: a car, a coat and a warm hat. The car lets you get dark distant locations and interesting places, and in the depths of night you'll really need a good hat and coat. It's no fun trying to change camera settings in the middle of the night when your fingers are trembling from the cold.
Yes. Very much yes. For best results, though, I'd probably want something computer controlled, so that I could take long exposures and have the computer controlling the tracking. For looking into a telescope, your eyes might not notice the stars slowly moving across the sky. But when you're extremely zoomed in, that ever-so-slight movement is easily picked up by a lengthy exposure on a camera, so unless your telescope is also moving to follow the sky, you're likely to end up with a slightly blurred picture as whatever you're looking at most those factions of a degree across the view. Which really takes the whole prospect to an entirely new level of 'holy shit, that's expensive'.
But yeah. It's not unknown for me to get back from a night out and find myself looking at telescopes and shipping rates online before I even fall into bed. It's a dangerous hobby, this one. Often, 'the next step up' comes with another new expense - which is why I also tend to explore trying different techniques, such as light painting or star trails, which allow me to continue to explore and expand my abilities without any additional investment beyond what I already have at this time.
Oh yeah definitely. I've been researching buying a telescope here in the near future. Have had an interest in doing so for years but money. One thing I've learned is astrophotography means serious investment. Modern computerized equatorial mounts do a very good job tracking by themselves though (with their own computer, I should say). If you have any quality zoom lenses it may be worth starting with just a mount and attaching your camera+lens directly to it. You won't get any deep space objects but some wide-field nebula may be doable. I'll be purchasing purely for visual to start as I have little beyond point&shoot photography experience.