Comet Neowise and Venus


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Welcome to taosastronomer.com!

offering local "hands-on" observing
(visual and imaging) sessions and instruction
viewing and imaging from Rabbit Valley Observatory
a dark sky location on the mesa just west of Taos, NM

 

Southern Cross and Milky Way with Large and Small Magellenic Clouds from Tau Pan Camp, Central Kalahari Game Reserve, Botswana

Southern Milky Way
Image obtained 03-28-2016 through a Rokinon 14mm f/2.8 wide-angle lens, using a Nikon D5100 DSLR – 12 selected and stacked 20-second luminance frames shot at ISO 3200 combined with Nikon's auto-dark-in-camera-dark-subtraction feature, resulting in 8 minutes of total exposure were used to create this image; optics not driven but shot from a stable tripod; -- resultant dark-subtracted images post-processed with DeepSkyStacker, CCDStack2, Photoshop CS3, NeatImage noise reduction and Astronomy Tools s/w.

Southern Cross and Milky Way with Large Magellenic Cloud above the towering ebony and marula trees of Lagoon Camp -- Linyanti Swamps, Botswana

Southern Milky Way

Image obtained 04-03-2016 through a Rokinon 14mm f/2.8 wide-angle lens, using a Nikon D5100 DSLR – 6 selected and stacked 20-second luminance frames shot at ISO 3200 combined with Nikon's auto-dark-in-camera-dark-subtraction feature, resulting in 4 minutes of total exposure were used to create this image; optics not driven but shot from a stable tripod; -- resultant dark-subtracted images post-processed with DeepSkyStacker, CCDStack2, Photoshop CS3, NeatImage noise reduction and Astronomy Tools s/w.


[Photographer's personal note -- The dark skies witnessed both at Kwando Safari's Tau Pan Camp in the Central Kalahari Game Reserve and at Kwando Safari's Lagoon Camp in the Linyanti Swamps of the northeastern Okavango Delta in Botswana were truly awe-inspiring. Although nighttime outdoor activities without a guide are highly-frowned upon (large apex predators like lions and leopards are common, even in camp!); I nevertheless set up the tripod at both locations, albeit directly outside our tent's "front door," at least at Tau Pan. I used a wireless remote to trip the shutter. There in the CKGR lions were roaring (exciting although rather typical in the evening; they often roar throughout the night) as the astrophotography commenced!

The Kwando Safari guides were well-versed in astronomy -- on the night game drives (where legal) they would regularly stop and, using a green laser pointer(!), note objects of interest in the sky. At the Tau Pan Camp the camp's visitors (8 of us, all flown-in) plus perhaps 10 or so entirely intrepid self-drive-campers in an area twice the size of Massachusetts who didn't attend the festivities (basically because they self-drove in from the other side of the reserve, taking advantage of the barely-visible 4-wheel-drive-only sand tracks and as opposed to being the camp's guests, instead were "camping out" many kilometers away!) gathered one night on the camp's main deck for an excellent and informative astronomy clinic delivered by Dux Mareja, Kwando's head guide. From the Delta Inhabitant tribe Bayei (the river bushman), Dux says of himself; "The wilderness is where I originate and where I belong."

Perhaps 20-30 people in a place twice the size of Massachusetts. Where we were is one of the blankest spaces on any map; indeed, one of the wildest places on Earth.

Tau Pan map
Tau Pan landscape
A blank space on the map . . .
Kwando Safari's Tau Pan Camp's typical room with a view . . .

The shots of the southern Milky Way above are combinations of the best of the images I obtained.

 


 

For an observer from the northern hemisphere, such naked-eye delights as a mirror image Big Dipper reflecting in a river or . . .

Southern Big Dipper

a setting, mirror image Orion . . .

Southern setting Orion

are a little difficult to fully comprehend (both b&w images from the remote Kwando concession, Lagoon Camp, Linyanti Swamps area, northern Botswana).

Of course, the opportunity to actually observe the Southern Cross and Coal Sack [in Crux -- the center of the first photos above and the Large and Small Magellenic Clouds (both visible in the upper shot, LMC visible in the lower Milky Way astrophotograph) is truly inspiring.]

 

[copyright Rabbit Valley Observatory/Willis Greiner, 2016 -- all rights reserved]


home
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"The Imperative of Night" narrative
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(all content copyright 2015-2019 Willis Greiner Photography, all rights reserved)