The Orionoids Meteor Shower.

Meteor in Right Lower Side. Bright "Star"  is Jupiter

I spent the last two nights from midnight 4 AM at Allens Pond Audubon Sanctuary's, Dartmouth Massachusetts, Stone Barn, observing and photographing The Orionoids Meteor Shower.
The first night, I held a workshop on how to photograph meteors and the night sky.  Afterwards we set up chairs and are tripods and cameras and sat down to enjoy the show.  The skies were clear as a bell and there was very little light pollution coming from the surrounding cities and towns.  The temperature was in the 50s and it was comfortable long as you were dressed for the occasion.  The advantage of this location is that it is close, The Stone Barn offers restrooms, and a kitchen.  There was the cookies, food and coffee available all night.
Both nights, the meteor show was great with the Sunday into Monday event being the best with up to 40 to 60 meteors per hour.
The hardest part, was trying to capture meteors in the camera, most of them lasted only a few seconds and were faint, which did not give enough light to capture them.  However, we did obtain some photographs of the meteor shower.

Fish-eye Lens View

I also did a time lapse sequence, which demonstrated the movement of the stars through the heavens plus a couple of meteors.

Sky Time Lapse with Meteors

.

The Stone Barn is an excellent location to observe the Celestreal events, because of its close location to some major cities and yet, because it is deep in the country so that light pollution is not a major factor.
For the remainder of this year, there are two more meteor events with the Geminid's on December 13 and 14th probably being the best.  I will plan to have another event at the Stone Barn for this meteor show.
.

The Sky at the Stone Barn

I spent another interesting evening at the Stone Barn property of Allens Pond Massachusetts Audubon Sanctuary in the company of my son and grandson, who are both photographers (my grandson is learning) photographing the nights sky.  Leaving home to travel out to Westport/Dartmouth, the sky had become very cloudy and overcast, however, arriving in Westport, there were only occasional clouds around.  An interesting fact is that driving down the road, prior to turning into the road leading to the Stone Barn, we were in Westport, Massachusetts, and once we got onto the road leading to the barn, we were in Dartmouth, Massachusetts.

Gibbous Moon

my son observing the sky, and Venus



Venus surrounded by clouds

 

the sky at nautical dusk



n

The s

Orion and Venus

Venus in the Pleiades

We arrived just after sunset and in the sky was a large waxing gibbous Moon (the full Moon will be in 2 days) that was lighting up the sky. By the wayhe Moon light the buildings and scenery so I did not have light paint.

In the Western sky, Venus was brightly shining, but there was a bank of clouds coming in out of the Northwest.  The clouds gave an interesting affect to the sky, especially during nautical dusk and the clouds intermittently covered Venus and the Moon.  The clouds continued to rule intermittently through the area, however, we still had extremely great views of the sky, the stars and constellations.

Big Dipper and Polaris above the Stone Barn

Star Trails

I would have liked to spend at least an hour, killing start trails, but because of some time constraints and the bright moon, I was only able to do a 20 min. exposure of the Big Dipper and Polaris over the top of the Stone Barn
.

Venus and the Pleiades Conjunction

This spring has been great for conjunctions in the sky.  In February, Venus, Jupiter and the Moon were in conjunction in March.  There was another conjunction of Venus, Jupiter and the Moon.
The following is from the NASA Science News Website:
"This week the second planet from the sun will pass directly in front of the Pleiades star cluster. It's a rare sunset conjunction that's easy to find with the unaided eye, but best seen through binoculars or a small telescope.
The action begins on Monday evening, April 2nd, when Venus enters the outskirts of the little dipper-shaped asterism. Look west at sunset for Venus--it's the brightest thing around--then scan the area using binoculars. The conjunction will be immediately clear. The best evening to look is Tuesday, April 3rd, when the brilliant planet glides just south of the dipper's bowl. Venus exits by the handle on Wednesday, April 4th. Venus passes through the Pleiades in this way about once every 8 years.
To say this is a mixture of dissimilar things would be an understatement. This week the second planet from the sun will pass directly in front of the Pleiades star cluster. It's a rare sunset conjunction that's easy to find with the unaided eye, but best seen through binoculars or a small telescope.
The Pleiades are elusive. You rarely find them on purpose. They're best seen out of the corner of your eye, a pretty little surprise that pops out of the night sky when you're staring elsewhere.
Venus is just the opposite. Dazzling, bright enough to cast faint shadows, it beams down from the heavens and grabs you when you're not even looking.
The Pleiades, also known as the "Seven Sisters," are a cluster of young stars. They formed barely 100 million years ago during the age of dinosaurs on Earth from a collapsing cloud of interstellar gas. The biggest and brightest members are blue-white and about five times wider than our own sun.
Because of their distance, about 400 light years away, the Pleiades are near the limit of naked-eye visibility. When Venus joins them in conjunction, it will look like a supernova has gone off inside the cluster. Venus's thick clouds reflect so much sunlight, the planet outshines every thing in the night sky except the Moon. Strangely, though, the Pleiades do not look puny in comparison, just delicately beautiful. "
I took the above picture this evening, utilizing a 300 mm lens with a 1.4 converter and the only post processing that I performed was noise reduction.  The rays of Venus occurred in camera.
So if you have a chance, and the weather allows it, go outside tomorrow, April 3, 2012, around 9 PM and look in the Western sky for Venus brightly shining in the Pleiades.

Moon Workshop

This blog is a report on the moon workshop.  It was supposed to be held on Wednesday, February 8, however, that night, the sky was completely overcast with heavy cloud cover and the moon was not at all visible.  However, the group still got together at Allens Pond Massachusetts Audubon Sanctuary Field Station for a presentation on Moon photography and had a discussion on how to set up the cameras, and other topics pertaining to photography.  The weather forecast for Thursday, February 9 was for clear skies and I set a meeting time was 7 PM on Gooseberry in the parking lot.  The reason for this is that the moonrise was scheduled for 7:39 PM (according to my Sundroid app on my android phone).  This would give us plenty of time to have the cameras set up and be ready for the moonrise.

Getting Equipment Ready

Happy Group on the Beach Photographing

After meeting in the parking lot, attaching the cameras to a tripods.  We walked down onto the beach, utilizing headlamps and flashlights so we would not fall and set a tripods with the cameras pointing at the direction where the moon would rise.  That information, I also obtain from my Sundroid app.

My Star Photo

As the moon rose and everybody obtain their first picture, I had them check their histogram and make corrections to their exposure.  I spent most of my time helping the participants.  I did utilize my camera and nice shot lens to do some star photography, since I was using thirty second exposures, and after I push the shutter.  I could go continue to help the participants.

One of the Participents Moon Photo

Composite Photo

After everybody obtain what they felt was more than enough pictures, we packed up and return to the field station for hot chocolate and to view some of the pictures  that were obtained on my laptop. I also demonstrated on how to make a composite panoramic type of picture.

Moon and Light Reflection on the Water

Everyone had a great time in the workshop, and they all felt it was a success.
.

QUADRANTID METEOR SHOWER

We left the house early this morning travel out and sees the first meteor shower of the new year.  Here is information about the meteor shower from the NASA site http://www.ustream.tv/channel/nasa-msfc.

"The 2012 Quadrantids, a little-known meteor shower named
after an extinct constellation, will present an excellent chance for hardy souls to start the year off with some late-night meteor watching. Peaking in the wee morning hours of Jan. 4, the Quadrantids have a maximum rate of about 100 per hour, varying between 60-200. The waxing gibbous moon will set around 3
a.m. local time, leaving about two hours of excellent meteor observing before dawn. It's a good thing, too, because unlike the more famous Perseid and Geminid
meteor showers, the Quadrantids only last a few hours -- it's the morning of Jan. 4, or nothing..  Like the Geminids, the Quadrantids originate from an asteroid, called 2003 EH1. Dynamical studies suggest that this body could very well be a piece of a comet which broke apart several centuries ago, and that the meteors you will see before dawn on Jan. 4 are the small debris from this fragmentation. After hundreds of years orbiting the sun, they will enter our
atmosphere at 90,000 mph, burning up 50 miles above Earth's surface -- a fiery end to a long journey! The Quadrantids derive their name from the constellation of Quadrans Muralis (mural quadrant), which was created by the French astronomer Jerome Lalande in 1795. Located between the constellations of Bootes and Draco, Quadrans represents an early astronomical instrument used to
observe and plot stars. Even though the constellation is no longer recognized by astronomers, it was around long enough to give the meteor shower -- first seen no doesn't write good thing is what you do on Saturday in 1825 -- its name."

I decided we would view the show From Gooseberry, arriving there in the wee hours of the morning, with the temperature at 16°F in the wind chill down to around 0°F, just as I got out of the car and looked up and extremely bright meteor trail went over my head.

The night before, I set up my cameras, one with a fisheye lens and one with an 18 mm-105 mm zoom lens (sent to 18 mm).  The settings I used were manual exposure, manual focus, set at infinity, 30 seconds and ISO 800.  I also set the camera on time delayed so I could push the shutter button, and then they would be a delay before the shutter would open.

Night Sky

There were many faint meteor trails that occurred and I did capture some of them.  Because of the short exposure, I did not get star trails.

 

 

 

in this photo there is a meteor trail at around 9:00 and a second one up from the center going toward 2:00

I illuminated the trail in this photo

It was an enjoyable morning, despite the cold and I am looking forward to the next meteor shower, and hopefully it'll be warmer and that those sky will be as bright and clear as it was this morning.