Fire in the Sky

July 10 2015

Aurora

Aurora Borealis

Nikon D610 +Rokinon 14mm f2.8

30 secs ISO 3200  

 

The weekend trip down at Pasqua Lake with some friends turned out to be a great night. I purposely did not bring  my telescope rig this time since the skies looked a bit overcast with all the forest fires up in the North. The Milky Way was hardly popping out, with the low horizon so hazy that i decided its not worth spending time to photograph it. Then i received an aurora activity alert on my phone. Mother nature decided to put up a show that night. The sky lit up with shimmering waves of green and purple light.  I could hardly wait to start shooting as i climbed a nearby hill to have a better view. It was such a beautiful sight. With gentle warm breeze blowing, it was so quiet  as i sat there alone atop of the hill, looking up the stars and marveling how vast and beautiful our universe is.

Pinwheel Galaxy M101

June 21 2015

Pinwheel Galaxy

Nikon D610 + Skywatcher ED80

Skywatcher EQ-3 Synscan + Orion Autoguider 

10 minutes x 3 @ iso 1600 

Stacked in DeepSkyStacker

The Pinwheel Galaxy or Messier 101 is a spiral galaxy located at the constellation of Ursa Major, where the well known Big Dipper lies. During summer months, M101 is almost directly overhead . This image was taken at Cypress Hills Dark Sky Preserve without the use of any filters. I have tried using a UHC-S filter for this object but the resulting image was too dim even in dark skies. Imaging this faint galaxy under light polluted skies is almost impossible. You will like just get a blob of light, it's faint spiral arms will be extremely hard to resolve. A ten minute exposure @ISO 1600, the spiral arms became visible. Stacking three 10 minute exposure and more details can be seen. I am only limited by my telescope size as an 80mm scope is not really designed for targets this faint.