Lightnings, New moon, Conjunctions and more

The last week of October (2019) was very busy for me with planed and unplanned events that I photographed. 

On Saturday evening (26th) there was a thunderstorm a bit from me so most of the lightnings were far. and yet some were very close like this one.

There are several methods to capture lightnings. One way is to put a camera on tripod and set it for long exposures of 5 seconds, hoping to catch something. If the storm is heavy you can try and take a video, even with your smartphone, using the slow motion option, which works better than regular video even that it has a limited duration.

A lightning 26-Oct-2019

On Sunday I noticed lightnings in a very far cloud (70 km from me). It was very strange to see these far away lightnings within the cloud as can be seen in this short movie.

A longer version is in you tube

Tuesday (29th) was the first option to see the new moon. Stating with  a nice sunset, I spot the moon, and as a bonus Venus and Mercury were close as well.

In the photo with all three it is clearly seen that while Venus is more or less on the ecliptic, The moon is norther and Mercury is to the south.

sunset 29-Oct-2019

The new moon 29-Oct-2019

Mercury is between the wires of the antenna at the bottom left of the photo

The new moon, Venus and Mercury 29-Oct-2019

In the following photo, earthshine is visible, light reflected from the Earth to the Moon and back again to Earth make us see even the dark parts of the moon and its entire disc.

The new moon 29-Oct-2019

Just two days later a close conjunction (about 1 deg) of Jupiter and the moon

The moon and Jupiter 31-Oct-2019

And only two days later, just a few hours after the conjunction with Saturn

Moon and Saturn 2-Nov-2019

What a nice week!

More is less in photographing Iridium flares.

Yesterday (3-Feb-2019) I photoed an Iridium flare just five minutes after sunset in what was still daylight. However as you can see, I caught only half of the flare.

 Iridium flare 3 /2/2019

Here are two photos that describe the flare. The first shows its path along the state of Israel and the second one show its path in the sky. The starts are there but can't be seen of course.

Flare central line over Israel

Flare in sky

It is important to understand that in such case it is extremely important to be near he central line as possible. Even few kilometers east or west of it and the flare will not be visible. during the night one can be tens of kilometers away but not during the day.

I choose a spot on the central line and setup my camera using the smart phone compass, and about 20
seconds before the pass start to record a video.

The flare was very bright and very short, and the final result is seen in the photo at the beginning of the post.
The camera is much more sensitive than the human eye, and recorded some seconds of the flare but
unfortunately I didn't aim it to the correct spot.

So what went wrong? I wanted to use a larger focal length to capture a long and wide flare. using longer focal length require precision so it is better to use lower focal length. Also since the flare moves from top to bottom (or bottom to top), putting the camera vertically will give mush more space for errors. So more is less. More zoom, less space for errors, and I should use 50mm instead of 70mm.

To summarize here is an old video showing rare double daytime Iridium! At least I got that right!

And to finish the post, we will add a great sunset photo after the flare

sunset 3/2/2019

Supermoon ,moonrise. sunset and moon halo- 2017-Dec-3 and 4

Although  I don't care too much about supermoons, I always like to see the full moon rising and this evening just 17 minutes after sunset I had a chance to see and take some photos.

The next photos clearly show why I can't see the exact moon rise. There ar mountains to the east which blocks the horizon. It requires about 60 minutes driving to pass them (not including evening traffic jams!)

moon rise

moon rise

A nice surprise was an airplane which was considering enough to cross the moon.

moon rise and an airplane

And in the video notice how the hot gases from the engines twist the photo

Here is the full movie of the moonrise at 4x speed

High clouds continued the following evening so I took some other fine photos:

Sunset 4-Dec-2017

And the following photo reminded me the famous scene from "Apocalypse now".

A helicopter in sunset

One hour after sunset the moon rose

moonrise 4-Dec-2017

moonrise 4 Dec-2017

And later that night a compelte 22deg moon halo, The entire winter-hexagon is visible including the Orion group.

moon halo 4/12/2017

Use your camera as a telescope

A camera can be a small telescope. It collects lights, it has a larger aperture than your eye. A lens is a 

lens.

As I wrote in a previous article: How to photograph stars and constellations, you can use any camera to photograph the sky. You should be realistic and understand that you are photographing mostly wide-filed photos. Entire constellations or large objects with a telephoto lens. The photos will help you see more stars, observe their different colors, and even to find deep sky objects such as clusters, nebulas and even galaxies.

A DSLR is recommended and the better your lens the better the results but even with a compact camera it is possible to get nice results.

Photos can be taken from anywhere but to avoid light pollution it is best to go to darkest as possible places. No need to mention that a sturdy tripod is a must.

The major problem of photographing stars is that the earth rotate and the stars are smudged from dot to lines. You can use this rotation to produce great star trails photos but our aim in this specific article is to better see the stars and faint objects.

The rule of thumb is that the longest exposure should not be more than 500/focal-length. For example, if you use a 28mm lens you can expose for 18 seconds without noticing much smudging. These number is correct for Full-Frame cameras. If you are using an APS camera, you should adjust by the crop factor (mostly 1.5) so 18 seconds becomes just 12. If you are using a telephoto lens you will have shorter exposures time.

So what to do? Use higher ISO, 400 800 or even 1600 depends on your specific model and open the aperture as possible.

Focusing is another important matter. Manual focusing is a must. Try to find a bright star and use LiveView to better focus. If you are not sure, check your photo after a single exposure, zoom into it and adjust the focus as needed.

A release cable/remote is also necessary to prevent the shake caused by pressing the shutter. If you do not have a remote/release cable use the self-photo feature to add 2 seconds delay before each photograph.

To save time I take the first photo with a very high ISO (3200 or 1600), short exposure and without noise reduction. After I set the composition as I like I use a lower ISO and the longest possible exposure. Usually, I use the built-in "log exposure noise reduction" but it can be done later in a software if you take one or two photos of the same exposure time with the lens cap on. 

To take your photos to the next level you will need a tracker device. The tracker is pointed to the polar star (or to the relevant area in the southern hemisphere) and rotates in the opposite direction to the earth, thus eliminating the smudging and enables longer exposures.  I am using the Ioptron tracker, if you are handy you can build your own device (look for instructions to build a "barn door tracker").

If you go for a tracker notice that there are models with additional small finderscope which will give you much better results and you should buy that model. also notice that some models have a 3/8" mount while most tripods have a 1/4" mount, so a small adapter might be required (It is very cheap adapter). 

Using the tracker is simple you put it on a tripod, points it to the north star, use the finderscope for exact alignment (I use a small app for my smartphone to do this - Polar scope finder, there are also free apps for this purpose). Put the ball-head on the tracker (carefully, not to move the tracker) and point the camera to the area you want to photograph. From time to time check that the tracker still points to the correct place.

Here are some examples, all photos are 30second exposure. the Pleiades cluster - M45 - is a nice object for 300mm lens.

M45-Pleiades

 Here is the same photo without tracking, the difference is clear.

M45-Pleiades

 The double cluster in Perseus.

הוסף כיתוב

 The beehive cluster (M44) at Cancer.

 The beehive cluster (M44) at Cancer.

 The great dog with Sirius, the brightest star.

The great dog - Canis Major

 Here is the same photo of Canis Major without tracking. Since the focal length is wider there isn't much smudging but there is still a considerable amount.

The great dog - Canis Major

Orion constellation. With blue Rigel (bottom right) and orange Betelgeuse (Top left), Orion belt in the middle and even a hint of Orion Nebula (m42) 

Orion constellation

The sun still rises

One of the most common of natures phenomena is the sunrise, watched by millions of people throughout history, always pretty and never boring. The Bible mentions sunrise many times and I included several appropriate verses throughout the article.

Ecclesiastes 1:5  The sun still rises, and it still goes down, going wearily back to where it must start all over again.

During this time of year there is a small gap in the buildings surrounding me, which enables a clear view of the sunrise in the east. I cannot see the exact sunrise, as the Samaria mountains block the horizon, but I do manage to see a few minutes after it. The series of photos show how each day the sun moves southward (the movement is actually the Earth movement in its orbit).

Sunday 25-Sep-2016. There were plenty of clouds so seeing the sunrise location was impossible, however, the photos are still nice.

Sunrise 25/9/2016

Sunrise 25/9/2016

Genesis 32:31 (ASV) And the sun rose upon him as he passed over Penuel

Monday, September 26th. The hill's name is "Jabel Taruja" where an ancient tomb is located. The hill is about 36km from my location.

Sunrise 26/9/2016

The palm tree, however, is just 400m from the camera

Sunrise 26/9/2016

Jonah 4:8 (CEB) Then as the sun rose God provided a dry east wind

Birds are very active in the morning, so at some point they are likely to fly in front of the sun, making a nice photo.

Sunrise 26/9/2016

Sunrise and a crow

Deuteronomy 33:2 (GNT) The Lord came from Mount Sinai; he rose like the sun over Edom

Tuesday 27/9/2016 - Notice the change in the sun's location.

Sunrise 27/9/2016

Here is a video of the sunrise at six times speed:

and here are the last photos as the clouds "swallows" the sun.

 Sunrise 27/9/2016

Judges 9:33 (KJV) And it shall be, that in the morning, as soon as the sun is up, thou shalt rise early,

2 Kings 3:22 (CJB) They rose early in the morning when the sun was shining on the water.

On Wednesday the sunrise is just to the left of the palm tree

Sunrise 28/9/2016

2 Samuel 23:4 (NKJV) And he shall be like the light of the morning when the sun rises, A morning without clouds

But on Thursday 29/9 it is on the tree's right

Sunrise 29/9/2016

And more birds

Sunrise 29/9/2016

Malachi 4:2 (CJB) But to you who fear my name, the sun of righteousness will rise with healing in its wings

Friday 30/9/2016 and the sun continues moving further south.

Sunrise 30/9/2016

Sunrise 30/9/2016

Psalm 104:22 (NKJV) When the sun rises, they gather together And lie down in their dens.

Sunday 2-Oct-2016 marked the last day of the Hebrew year 5776, and what a beautiful sunrise on this day

Sunrise 2/10/2016

Malachi 1:11 (NKJV) For from the rising of the sun, even to its going down, My name shall be great among the Gentiles;

To summarize the article, here is a wider photo from 29/9/2016 with added arrows to mark the sunrise locations some days before and after. The changes are considerable.

Sunrise 29/9 with location on nearby dates marked

The apparent movement of the sun in the sky is a combination of two movements: the Earth revolving around its axis is the daily motion of the sun in the sky from sunrise to sunset, and the yearly movement of Earth in its orbit around the sun causing small changes in the sun's location during the seasons. That small change is shown in the series above as every day the sunrise is in a slightly different place.

Sunset, sheep, airplanes, foxes, planets, and moonrise

Next time you have a free hour just see what you can photograph in it (everything in the post title). I went with my daughter to a nearby park (Shoam park) mainly to photograph the sunset and we discovered many more things

A herd of sheep

sheep

Not ideal conditions for sunsets. Lots of clouds and haze so we didn't see the actual sunset but it was still nice and we even saw some large sunspots.

sunset

sunset

Sunspots are visible in the next photo

sunset

While we are looking west to the sun, two curious foxes sneaked from the east. I think they looked for food and were disappointed not finding any. Please do not feed foxes or any other wild animals, and don't leave food behind you. 

fox

a fox asking for food

a fox

If you like the foxes enjoy the vidoe

After the foxes gone I was happy to see Venus in the clouds. I was not able to see Mercury but the camera did (at the top of the photo)

Venus and Mercury in clouds

Airplanes are coming to land from the west. The airport is 8km and I estimate the airplane to be double that distance when I start to take the video. It was already dark and hot air influence the sharpness. Need to try that again

And the last thing was the rising red moon

Rising red moon

And in a video

All of that in a single hour!