Astrophotography by Birdman to the Stars

Astrophotography by the Birdman to the Stars

Why Birdman to the Stars?
Astronomy and Birding are my favorite past times!

Images - Digital and Film

Eclipses - Solar and Lunar

Anatomy of a Lunar Eclipse - the various points in time as the earth's shadow moves across the face of the moon.

Lunar Eclipse - California. May 15, 2003. Lunar eclipse that came and went with the clouds.

Partial Solar Eclipse, June 10, 2002. Not like Africa but an eclipse nontheless.

Total Solar Eclipse - Africa. June 21, 2001. Chirundu, Zimbabwe. Views roughly 80 miles from the center line in northern Zimbabwe.

Partial Solar Eclipse, December 25, 2000. A solar eclipse on Christmas morning was one heck of a present for astronomers in parts of North America and Europe this year. Even as far south as southern California, solar viewers were treated to this precursor for June's total solar eclipse in Southern Africa this coming June.

Lunar Eclipse, January 20, 2000. A lunar eclipse that fought with the fog. A few seconds of view was all we got.

Solar - Visible and h-Alpha

New Year's Day sunspots. January 1, 2001. A series of spots, one of which looks like a Christmas tree. Imaged with Nikon Coolpix 950 and eyepiece projection.

Sunspots thru a Nikon Coolpix 950, November 19, 2000. A C90, a tripod, eyepiece projection and a Coolpix 950. The results? Sunspots that look like sunspots.

Deep Sky Images

IC 405, IC 410, and M38, November 26, 2000. Auriga has many open clusters and obscure nebulae. Visually they are hard to find but with enough exposure they appear on film. this shot reveals how close these objects are to each other in Auriga.

M8, The Lagoon and M20, Trifid Nebulae, September 30, 2000. Star and nebulae rich Sagittarius is visible for a few weeks during the summer. See how close M8 and M20 are to each other in the visually rich area of our galaxy.

M39, IC 5146, and B168, September 30, 2000. Cygnus has many dark nebulae. These interstellar cloud dust lanes, silhouetted against rich star fields, give the Milky Way a 3-D appearance. B168 is a pointer to IC 5146, or the Cocoon Nebula.
Astronomy Magazine, February, 2001

M7, Ptolemy's Cluster., August 26, 2000. Scorpius' tail contains many star clusters and dark lanes. This cluster can be seen from urban areas with binoculars.

M6 The Butterfly Cluster in Scorpius., August 26,2000. A star-rich area in Scorpius' tail.

M4 (NGC 6121) in Scorpius., July 22, 2000. I re-shoot this globular cluster once again. This time with better results than 1999.

M51 The Whirlpool Galaxy., July 22, 2000. After imaging this classic spiral galaxy in June, 1999 with a ccd camera, I tried again with film. Check out the results for some very interesting interpretations of tracking thanks to the ST-4 autoguider.

Astronomy Inns and Bed and Breakfast Inns

These are some of our favorite places to stay when traveling to some of the major observatories in the U.S.

Comets

Comet Macholtz - December 19, 2004. This was an end of the year comet. Faint at first, it provided some nice views as it passed through several winter constellation.

Comet Ikeya-Zhang - April 14, 2002. This is when I compared film vs. digital imaging on a Losmandy GM-11 with a ST-4 autoguider. Same lens, a Nikon 300mm f/2.8 on a Nikon F and a Fuji S1 DSLR. The results are surprising!

Comet Linear C/1999-S4. July 22, 2000. Comet 1999 / S4 LINEAR wasn't as bright as expected. But, it is a comet none the less. It is a fast moving comet which makes for some interesting tracking. Forget the drawings in the magazines. It didn't really look like them at all.

The Comet Hale-Bopp - Spring, 1997. This is what brought me back to astromony.

Planetary Views

Jupiter and Io, November 26, 2000. A Coolpix 950 image of Io's shadow on Jupiter.

Jupiter thru a Nikon Coolpix 950, November 18, 2000. On a lark I decided to play around with the Coolpix 950 and my C8. The results are surprising. Instant gratification has been taken one step higher with the Coolpix 950.

Saturn thru a Nikon Coolpix 950, November 18, 2000. Jupiter wasn't the only target for the night. The ringed beauty provided some incredible digital views as well.

Moon, Saturn, Jupiter and Mars Conjunction., April 6, 2000

Moon, Venus and 28 Sagittarii, February 2, 2000
Astronomy Magazine, June, 2000

Barn Door Astrophotography

Plans and tips for constructing a simple barn door mount.

Barndoor Images

Astrophotographer's New Moon., June 3, 2000

Scorpius over the 32nd Riverside Telescope Makers Conference., May 27, 2000

Sagittarius and the Great Rift, May 1, 2000

Cygnus, May 1, 2000

Equipment

The Learning Curve Shots

Great Moments in Astrophotography. Everyone who's placed a camera behind a telescope has gone through this. Check this frequently, there are always new mistakes to learn!

Oops Gallery

M44 comes out looking like it should! Take a look a the first try.

M13 in Hercules First image with a reflector

M57 - The Ring Nebula My first color image at prime focus. Surprised me too!

Merak and Chi in Ursa Major. Looking for the Super Nova in NGC 3877 and still working on focus.

Super Nova 1998s in NGC 3877 Found! This time it was in focus.

M97 In the Merak region of Ursa Major. In focus and now looking for M108.