Sunset
was a little hazy, but I noticed a temperature boundary as the Sun was
setting. Note the small mock mirage (the little piece of the Sun
breaking off at the top) that formed. I saw a couple of others in the
process of forming, but they were small and the small ones are difficult
to time your pics to get them (unlike the big ones I got a few weeks ago!)
You
might notice it looks a little hazy out there. Lots of haze scatters
shorter wavelength light making a green flash less prominent, but didn't
totally obscure it tonight.
Shortly
after sunset, there was a nice gathering in the west. The crescent Moon
was joined by (from left to right) Mercury, Pollux and Castor.
After
it got dark, I walked by over to the VLBA dish and got a shot of a nice
starry sky behind it. Look closely and you can see the 4 meter
telescope dome in the background. The lights you see behind the mountain
come from Tucson, over 50 miles away.
Finally,
as it got darker, the summer Milky Way rose above the eastern horizon. I
had to look southeast to see it and couldn't find a trial to get the
VLBA dish in the foreground that didn't lead off the side of the
mountain. I still got the four meter and a couple of others in this one.
The tree in the foreground was illuminated by light coming from the
bathroom window. I went inside to try and turn out the lights and there
was no light switch! I assume the mountain staff know how to turn it
off, but seems like a design oversight to not give people the option to
turn it off themselves! Fortunately, it wasn't too bright at this
distance to hamper the photography and in the end, I kind of like the
way the tree came out.
Reprinted with permission from the Half-Astrophysicist Blog.
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6 comments:
Great shots, hale! I especially like the last one with the Milky Way. We have way too much light pollution around here. We don't have the opportunity to see that.
I agree. Gorgeous photos, hale.
love all the stars, if only we had views like that here!
Excellent photos hale!
What great pictures, thanks for sharing, I wonder what Kitt peak may now look like with all of the fires surrounding the area.
These pics were taken Friday night so Kitt Peak looks pretty much like that :)
There are not many fires in this part of the state. The fires in Arizona are up north between Globe and Payson. There was a small fire on Baboquivari (the next mountain over from Kitt Peak) but it didn't spread and caused no problems. We can get smoke here when the winds blow in certain directions. We had some pretty smoky days caused by the Gila fire a couple weeks ago. The Gila fire is in New Mexico and you could see the smoke on the satellite photos going straight over us from that fire.
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