A "Smoking" Cigar

 

Cigar Galaxy (M82), May 12, 2023

One Eyed Wonder

The young man had only one good eye, yet he saw things no one had seen before.  

It was New Year’s eve, the year 1774. In the port city of Hamburg in what would become present day Germany, the 27 year old  astronomer was observing the night sky, about to make a discovery that would bear his name.

Seven

Venus and Pleiades put on a a little show in the western skies around 10 pm on April 13, 2023.This photo was taken near the date of conjunction when the planet is still very close to the asterism. The "seven sisters" of Greek mythology appear within arms reach from the rooftops and windows where earthlings go about their nightly lives, largely oblivious of the scene above. 

Ben Trovato

Winter Hexagon, March 20, 2023

A hunter raises his bow to take aim. Two hunting dogs at his feet give chase. An angry bull with enormous horns and a bloodshot eye charges forward.  A chariot rolls in, while a pair of twins, their hands entwined, tower above it all and keep watchful eye over the unfolding drama.

In late winter / early spring evenings this ancient tapestry of light covers a wide swath of south western sky stretching as far as the eye can see from the horizon up to the zenith. The scene in this image here is captured from my front porch on March 20, the day of the Vernal Equinox.

The Winter Hexagon

Six brightest stars in this patch of the sky, form the giant asterism known as the Winter Hexagon. Each star is part of its own constellation. For five of them, their distances in light years from the earth mirror stages of human life from childhood to old age.

In the Earth’s Shadow

Total lunar eclipse as seen on Tuesday Nov 8, from my backyard. Composite of 15 stills.

While partial lunar eclipses are relatively common, November 8, 2022 presented one of those rare occasions when my backyard lay in the path of totality. 

Lunar eclipses can be either simple or notoriously difficult to photograph depending on what one is trying to do. The last time I captured one was in 2021, and despite my best intents, I had slept through half of the occultation and managed to catch the second half of the event through the exit. This time the moon was supposed to set while fully eclipsed so there would be no such second chance. The next event visible in the Americas would not be until three years later in 2025. So though it was going to be cold, and the ungodly hour of four in the morning, I had to give it a shot. 

The Planets That Were Not

Animation of Jupiter's three nearest moons over 2.5 hours; Credit: Purnendu Gupta; Sep 26, 2022 

It was the night of January 7, 1610. A man in his mid forties stood in the back garden of his three story home in Padua, Italy. In his hand was his home made telescope pointed at the planet Jupiter.  He was the chair of mathematics at the university of Padua. Though well known by then, he had not quite become the icon that he would go on to be. Most of his remarkable achievements still lay in the future. But one that he would make over the next few days would etch his name in the history of astronomy forever.

To Catch A Falling Star: On A Perseid Trail

A glimpse of the Perseid meteor shower caught on camera on the Aug 12-13 night from my backyard. In this composite frame, four streaks can be seen (5 if you have a keen eye) through severe sodium vapor light pollution from the ground and the glow of a full moon behind camera.

Colors of Starlight

Albireo. Source:  Sky and Telescope Credit; Purnendu Gupta

Albireo in the constellation Cygnus is an optical binary star system, best known for its contrasting colors. To the naked eye, it appears as a single star near the beak of Cygnus, the swan, as it flies with its wings spread and neck along the center line of the Milky Way on summer nights. But in almost any small telescope it splits into a striking blue-gold pair. One of the two points of light, yellow-gold Albireo A , is itself a suspected four star system. The primary is a red giant about 60 times larger than the sun. The other, Albireo B, is a blue-white main sequence star

The first image is through a telescope shot on July 12, from my backyard. The second below, showing Albireo in Cygnus and a single meteor in Lyra, was shot with a wide lens in April, 2020

Distant Dawns

 

Planet Parade, June 26, 2022; 4:45 a.m.

The night of June 25^th, 2022, presented a rare opportunity for earthbound observers to view all the naked eye solar system planets at once. As a bonus, the crescent moon would be out close to the ecliptic making it a truly rare alignment. 

Up to three planets at a time are a relatively common sight I had recorded before but all five would be a personal first. In the run up to this day, the images poured in from various astro-photographers on social media. They looked beautiful, but also more similar than not. 

To change things up a bit, I planned to capture the event in two different ways. The first, would be a customary panoramic still as seen from the east facing window of my bedroom. The second would be a timelapse which would catch all the action.

Brighter Than a Billion Suns

Source: Sky and Telescope Credit: Purnendu Gupta

What kind of “explosion” lasts for months and outshines a billion suns? If you haven’t guessed it, it’s the average garden variety supernova. 

Above is my first supernova image captured from my backyard on the night of May 11-12, 2022. Known as SN2022hrs, it shows up here as a white dot between two galaxies - the elliptical Messier 60 and smaller spiral NGC4647. This light from sixty three million light years away, is also sixty three million years old. Breaking news from a time when dinosaurs had just vanished from the earth.

Connecting the Dots

Four planets line up outside my bedroom window just before sunrise today (April 29).

The planets and the sun seem to lie on a single straight line. While it may seem like a lucky shot, this alignment is anything but momentary.