The Window Seat!

It was a week ago now that I transitioned back to "Ketelsen West". The move was just in time evidently as the high temperatures back east are in the teens and single digits, and Tucson is warm (80s) and sunny. But I enjoy both locations, so pretty much am home at either location.

As always, I enjoy the plane ride and always book the window seat - looking down sun, of course! Having the sun shine into the window you are sitting creates bad reflections and makes for lousy photos. Always shooting down sun is the way to go. So for the morning flight, I was on the right side of the plane, scoping out the northern direction from our flight path.

We had full overcast, but not the predicted freezing rain as we took off. It made for a boring start to the flight other than what was seen as soon as we cleared the cloud deck - a glory! Now these are not unusual - I've even blogged about them a couple times before. In this last link, I even demonstrated that you can infer the cloud droplet diameters by measuring the diameter of the first ring of the glory. You can also tell from the centering of the rings that I was sitting at the rear of the plane. Everyone who looks has their own - the pilot in the front sees one centered on the front tip of the plane.

The clouds hung around thru all of Illinois, and it magically cleared showing the Mississippi and the "Quad Cities".  Shown at right, is the River, with Davenport above it, Bettendorf to the right, Rock Island in the middle of the River and Moline below. Below Moline is the regional airport I've flown out of a few times when visiting family back in the 90s.

The little game I play is to see how far I can keep track of our flight path. Of course, rarely we fly over my house or family farms I've spend my early years tending. When/if I get disoriented, take a photo of a distinctive landmark you can find on Google Maps and re-set the internal clock - even when after the flight! For a little ways we paralleled the Mississippi until it turned more south, and shortly after that I spotted the confluence of what must be the Iowa and Cedar Rivers in SE Iowa. I also had my IR camera at the ready which much more readily shows the streams and wetland areas as pure black at a much higher contrast. Here the color shot is at left and the infrared version (beyond our range of vision to the red at right. I purposely used the wider view for the IR since with its additional property of haze-cutting, it also shows details at greater distance too. In the color shot, you can spot the towns of Columbus Junction to the left of the confluence, and Fredonia to the right. Just above the confluence is a huge Tyson Foods processing plant...


Crossing southern Iowa wasn't particularly exciting - no major metropolitan areas. There are a couple big reservoirs which served as waypoints as we crossed hundreds of miles of farm land. The next BIG appearance was the Missouri River. The Missouri has seen some major flooding in recent years and I've not kept up with its current status. In the visible image at left, the main channel seems full and perhaps some nearby farmland appears flooded. What I noticed in taking the photo is there was a loop-de-loop in the center, and a cursory search revealed it to be an "oxbow" lake, where the meandering of the river got cut off, forming the characteristic shape lake. This particular one is called Big Lake Recreation area, about 25 miles northwest of St Joseph, Missouri. If it can be believed, the area looks even more impressive in the IR as shown at right. With the plethora of darkness, there might be much more flooding down along the Missouri that I first realized...


Once into the northern Kansas area, all bets were off as far as keeping track of the flight path.  At least off the right side of the plane, there were no metropolitan areas - only the occasional reservoir allowed checking the flight path later.

There is another interesting optical phenomenon seen when looking down sun. When very high (we were at 32,000 feet), where the plane's shadow would normally be, you see a subtle bright spot instead! Called the Opposition Effect, it is an enhanced brightness as there is a small area without shadows, and possible brightening depending on what type of surface it is. I was waiting for this brightening to pass over a town or urban area, and it finally did - over Lacrosse, KS. Shown at left, the diffuse bright spot is tough to pick out, but what it does do is make all the street signs glow brightly! You can see many of the signs along the main drags brightly colored as the glass balls built into the signs to enhance brightness at night also work to reflect the light back to the observer during the day (me, in this case, the shadow being cast on the town)...

At the western edge of Kansas, dropping into Colorado and New Mexico, the clouds increased and there was nothing more to see. I missed the normal sight of Albuquerque, the VLA Telescope, and Mount Graham as we approached Tucson - all lost in the clouds. It didn't really clear till we crossed the Rincons on the east side of Tucson. Circling the town once, to land towards the southeast, we flew pretty much right over my house, so got a good view of the Rillito Racetrack - a horse racing venue during late winter about a mile north of my house. Also seen on the image to the left is the bike paths that trace both sides of the Rillito wash where I bike all the time.

Continuing to circle, we had a view to the west also, where a distant view of Kitt Peak (the flat-topped mountain in the far distance) was seen over the nearby Tucson Mountains.

Another journey complete, but I'll guarantee you that next trip I'll be watching out the window yet again!

Visible and Invisible

Woo Hoo - back in the Midwest for a visit to "Ketelsen East"! But what is this watery substance my skin is excreting??? For the first time the last few Summer visits, it is miserably hot and humid! A big change evidently as they have been "enjoying" a cool, very wet Spring. Farmers have been unable to get into fields to plant and evidently a slow-motion disaster is in progress...

Anyway, last weekend my maternal grandmothers family held a reunion that I was able to attend! Held every 2 years, it has been going on a few times. Held in a church camp in eastern Iowa (Grace Lutheran Church Camp), I didn't take any photos of relatives I've not seen in decades, but knowing that there would be some blue sky and greenery, I took my IR-modified camera to take some landscape photos!


Most modern cameras are sensitive to infrared (IR) light, but the sensors are filtered to specifically block those wavelengths invisible to the eye beyond the red end of the visible spectrum. Well, there are some neat effects going on just past our vision limits and 8 or so years ago I got an inexpensive DSLR camera on Ebay and paid a modest fee to remove the IR blocking filter and replace it with an IR pass filter. While the view through the camera looks normal, the photos are anything but! As shown here, the IR shots show white trees and grass, indicative of chlorophyll, which is a strong reflector of IR, and dark water and sky, which absorb or do not scatter IR light. Please enjoy the photo comparisons, which I've tried to match the exact field with the modified Canon 20D, and the visible color images from my Canon 6D. The IR shots do not look unlike the view of a snowfall covering grass and vegetation, but that is indeed NOT the case.


The longer IR wavelengths easily penetrate haze and dust, and are scattered less by the atmosphere. Looking at the photos above, the clouds just above the treetops are more easily seen in the IR shot as it is less affected by haze and contrast is increased. In the long-distance views from mountaintops in AZ, this effect can be used to more clearly discern distant details. But since the horizon is at most only a mile or two away in flat and tree-infested Iowa, this effect is much less. But note in these photos left and right that the algae mats growing along the water edge also glow white from chlorophyll!



For years I've tried to photograph details within the structure of a leaf, but it all glows so completely white it is hard to pick out any details. These photos are from an oak tree, and structure is clearly seen in the color image at right, but harder to discern in IR, even with severely playing with brightness and contrast. What you can see are some little spots that align with little leaf defects, perhaps insect bites or other small intrusions, that clearly show a lack of chlorophyll.

You may see more from the IR camera in coming weeks - I love seeing the normally hidden world revealed!

Last Weekend - Part 2!

In the last post, I showed some of the first results with the new-to-me 6D. While taking the wide shots of the transiting Milky Way, with the lower edge of the field near the horizon, I noticed the strong green cast of an airglow display. The last image of that set, shown at left, shows the airglow at its highest extent that I caught. While it has the greenish glow of aurora (558nm), airglow is completely different from the northern lights they can resemble. First, they can appear in any direction - due south in this exposure. Airglow (the green kind) is caused by the recombination of oxygen atoms that were photo-ionized during the daytime.




But when airglow is visible as green in the camera or faintly visible to the eye as a glowing white cloud (too faint to trigger eye's color sensors), chances are there is a good display in the near infrared as well. I've got an IR-modified camera that replaces the IR blocking filter with an IR-pass for some cool landscape effectsI've also posted some airglow images and time-lapse clips here before. Of course, being duly prepared for anything, I had packed the camera for the outing Sunday nite, so set up the modified Canon 20D with the Nikon 16mm fisheye on a tripod to shoot a clip. There was indeed a nice display that filled the field of the fisheye lens. In addition, the structure showed good motion, so was great for a time-lapse clip. Interestingly, while the green airglow showed very faintly to the eye, this IR stuff, that looks so much like bands of cirrus moving through the field, was totally undetectable! Oh, and just to show the subtle changes that shooting in the near-IR (NIR) shows, at right is a close-up of the Milky Way center.  While the Teapot asterism of Sagittarius and the end of Scorpius are readily visible, there are some bright stars that seem out-of-place. Eta SAG and G SCO seem brighter - as bright as any of the other stars in the constellations (compare to color image above!). Sure enough, checking their Wikipedia entries, both are spectral class K or M supergiants that would appear brighter in the red...

The IR airglow emissions, interestingly enough, are known as OH Meinel Airglow, named for the scientist, Aden Meinel, who identified the source of the infrared glow from OH emissions in the upper atmosphere. And if you don't know Aden Meinel, shame on you! A Lick Observatory astronomer when he was hired by the NSF to establish a National Observatory (eventually located on Kitt Peak), he served as its first director before moving across the street to serve as director of Steward Observatory, and then went on to found the Optical Sciences Center! He is really the reason the Tucson area is a major center of astronomy and optics, even now 50 years after his efforts! I blogged about one of his last appearances in Tucson 6 years ago (he passed in October, 2011)...

In his first paper (1950) where he presents his evidence the spectral lines were due to OH+, he talked about the "short exposures" of 4 hours at Yerkes Observatory, compared to the 32 hour exposures required (over several nights!) with older instrumentation at Lick Observatory! Of course, this was due to the extremely slow IR photographic plates of the day. Imagine what he would think of the 60-second exposures shown here! So about 80 minutes of monitoring are included in the clip here, after some minor stretching. The banding structures are known as "gravity waves" - not the newly found electromagnetic waves from merging black holes, but bands in the upper atmosphere caused by upper winds and the restoring force of gravity...

Here is the clip - enjoy!

3D Extravaganza!

I often have a blog post in mind, but gets misplaced in the shuffle of life. Such is was in a trip back from Illinois way last June. I even mentioned in that post that 3D shots were on the way, but then, here we are in 2016 and I'm just remembering to post them! So grab your red/blue anaglyph 3D glasses and come along for the ride!

Just as a review, while you are moving along on a jet plane at 600 miles an hour, if you take a couple images a couple seconds apart, your baseline is defined by how much you have moved. Entered into Photoshop, the images are aligned, and verified that the scale is the same - the procedure to convert to a red/blue image to view with anaglyph glasses in about a 4 step process. I'll describe it in detail if anyone is interested, but so far, no one has asked. I had a great, high, quality window on that trip, so was a joy to sit with camera and nose pressed against it. When converting to anaglyph, sometimes color tints come into play, so most on that return trip were taken with B&W images from my IR-modified camera. It cuts through the haze for better contrast, turns the sky and bodies of water dark, and vegetation comes out very light or white. Then, when viewed through the red/blue glasses, the images stay B&W without introducing weird color shifts in a color image. But just to prove it works with color, this first image is a color image pair shot in northern New Mexico somewhere. The sinuous landforms and the depth in the clouds and their shadows are quite dramatic! This was shot in color on the trip up to Illinois, the rest are on the return ride...


There is an optimum spacing for revealing the depth in an image. Too large a baseline and it is difficult for your eyes to adjust for the nearest and farthest points of an image. If you restrict the near/far distance, keeping the baseline large exaggerated the depth of the image. Any baseline larger than your eye spacing are defined as "hyper-stereo", but with upwards of a mile separation, these would be considered extreme hyper-stereos! Case in point is this view of a canyon at left that I think is the Middle Gila River in SW central New Mexico. I cropped off the near/far distance so that the large separation would exaggerate the stereo effect.

At right, coming into Tucson, we passed low over the Rincon Mountains, and because of the low altitude, caught lots of details in the terrain and individual Ponderosa pine trees at the high elevations of Mica Mountain.

As is normal, we circled counter-clockwise over the north side of Tucson to land towards the SE at the airport on the far south side of town. I already posted a picture of our cul-de-sac on the earlier blog post. But as we passed the full length of town with the Catalina mountains out my window in slow review, I couldn't help but take a huge series of images pairs. First up is a great stereo pair from the peak of Mount Lemmon at nearly 9200 feet, down to Thimble Peak (5200 feet elevation) at lower center. The ridgeline it sits on divides Bear Canyon on the near side, Sabino Canyon beyond. I love how the few clouds provide a dappled surface that shows up so well on the 3D image.

The next pair at right was taken a few seconds later, and is very similar, but I like the slightly wider shot that shows the clouds at the top of the image. I couldn't decide which I liked better, so you get them both!


One of the nice things about the use of a zoom lens is that you can switch quickly between fields-of-view to vary the coverage. At left is a wider shot as the parade past the "front range" of the Catalinas continued. At left, nestled against the mountain slopes is the white-appearing Ventana Canyon golf resort, with its namesake Ventana Canyon to the left and Esperero Canyon to the right. The black spot at right center is the parking lot at Sabino Canyon. This image pair that made up the anaglyph was shot at 50mm focal length.

A fraction of a minute later, the narrower shot at right resulted. Shot at 85mm focal length, it shows Ventana Canyon in much more detail, with Cathedral Peak at right and Window Peak at left. I'm a big fan of documenting Window Rock, easily seen from around Tucson, and while Window Rock can be seen just left of Window Peak, the window itself can't be seen from this angle or magnification...


The parade of the Catalinas continued with this great view of Finger Rock, barely picked out of the profile top at left center. In front of it is Finger Rock Canyon. Following it uphill, the trail eventually reaches Kimball Peak at the far right.

We finally ran out of mountain ranges out my window, and I also shot our house about then. We banked around towards the south and I also got a few of the popular viewpoint of Gates Pass over the Tucson Mountains on the west side of town. This is one of the "shortcuts" over the range to the west of Tucson - in fact, one of the popular attractions, western movie studio "Old Tucson" is visible at the far upper right corner.

Well, you are now up to date on our June trip! Sorry about the delay, but I'm thinking these 3D anaglyphs are pretty spectacular and glad I finally got them out there!

2015 Canyon, Day 2 And Wrapup

In the last post, I covered the trip up to the 2015 Grand Canyon Star Party and day 1. I'd planned to sleep in the rear bench seat of the van at the campsite, but it didn't turn out so well. The seat is a little short and narrow to get very comfortable, so found myself moving to one of the captain's chairs at 4am, which was much better when reclined fully (nearly flat). But still, sleep didn't come easily - a couple hours at most.

It was easy to catch an early date for breakfast I'd learned about the night before. Bernie had seen our long-term ranger liaison, Chuck Wahler and he had invited him and me to join them at El Tovar at 8:30. You don't turn down a chance to eat at the grande dame of Canyon hotels, so was there when Chuck and his son Jake arrived. I'd first met Jake when he was 5, and he was now in his final training for ranger law enforcement and about to move to Shenandoah National Part. And of course it was great to see Chuck and hear that their daughter Erin was also doing well. Food was great, service was exquisite - expectations met!

After everyone had parted, I lingered near the rim. Not knowing if I would find parking, I had taken the bus to El Tovar, so for the first time this trip, took some stereo pairs - my latest craze. While most stereo images are of nearby objects, with an imaging baseline approximating the eye separation, I'm a fan of "hyperstero", where much larger baselines reveal depth at great distances. The canyon is a perfect testbed with ridges and valleys off to a dozen or more miles distant. These require an image baseline distance of 100 meters or more. For viewing these, you will need the red/bluish glasses to view these anaglyph images, but the results are quite amazing. These 2 images of the Isis Temple formation had a baseline between images of about 150 yards. While both of these are the same field, the right one is with the IR camera and offers superior haze penetration and sharpness.

Of course, for not-quite-so-distant fields, the baseline separation doesn't need to be so large. At left, Lookout Studio's precarious perch is revealed with a baseline of just a few yards. Visible in the background is where the West Rim Drive follows the Canyon rim, and also, the Bright Angel Trail can be seen switch-backing down the canyon wall below. When examined too closely, some ghosting can be seen because it took several seconds between exposures, so hikers and anything that moves do not line up correctly. But the net affect of the 3D is pretty powerful. The shot at right is of the western edge of Bright Angel Canyon, again, with a moderate baseline of 10-15 yards.

And while we're on the 3D, lets finish it out with these shots nearer to sunset from Yavapai Point. Shooting north towards the north rim up Bright Angel Canyon, the baseline for both of these was about 100 yards. Of course, I don't have a strong favorite of these, though I like the sharpness of the IR shot a little better. But likely some prefer the color image. An interesting effect visible in these is that the shadows were long enough nearing sunset to cause visible changes in the 3 minutes between the exposures. If you look at the full-size images out near the long shadow tips, some weirdnesses can be seen in the 3D image. It is probably easier to see in the higher-contrast IR image. Ok, enough for the 3D for now - but do let me know if you enjoy them and want to see more!

The highlight of the final day of the star party is usually the get-together picnic. This year, as last, the overlook at Shoshone Point was reserved for our use. It is closed to the public, so very nice to have use of the pavilion and grills for our own use. I'd been there decades ago when I jumped the gate and biked to the end, but missed last year's event, so it was a first for me! The idea of cooking didn't appeal to much for me, so brought a deli sandwich and some sides. Because of the heat and limited parking requiring car pooling, only about 25 attended, but it was a lot of fun. Shoshone Point is about 6 miles east of where I had taken the above pictures near El Tovar. Just right of center in the IR picture at left is Isis Temple, which was the center of the first 3D shots above. The view from the east here looks significantly different especially at it's tip. At right in another IR image, Bernie was taking a portrait of Mae Smith and her kilted son Carter.

In the image at left, our junior astronomer Robert has been attending with mom and dad, Lynn Ann and Brian since he was born, though I suspect he isn't allowed near the Nagler eyepieces with Cheetos dust on his fingers! After the requisite feasting, Jim O'Connor and Marker Marshall covered some details of the star party, revealed the dates for next year (4-11 June, 2016), and looked for feedback to improve the event from the attendees. Having been away from the organization of it for what, 6 years or so, I'm gratified the star party is improving and gaining more park support every year. It continues to grow and improve, mostly thanks to the volunteers with the telescopes and these two people at right.

This year the local elk population has seemed to explode! In my normal wanderings, seeing a dozen or more per day was not unusual, much more than even recent years. While no large antlered males were spotted, there were lots of cows and youngsters, and this fawn was seen hiding behind mom as we returned to to camp from our cookout.

Finally the last evening of the star party approached. I finally stepped up and set up my Celestron 14", going to the site early to get it installed well before the 7pm Otterpops meeting. Tonight I was joined by buddy Chuck Schroll! We had texted the night before - he had flown his plane down to the Bryce Canyon National Park's astronomy event for the weekend (Chuck has been spending the summer at Badlands National Park as their Summer astronomer). I offered to pick him up if he flew over the Canyon and he accepted! So we worked together to handle the big rush of crowds that started as soon as we picked up our first object - the moon. It didn't slow down for hours, so was great to have a partner to get a break once in a while.

My little experiment of the night was accidental. I used my 70-200 zoom to shoot a pic of the moon and planets in the west, then happened to do it again about 80 minutes later. I got the idea once home to use the stars in the frame to align them to show the moon's motion in that time. It worked great, as shown at right. The moon moves it's diameter about every hour, warping the triangle it made with Venus and Jupiter noticeably as time passed in the twilight. Interestingly, Jupiter wasn't detected to have moved, though Venus has a double image too . Thinking about it later, Jupiter is mostly moving with the stars, but Venus is still moving to maintain a nearly constant distance from the sun (for now), so is moving strongly towards Jupiter. They will have a very close conjunction next week...

We worked hard until well after 11, and finally got the scope loaded and headed towards camp about Midnight. Chuck had a long flight back to South Dakota, and I wanted to get to Tucson before it got too hot, so we agreed to leave about 6am. We made that schedule and I dropped him off at the GC airport on my way out. 6 hours later I pulled into the driveway in Tucson, tired and ready for about 2 days of sleep, but glad I made it to the star party. Not only did I maintain my 25-year streak of attendance, don't forget I was also there for the zeroth, since Vicki and I originally started it on our 1st anniversary and I was there for the honeymoon! So my streak is actually 26 years! Anyway, the event continues to be great fun - it is amazingly entertaining to impress people with the view through even a smallish telescope from a dark sky, and I hope it continues for a long time! See you there next year!

Grand Canyon Star Party 2015 - Day 1

In the last post I related how my 25 year streak at the Grand Canyon Star Party was in jeopardy with our Midwest travels and Melinda's chemo midweek. But she encouraged me to go, so found myself headed up for the last 2 days. So do check out that post as it has my early favorite images from this year's event.

It has been a long time since I've attended the event alone, so was a bit weird driving up by myself... It was great weather, though I was leaving behind an expected high of 111F in Tucson and 115F in Phoenix, so an early morning departure was called for!  Though I put off packing the van till Friday morning, I was on the road by 8:30, with lots of gear for observing, no so much for camping - was thinking of just crashing in the back bench seat for sleeping...

This was the first summer trip for the new van, and I've just figured out some of it's minor issues.  I'm thinking there is a vacuum leak in the control of where the blower air goes. When accelerating or climbing a hill, I'm not sure where the cool air goes, but doesn't come into the van! Letting up on the gas rewards you with a nice cool breeze - a nice reward not to be a leadfoot!

Fortunately, by the time we climbed the long hill into Flagstaff, the temperature had dropped into the 90s... As Flagstaff approached, the sky seemed hazier too. Finally pulling into town and gassing up, there was a single patch of snow on the south face of the San Francisco Peaks north of town. With the haze in the air, I shot the image at left with the infrared-modified camera - no trace of haze in that shot, but of course, the vegetation comes out white, and the sky darker than normal. The image looks over Mars Hill, and in case you can't spot it, that single patch of snow is up just left of the peak above the treeline. While there has rarely been snow on the south facing slopes in mid-summer, there had been snow falling recently, so was surprised to see almost none.

Taking route 180 NW towards the Canyon, much more snow was revealed on the north face as the route circled the range. Unfortunately I ran into road construction which added a good 20-30 minutes to the drive. Just short of Valle, I looked for the snow-capped peaks and had a hard time spotting them. In the clear air here, they should have been easily visible about 30 miles away, but the haze buildup (found later to be from the forest fire east of LA) made spotting it tough - visually the bright snow fields were nearly floating against the blue sky - the mountain outline was nearly invisible. At left is the view of Humphrey's Peak in the color camera, and at right is the IR view. Another demonstration of an advantage of IR imaging - haze penetration!

Finally arriving at the Canyon about 4pm I first made the pilgrimage to the original home of the Star Party - Yavapai Point. Normally packed with cars, it was nearly empty of tourists, so walked to the rim to check out the hazy view - it was about as bad as I'd ever seen it, so moved on to Mather Campground to seek out some of my buddies. Mae Smith had taken over camp organization and pointed me to site #20 which had just been vacated that day. Early morning and late afternoon shade - perfect! Walking across the road, I ran into the camp of long-time attendee George Barber, who now makes the trip down from Utah to join us. We sat for a while and caught up each others news. He moved on to fix some dinner, and I went to Maswik cafeteria for one of my favorites - the "burrito grande". It was as tasty as ever, but again, strange to be eating by myself - none of the regular star party crew in sight...

Finally headed over to the star party location - the bus overflow lot behind the visitor center. I had already decided to take it easy that night and not set up the scope, instead moving around with camera and tripod to take some pictures.  Just after sunset I walked to the rim to see if the 3-day old crescent moon provided enough light to illuminate the Canyon for night photography (it doesn't).  So I went back to the star party - a HUGE crowd of tourists, as well as plenty of scopes, so didn't feel guilty about not setting up. It allowed me a chance to take some images, like that of Mike Magras and his 14" scope with a line of folks at left. In deep twilight, Scorpio can be seen rising, being lead by Saturn, the brightest object atop it. Unfortunately, the Milky Way can't be spotted as twilight was a bit to bright in the 13 second exposure. At right Dennis Young's 28" behemoth again made an appearance, here with overexposed crescent moon joining in the Venus and Jupiter conjunction. At far right in the image, Geminii's Castor and Pollux can be seen in twilight in the 4 second exposure.

One of my little projects for the evening is that the International Space Station was to make a nice dark-sky pass, moving into the earth's shadow. To the eye, it fades pretty quickly as sunlight filters and fades into the earth's atmosphere. I was hoping to catch some sunset glow as it disappeared into the stars of Libra. I had a pair of cameras ready, one with a 200mm telephoto, the other with an 85mm as backup to catch it. As it turns out, I didn't know the disappearance point well enough to catch it with the longer lens, but was fortunate with the 85. Shown here is the untracked 4o second exposure of fading ISS, with the lights of a plane at lower right. Sure enough, the fully illuminated white light of the full sun quickly fades, but also changing color to a burnt orange before disappearing. At right is a full-resolution crop of the end of the trail. With the extra resolution and bit more contrast stretch, it seems the track can be imagined almost to the edge of the field. One of my interests is to try detecting the ISS when it is out of sunlight, but illuminated by the nearly full moon - I'm thinking it should be visible in big binoculars, and an appearance like this where it moves into earth's shadow with a bright moon might be a good way to try this experiment.

Walking down the row of telescopes, I ran into Bernie - a regular here for seemingly forever. He was taking some pictures with a new camera - a Canon 6D, like that my friend Ken Spencer let me use up on LBT a couple months ago. While Bernie had a 35mm lens he had recently gotten, I talked him into mounting my F/2.8 fisheye on his camera for the ultimate in wide-angle views. Shown at left is a 25 second (!) exposure at ISO 6400. It shows nearly a 180 degree sweep of sky from the bowl of the Big Dipper at upper left, to the Scutum star clouds at right. The green "clouds" near the horizon are natural airglow in the upper atmosphere.  We've seen these nearly every year recently at this event, but the first time they are revealed so well in the large-sensor 6D. Also visible at left is the green laser pointer of an observer pointing out something to a tourist. They are very common at the star party as everyone wants to know where the scope is pointed. Normally they aren't very apparent in exposures, but is easily seen in the short exposure.

It was about this time the long day hit me and I headed back to camp - but once there was inspired to take the images of the Summer Milky Way framed by the ponderosa pine of the campground. Go to that post to check out that image. Day 2 coming next!