Mt. Frackin' Graham

Geez! the things I do for science.

As most of you know - my "day job" is as a software engineer in support of the astronomical observatories around southern Arizona. As such I have the distinct pleasure of driving long hours to the tops of various mountains to telescopes in remote locations in the area. Mount Graham International Observatory (MGIO) is one of the places I visit more often than I like. At 10,500 feet - this place gets a lot of snow in winter - this winter being no exception. With 20+ feet accumulated so far this mountain has been a real hasle to deal with lately.

Yesterday we returned to change out science instruments on the VATT Telescope. A "small" winter storm was due to blow through on our way up - with only 2 to three inches of new accumulation expected - not a problem right?

In near "white-out conditions" we procceeded up the hill to the observatory - prepared - with 4 wheel drive and snow chains - barely making it intact. Needless to say - several members of the other co-resident observatories were not so lucky (or maybe smart is the better word) - getting stuck and blocking the road to the mountain for lack of chains and 4 wheel drive . . .

Below are scenes from the morning after - taken with my shitty iphone camera.

Gymcats

Last night I had the opportunity to photograph (or a least attempt to photograph) the Universityof Arizona Women's Gymcats in action against Washington. Sports photography is always challenging. As a photographer you need the equipment, patience and timing to do it right. I have the first two - need to work on the last one.

Gymnastics is particularly demanding - these girls move fast. You are not allowed to use flash for obvious reasons - and the venues where this sport is practiced have cluttered backgrounds of bleachers and fans, and are usually poorly lit with ugly harsh overhead lights - just bright enough so that you have to use fast lenses (< F/2.8), high ISO's (> 1250), and fast shutter speeds (Faster then 1/320 sec) if you want to have any chance of stopping the action.

Timing is critical - even with a Canon 1D Mark IIN running @ 8 frames a second - it was tough to get a decent action shot. My 5D Mark II was more or less useless unless you knew exactly when to push the trigger - timing - its all timing. . .

Here is my first attempt (I get another chance on March 12th). All shots were obtained with either a 70-200 F/2.8 or a 300mm F/2.8 lens - wide open and ISO 1600. Shutter speeds ranges from 1/250 to 1/400 of a second.

When worlds meet

This evenings sunset conjunction of Venus and Jupiter.

Tough Shoot

As an amateur astrophotographer, I'm always on the lookout for challenging astronomical events to photograph. Well - tonight, a gathering of Jupiter, Venus and the Moon (called a conjunction) was visible at sunset.

Below is the view through a 300mm lens. A tough shot to get - the moon was only 23 hours past new and only 3 degrees above the horizon. This image was obtain just 2 minutes before Venus set behind the distant Tucson Mountains.

Not so fast!

Spent the day photographing hummers in my backyard. The setup was simple - a feeder in the shade hanging from the roof of my back porch, a couple of off-camera radio controlled speedlights set up about three feet from the feeder @ 1/128th power, my Canon EOS 1D MKIIN on a tripod with a 70-200mm @ 200mm, manual exposure set to the max sync speed of the radio strobes (1/320th of a second) with the background 2 stops under exposed - and bang!

Not so fast. According to others on the web, my 580EX flash at this power setting is suppose to produce a 1/30,000th of a second duration flash - enough to completely freeze any motion of these little criters - or so you would think. Someone is lying. Either these birds are DAMN fast or the flash isn't. Me thinks its the later.