Venus in the Pleiades

Tonight and tomorrow night Venus will be passing through the Pleiades star cluster (also known as Messier 45 or M45) as seen from Earth. the planet isn't really passing "through" the cluster but just positionally appears to be passing the cluster as seen from our planet. A 400mm lens and a full frame digital camera were used to image the conjunction.

Below is an image shot through a Celestron C5 with a 0.63X focal reducer using a Canon EOS 1D Mark IV. Note the peculiar internal reflections. Sigh.

A Day at the Museum

I don't get out much these days - chemo leaves me tired and a little weak but yesterday I went to the Arizona Sonora Desert Museum with my Nephew Bryan and Brother-in-law Daniel. I brought my new Canon EOS 1D Mark IV (well not new - but new to me. I bought it from my good friend Michelle who sold it to me for a great price.) Man this thing is fast - at 10 frames per second you can burn through a 16 Gig memory card pretty quick. I think I took over 2500 images during the 5.5 hours we were there (yeah - and only about 100 were worth keeping or not duplicates - typical of my imaging success rate :-)).

My friend and "student" Frank meet us there and based on what he has posted on FB - kicked my arse. The student is now the Master - time for him to leave the nest.

Anyway here are a few of my efforts with the new camera. Most were taken with the 400mm F/2.8 monster - I was unfamiliar with the camera controls and therefore the images are not of my usual caliber. That's my excuse and I'm sticking to it. :-)

Out of the House

Today was a pleasant day out of the house. My friend Frank took me to Sweetwater Reserve - a duck lovers paradise. I brought along a pile of equipment (I should say Frank brought along a pile of my equipment since he hauled it into the reserve for me as to not tire me out.) So here are a few obligatory shots of DUCKS (I hate ducks!) and then on to something a little more interesting (for me at least.)

I spent some time setting up for a couple of portraits - trying to over power the sun with a couple of speedlights. Here are the results. The first one is probably the only self portrait I've done in over 5 years.

A couple IR images of Frank and the setup.

And an unretouched image of how it was done.

Reid Park

My first photographic outing since I got sick. Went with Frank to Reid Park for some bird watching. Here are a few shots from the short day in the Park.

Red Hills

Spent a few minutes at Saguaro National Monument West this afternoon. The Red Hills Visitor center has a magnificent set of arched ceiling beams on the back porch that - at certain times of the year and certain times of the day - present some amazing shadows.

The mountain upon which Kitt Peak National Observatory resides - seen in Infrared light.

The reflection of the porch in the giftshop windows.

If you take the image below . . .

and perform a little transformation trick called "Magic Circle" . . .

You get this . . .