Night Sky – Circadianreflections Blog

Whatever Weds. Comet Lemmon

October 22, 2025October 22, 2025Posted in Astrophotography, Comets, Night Sky, Starry Night, Whatever WednesdayTagged Astrophotography, c/2025 A6 (Lemmon), Comets, Low Light Photography, Night sky, Nikon, Stars, Whatever Wednesday48 Comments

PLEASE DO NOT USE MY IMAGES WITHOUT EXPRESSED WRITTEN PERMISSION.

I went out with a friend to try to see if I could find and photograph C/2025 A6 Comet (Lemmon) on October 19th. I didn’t go too far from home just up into the Pinenut Mountains a little bit. l took my 50mm lens so I would be able to see a wide space of the sky and hopefully see it. I never saw it with my eyes or binoculars, but when I got home and uploaded my images I was happy to see my camera had seen it. It’s the tiny green dot upper center of the image.

It’s tiny at 50mm but, I cropped this in a bit for a better look.

©Deborah M. Zajac | http//:circadianreflections.com
Comet Lemmon Nikon D850| Nikkor 50mm

The next night I went back to the same spot with my old 80-200mm lens but, I wasn’t able to see it at all. I believe it was too low and behind the hills opposite.

So last night a friend and I went north to a spot I know that had more open sky. It took us a while to find it but, we did. My old lens had a bit of trouble focusing on my newish bigger sensor D810 but, once I uploaded my images I found I had several decent shots of the comet with a hint of its tail too.

©Deborah M. Zajac | http//:circadianreflections.com
Comet Lemmon| Nikon D810| Nikkor 80-200mmD| October 21, 2025

It’s always exciting to see a comet and this one is pretty cool. It was 55 million miles from Earth last night and it won’t be back again until the year 3175! Do you think my images will survive for my future family members to see my images made with probably antiquated photography methods and gear? Somewhere between 33 and 46 generations will pass before C/2025 A6 (Lemmon) comes our way again. It boggles my mind.

Did you see it?

more to come…

Whatever Weds. A Summer Night Under the Stars

August 7, 2024August 6, 2024Posted in Astro-Photography, Night Photography, Night Sky, Night Sky Imaging, Photography, Starry Night, Whatever WednesdayTagged Army Fort Ruins, High Desert, Light Modifiers, light painting, Light Pollution, Light Shaping, Low Light Photography, Milky Way, Nikon, Ruins, Sagebrush, Thousands of Stars37 Comments

PLEASE DO NOT USE MY IMAGES WITHOUT EXPRESSED WRITTEN PERMISSION.

©Deborah M. Zajac | http//circadianreflections.com Image

US Army fort ruins from the 1860’s.

Nikon D850| Nikkor 20mmf/1.8g| Single frame

more to come…

Whatever Weds. A Starlit Night

July 10, 2024July 10, 2024Posted in Astro Photography, Night Sky, Night Sky Imaging, Starry NightTagged After Dark, Astronomy, Milky Way, Mono Lake, NASA, Nikon, Other Worldly Locations, science, Space, Starry Nights, Stars, Summer, Tufas, Whatever Wednesday38 Comments

PLEASE DO NOT USE MY IMAGES WITHOUT EXPRESSED WRITTEN PERMISSION.

It’s that time of year when I yearn to be out imaging and gazing at the night sky. A friend and I went back down to Mono Lake to do just that. Thankfully, we didn’t have any clouds to worry about.

The lake is really high eliminating a lot of the beach area we learned from our camping trip last month so, we knew to take our tall boots because standing in the lake might be our best bet for imaging. We scouted in the afternoon and found this spot. When we were leaving for dinner we ran into a Ranger who told us she would be giving a talk on the summer sky and constellations that evening on the beach and invited us back to attend it. We said we’d be there. The talk was a fast 2 hours. It was great hearing the stories the Native Americans tell about the stars and how they named the constellations and how to find them . The talk ended just after 10PM which was perfect as the Milky Way was already visible and we had some time to get to our spot in time for the Galactic Center to rise. The Galactic Center is the central region of our galaxy. The best months to photograph the Milky Way in the Northern Hemisphere are from May to August when the Galactic Center is highest in the sky and the weather is usually better in the warmer months.

We were standing in water to photograph this scene, but it wasn’t very deep, and the waves were gentle so we didn’t have to worry about a big one coming along and getting into our boots. 😊

I got home about lunch time yesterday, unpacked, got the car washed, and then started getting ready for a visit with my son and daughter-in-law. I’ll be on and offline for a bit. I hope your week and summer are going well.

Nikon D850|Nikkor 20mm F1.8G|

more to come…

Whatever Wednesday: Reach for the Stars

July 3, 2019July 2, 2019Posted in Astrophotography, Milky Way, Night Photography, Night Sky, Nikon, Photography, Planets, Starry Night, Whatever WednesdayTagged camping, Dead Trees, Eastern Sierras, Good times with good friends, High Desert, Jupiter, Milky Way, Night sky, Nikon, Photography, Whatever Wednesday63 Comments

I met some girl-friends in Lee Vining this past week-end for a long weekend of camping and photography.

One of the things we wanted to do was some night photography. With the Moon rising in the wee hours of the morning we had several hours of the dark sky to work with.

After sunset which wasn’t too colorful, we went searching for a neat foreground to accompany a Milky Way image. We found this wonderful dead tree on a country road. We had a lot of fun shooting it and admiring the stars is always so peaceful.

If you look closely you’ll see I managed to capture several shooting stars in this frame.

The bright object above the tree is Jupiter.

Reach for the Stars

I have quite a few images to share in future posts from this week-end that include Wild Mustangs, a Ghost town at night, and some landscapes.

I hope you’re all having a great week!

more to come…

Trailhead to the Stars

September 11, 2016September 11, 2016Posted in Astro Photography, Night Photography, Night Sky, Night Sky Imaging, Nikon, Photography, Star Trails, Starry NightTagged Astrophotography, Marin County, Mt Tamalpias, Nikon, Photography, San Francisco Bay Area, Star Gazing, Star Trails, Starry Sky38 Comments

Last night I met Gordon, and some other friends in a Meet-Up group we’re in up on Mt. Tamilpias in Marin County to photograph the sunset, and then image the night sky.

There was an Astrology lecture in the Amphitheater so the park was open much later than it normally is which allowed us to stay late. YEAH! Normally the park closes a bit after sunset.

This is 74 frames stacked in PS CC 2015.5.

4 planes, and one shooting star flew through the sky while I was imaging. I didn’t see the shooting star at the time as I was looking away helping a friend with her settings and intervalometer. I was thrilled to see I caught it on film though.

It was a lovely night, not windy, or cold, and the company was great!

Nikon Df| Nikkor 20mm f/1.8G| Delkin Digital Film

More to come…

“Dwell on the beauty of life. Watch the stars, and see yourself running with them.” ― Marcus Aurelius, Meditations

August 15, 2016Posted in Astro Photography, Astro-Imaging, Night Photography, Night Sky, Nikon, Perseid Meteor Shower, Photography, Star Trails, Starry Night, Wide Field Astro-photographyTagged Astrophotography, Marcus Aurelius Quotes, Nikon, Perseid Meteor, Photography, Star Gazing, Star Trails, Starry Sky, Wide Field Astro-Photography19 Comments

While watching the night sky for Perseid Meteors Friday night I shot just under 300 frames. In all those frames I only managed to photograph 3 meteors! The rest that I saw were over my head or just out of the frame.

What to do with all those frames of stars? Stack them to make a Star Trail image is one thing.

Passing car headlights, other star gazers using their flashlights, and headlamps…maybe my own red headlamp too unintentionally light painted the trees, and foreground bushes for me.

If I get a chance to photograph the Perseids or any other meteor showers this year or next I’ll use my 16mm Fisheye lens to get more sky in my frame.

more to come…

A Window to the Stars

August 11, 2015August 11, 2015Posted in Milky Way, Night Sky, Northern Hemisphere, Windows, Yosemite National ParkTagged After Dark Photography, Astrophotography, Milky Way, Milky Way Galaxy, Night Sky Photograhy, Stars, Yosemite National Park14 Comments

Last Saturday a friend and I went up to Yosemite to photograph the Night Sky because the Moon was rising in the wee hours of the night we’d have several hours of dark sky to photograph the Milky Way.
This is just one view of the sky that I made.

I love how many more stars one is able to see up here in comparison to the city I live in; where far fewer stars are seen due to light pollution.

I adore city life and all it’s conveniences, but I need the country and high mountains for the serenity, beauty, and dark skies. I hope we as a people in this country can appreciate the stars enough to save some land/parks for dark skies because seeing so many stars is amazing, wondrous, and so inspiring that a special kind of person has the drive and adventurous spirit to travel among them no matter what the risk! If I had the math skills required for space travel I’d be there in a nano second!

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