“A good snapshot keeps a moment from running away.” ― Eudora Welty
Copyright ©2024 Deborah M. Zajac. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.
PLEASE DO NOT USE MY IMAGES WITHOUT EXPRESSED WRITTEN PERMISSION.
US Army fort ruins from the 1860’s.
Nikon D850| Nikkor 20mmf/1.8g| Single frame
more to come…
Copyright ©2024 Deborah M. Zajac. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.
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…
Copyright ©2020 Deborah M. Zajac. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED
I was pretty excited to see the Great Conjunction as I’m sure most of you were too, so I hoped for clear skies to be able to photograph it. On the 16th of December the crescent moon, Jupiter, and Saturn were fairly close to each other and it was a clear sky so I photographed it from my patio. It was cloudy all day but cleared pretty well but the wispy contrails and remaining clouds made the sky a bit more interesting. Can you spy the ski runs at Heavenly Ski Resort? X marks the spot.
It was clear on Monday the 21st so I went out with my long lens to get a closer look at the conjunction. I had to crop it in for it to be a good look even at 400mm, but I was able to see 3 of Jupiter’s Moons too. The 3 tiny dots are the Moons.
Saturn’s rings are not defined which is disappointing, but I saw the Great Conjunction! Did you look for it?
I wish all those celebrating Christmas a very Merry Christmas, and those who aren’t I wish you a very Joyous Week!
Nikon D810| Nikkor 80-200mm f/2.8 and Fuji X-T3| Fuji 100-400mm| PS CC 22.1
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Copyright © 2020 Deborah M. Zajac. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED
I woke up really early last week and the sky was cloudless so I thought I’d go out back and photograph the Milky Way. The light-pollution is worse than I remember! This was at 3:49 A M!
Jupiter and Saturn are still shining brightly over the Pinenut Mountains. Mars has marched so far East it’s out of the frame.
What do you do when you wake up in the wee hours of the mornin?
Nikon D810|Nikkor 35mm f/1.8G| SunDisk Digital Film| PS CC 21.1.1
more to come…
Copyright © 2020 Deborah M. Zajac. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED
The end of March and through yesterday has been for me, a time of looking up to the night sky. Starting at the end of March I was looking up to see the Moon, Venus and the elusive star cluster called the Pleiades in conjunction. This was a practice shot because the night I was hoping to see Venus and the Pleiades closer together on April 3rd we had rain and snow so the sky was too cloudy to see them. That was a once-in-an-eight year event! I’m just glad I practiced so I saw this conjunction.
Nikon D810| Nikkor 35mm f/1.8G|f/2.8|2.8s|ISO 400| Lexar Digital Film| PS CC 21.0.3
Last night was the Supermoon. It appears just a bit larger than normal because the Moon comes the closest to Earth in its elliptic orbit called perigee.
We’ve been having light rain and snow and it was overcast all day but, we got lucky last night and the sky to the east was clear! I went down to the golf course with my next-door neighbor to photograph the Supermoon rise over the Pinenut Mountains.
Nikon D810| 24-120mm at 70mm|f/10|1/6s|ISO 250| Lexar Digital Film| PS CC 21.0.3
Then I switched cameras and made an image of just the Moon. Our moon looked more golden than pink, but the Belt of Venus wasn’t very deep in color around us either so…golden.
Fuji X-T3| Fujinon XF100-400mm LM OIS at 386mm| f/11| 1/100s| ISO 250| SunDisk Digital Film|PS CC 21.0.3
More things that are looking up is that we’ve had 8 people who had the Covid-19 virus move to the recovered side of life! There are still 17 active cases in our Quad county region. There have been no deaths yet. Knocking on wood that continues and that all move to the recovered column soon!
I hope you’re doing well and keeping busy.
I’ll leave you this thought today.
““Bad stuff does happen sometimes, always remember that but remember that you have to move on somehow. You just pick your head up and stare at something beautiful like the sky or the ocean and you move the hell on.”
― Suzanne’s Diary for Nicholas
more to come…
Copyright ©2016 Deborah M. Zajac. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED
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.
My settings were f2.2| 30seconds ea.| ISO 320| Manual Priority| Tripod|
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…
Copyright ©2016 Deborah M. Zajac. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED
I went out Friday night/Saturday morning star gazing hoping to photograph a meteor or two of the Perseid meteor shower. The Perseid Meteor shower is an annual event occurring from mid July to mid August as the Earth crosses the orbital path of Comet Swift-Tuttle; the parent of the Perseid meteor shower. Debris from the comet litters its orbital path, but we don’t get into the dense part of it until the first week of August. It’s this debris that slams into Earth’s upper atmosphere at 130,000 mile per hour lighting up the night sky with streaking Perseid meteors.
This year was to be particularly good for viewing more meteors because of our position in the debris path.
I saw a few really great meteors with wonderful balls of fire streaking through the sky, but the best image I made in 4 hours of sky watching was of this little meteor with some red at the head and a green tail. It’s a first time I’ve photographed the green tail.
There’s some of the Milky Way in there too, but faint, but there were oh, so many stars!
It was a wonderful night for star gazing.
Nikon Df| Nikkor 20mm f/1.8G @ f/2.8| ISO 1600| 26s single frame| Delkin Digital Film|PS CC 2015.5
Source-Earthsky.org
more to come…
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