Andromeda Galaxy Cherry Grove Observing Site, MN, 08 Oct 1999 E200 Ektachrome, pushed +2 stops Superposition of two 20-minute exposures
The Andromeda Galaxy spans a portion of the sky that is larger than the full moon! But a full moon would wash out the sky, making the galaxy hard to see, even with binoculars. When the sky is dark it can be seen as a hazy smudge, making it the most distant object (more than two million light years away) that we can see with the naked eye.
In the eyepiece of a telescope the smudge becomes larger, but to detect the wonderful spiral structure and faint blue outer arms of this galaxy requires the light-accumulating power of a piece of film placed at the telescope’s focal point. The stars in this picture are in the foreground, artifacts from our own galaxy, which we must look through to see into our neighbor’s part of the universe.
Climber Trails Mount Ranier National Park, 19 August 1999 Nikomat with 20mm lens at f/5.6 One-hour exposure on E200 push-processed +2 stops
The skies continued to hold clear, the temperature dropped, and the moon set by midnight, allowing me to compose a view of Polaris directly above the summit of this ancient volcano.
There are a number of interesting light sources in this picture. The startrail arcs are made by a one-hour sweep of the Earth beneath the North Star. The green glow of distant Seattle shows to the northwest, the amber of closer but much smaller towns are northeast, and the sky itself illuminates the snowfields on the mountain. An additional light source can also be found within the snowfields.
As I started this exposure, I could sense a faint glow that seemed to come from the slope of the mountain itself. Training a telescope on the area, I found what might be unseen hikers bearing flashlights searching through the snow. I was impressed that a flashlight could be seen at these distances. Camp Muir, where climbers rest on their way to the summit, was four miles away!
I learned the next day that what I had seen was not just a couple of hikers resetting their tent stakes. They had started their ascent to the summit! In order to reach the top and get back down before the snow gets dangerously soft, they must strike out at about 1:00 A.M. This photo captures their first hour of progress on a beautifully clear and starlit night (click to see full size image).
Rainier by Moonlight Mount Ranier National Park, 19 August 1999 Nikomat with 20mm lens at f/5.6 30 minute exposure on E200 push-processed +2 stops
I am told it is unusual to see the top of Mount Rainier. The generally overcast skies of the region and the immensity of the mountain usually guarantee that clouds will somewhere get in the way of the view. On this day however, the sky had been clear. It stayed clear while the sun set, and as the glow of twilight was replaced by the feeble illumination of a young moon, I worked my way up the mountain’s shoulder to this site, aptly named Reflection Lake.
My daytime explorations had found this lake, but the surface had been broken everywhere by wind ripples. Now the air stilled and the water became stable enough even for a time exposure of the mountain’s reflection. I wanted to include some startrail features in this picture, but it is an awkward choice: if the shutter is open too long, the moon would wash out the sky and the trails would be lost. Too short, and the stars do not make sufficiently long marks. This was my guess, 30 minutes, a balance between starlight and skylight.
This picture also answers the question, “what color is the sky at night?” Maybe nocturnal creatures can see in color at night, but we don’t. The moon lights up the world, including the sky, with reflected sunlight. The same physics applies, just at lower levels of illumination, and so the sky is blue!
A few cirrus clouds stream past in the distance, but they’re not enough to keep the brightest stars from showing. Four of them above and to the left of the mountain peak are the bowl of the Big Dipper, each bluish except for the brightest star in the constellation, Dubhe, a distinct orange color.
The moon set shortly after exposing this picture. Its low angle is apparent from the long shadows on the distant snowfields. My time in Rainier Park would end the next day, but this was a remarkable evening to finish my visit.
It is a concept that was introduced to me by my colleague Phil, who while recalling a dinner that we both participated in, described it as the best he had ever had. This struck me as one of those hyperbolic statements one sometimes makes in the competitive company of peers, but after contemplating his superlatives for a moment, realized it was true, and then adopted that same experience as my own best meal of a lifetime.
After checking in to our extremely compact room in Copenhagen (“you’ll find a towel, blanket and pillow for the second person in a drawer under the bed”), we decided to find a local establishment for dinner. The modern phone is an amazing tool for this as it allows you to locate restaurants within walking range, and even get a sense of their menu and pricing and how others have reviewed them.
We identified a candidate and walked the few blocks through the new winter night to find it. The European style bistro seemed just right for the occasion, so we entered and immediately found ourselves inside the coat check room. We weren’t sure we wanted to surrender our coats; it might be cold or drafty in there, but there was no option. All coats were checked; we were told that there simply wasn’t enough room inside.
Beautifully crafted telescopes also included superb engineering, such as this secondary mirror suspended by nearly invisible wires.
The next day’s weather was a repeat of the previous: partly cloudy, occasionally overcast, threat of rain, but then open periods of bright sun. Alongside the coffee vendors, protective canopies were set up for astronomy-related businesses and causes. Artists, photographers, telescope and accessory retailers, social and political organizations: all had the equivalent of a wilderness storefront along “vendor row”.
There’s always something.I managed to get the tracking and focus properly set for this shot of the Trifid Nebula, but sometime during the exposure an airplane cruised by with its running lights on. Note the three pairs of white and red “stars” along the track from the plane’s flashing beacons.
Most attendees had given up and gone to bed with the cloud cover at midnight. A few of us accidentally enjoyed its clearing after 2:00. We took in views of galaxies, nebulas and star clusters until the near-dawn when Saturn, and then Jupiter and Venus appeared. This was the intoxicating finale of the evening, and with the brightening sky, I staggered to my tent sometime after 4:00.
Some of the “big guns” at the Table Mountain Star Party. Large aperture Dobsonians abounded in the telescope field. The height to the eyepiece occasionally requires a ladder, one of them is seen here, strewn like many others on the ground. Also visible in this picture are a platoon of observing tents (upper right); multi-room tents with sections that open to the sky. The threat from the clouds kept the telescopes covered and the tents closed for much of the time.
I started lugging stuff out of my car and was struggling with my oversized tent when I met my neighbor to the east, Barry, a friendly bearded fellow who reminded me of a mild-mannered graduate student. In reality he was a programmer, but his interests fell strongly in the areas of ham radio and astronomy. He was modest about his beginner status in astronomy, but he had attended prior years of TMSP and enjoyed them immensely, hence his return this year.
Barry felt responsible for letting me know that the rear tire on my car was flat. I was surprised at this news, since I had just arrived and had not experienced any sort of tire problems on my way up the mountain, but there it was. It wasn’t just low on air– it was dead flat! Had I been driving on a rubber-covered rim all the way up that road? I suppose it’s possible, but let’s instead think that it must have happened as I maneuvered into the field. A sharp rock maybe?
I had embarked on this “Nightscape Odyssey” to search out dark sky locations in the western U.S. and to hone my astrophoto skills. Although the Table Mountain Star Party (TMSP) in Washington’s Cascade Mountains was a long way from Minnesota, I had selected it as a fitting launch point for my ambitious summer plan.
The “star party” is an interesting concept, especially to those who are not close to amateur astronomy circles. For them it creates an amusing image of revelers eating and drinking outside, occasionally looking up at the sky, pointing to various stars and having a good laugh over them.
