Back side of radio telescope 24, part of the VLA (Very Large Array) in New Mexico…
Space
Radio telescope, part of the VLA (Very Large Array) near Socorro, New Mexico…
Prints and licenses for this photo are available at my store site.
The November 2016 “Supermoon” isn’t quite here yet but I decided to get some practice shots of the “almost” Supermoon…
Handheld shot with a Nikon Coolpix P900.
One of the radio telescopes of the VLA (Very Large Array) near Socorro, New Mexico.
I wanted a view from near the base of the antenna so I had to use a four shot panorama to get everything in. You may see dark streaks against the sky – it was snowing as I was shooting. Normally on a panorama I would do a bit more correcting of the geometry and cropping but I liked the effect of the curved sides of the image that were present after the first stitch-together of the shots. Shots were taken with my Nikon D800 and Nikkor 24-70mm f/2.8 lens, ISO 100, 24mm, f/6.3, 1/160 second exposure.
Radio telescope, part of the VLA (Very Large Array) near Socorro, New Mexico.
I was exploring the back roads of eastern Washington and what did I find in the middle of farm country? A radio telescope! I’m a space nut and this is one of the coolest things I have found on my photo roadtrips. It is part of a network of ten radio telescopes called the VLBA (Very Large Baseline Array). The western most telescope in the network is in Hawaii, and the eastern most telescope is in the Virgin Islands. The telescopes work together to act like a huge telescope with a diameter of 5351 miles. You can read more about the VLBA here.
Saturday is the night of the “supermoon” – a full moon when it is closest to earth. Has not happened for 18 years. (Thanks to Sean for the clarification!) I don’t know if we will have clear skies on Saturday so I decided to get a shot of the almost-supermoon tonight. This was done with my Nikon D7000 camera, a tripod, and an 18-200mm zoom lens. Settings were ISO 100, f/5.6, 1/125 second exposure.
Latest shots from my experiments in photographing the night sky. No telescope, just my Digital SLR camera and a tripod. Click on the images to see larger versions.
Jupiter and its 4 largest moons – Io, Europa, Ganymede, and Callisto.
Nikon D7000, 18-200mm lens, ISO 1000, f/5.6, 0.25 second exposure.
The Orion Nebula (M42).
Nikon D7000, 18-200mm lens, ISO 6400, f/5.6, 2.5 second exposure.
Pleiades star cluster.
Nikon D7000, 35mm lens, ISO 3200, f/1.8, 5 second exposure.
Night sky. Pointed the lens straight up, did a long exposure, wanted to see how many stars I could get in the image.
Nikon D7000, 35mm lens, ISO 800, f/1.8, 30 second exposure.
I think this is one of the coolest things about the internet. You can browse through the latest images sent by NASA / JPL’s Cassini spacecraft as it orbits Saturn, and in some cases you may be looking at them before they’re processed and made available to researchers. This link shows you the latest 500 images. See space exploration as it happens.
http://saturn.jpl.nasa.gov/photos/raw/?start=1
Some images from the raw feed: