Left Main Waterfall

Left Main BranchContinuing to explore the work from the spring trip to the highlands of West Virginia and I just love the light on the left branch of the main waterfall at Blackwater Falls.  This image is representative of what can be done during an upcoming workshop I am planning.  More details to come soon.  You can view and purchase this image at this link.  You may also order by phone by calling (304) 634-0372.  All major credit cards are accepted.  

July Print of the Month: Left Mitten

Left Mitten of Monument ValleyThings are finally getting somewhat back to normal.  While I was away on the western photography trip I had my workstation in the shop for some upgrades and only received it back last week.  It has taken me a while to get all of the image editing software, profiles, and settings back in place (and I still have some work to do on the video side of things), but I am finally working up some of the images from the trip.  I am very excited about the work and can't wait to share it with you.  I wanted to first share a view of the left Mitten in Monument Valley taken at sunset.  

Monument Valley is such a wonderful place full of history and a grand setting for naturally spectacular light displays.  On this evening the sun was brilliant against a clear blue sky and what caught my eye was the familiar foreground rock set against the left Mitten.  The big enticement at a scene like Monument Valley is to take in the entire scene with a wide angle or panoramic stitch.  But on this occasion I was led to the wonderful light highlighting the rugged rockiness of the foreground rock and equally rugged left Mitten.

This image is now available at a very special price for the month of July.  You can see the image and pricing by clicking on the image or clicking on this link.  

Why is it a Mitten?  Well if you look at the entire scene you will see a counterpart butte to the left Mitten that has a "thumb-like" appendage sticking up in a way that resembles a "mitten."  You can see the entire scene here at this panorama taken in 2004.   

I hope you enjoy the image and please stay tuned for much more from the Colorado Plateau.  

First Light at Star Party

Nothing like sharing first light with a new beautiful scope with cosmic adventurers young and old at a local star party.  Last night at the Clark Planetarium in Portsmouth, OH, 120 folks attended planetarium shows and viewed the cosmos through a variety of scopes on the lawns of Shawnee State University. 

Clouds were intermittent, but we did sneak in views of Venus and Saturn as well as a sunspot before the Sun set in the west.  There is nothing like viewing Saturn through a telescope in real time. Most cannot believe they are actually seeing the rings as clearly as they are and then they begin to ask about the moons lining up along the edge of the ring pattern.  

There were some common questions from last night that I didn't have answers to but now I do:

• What are we seeing?  Most of the time this was in regards to sunspot #1084.  You can view the latest solar images from this website at NASA. 
• What is a sunspot?  Here is further explanation over what I was giving at the scope last night.  
• Last night we viewed Saturn and the rings are nearly edge on to us.  So what is the cycle of the change in Saturn's rings?  It is about a six year pattern where the rings open and close to our viewing angle. For a great presentation of this please see this link and image by Alan Friedman.  
• What is that to the side of Saturn?  That was probably the Saturn moon Rhea.  
• If there is no rock material on the gas giants, why are they still globes?  Even though they are made up of gas, there is still a huge amount of mass and thus a huge amount of gravity.  Jupiter has as much mass as the entire solar system combined minus the Sun.  For more information please see this link.  

This night was first light for the Astro-Physics 130EDF and it certainly delivered.  Wonderful contrasty views of Saturn were had in between clouds with the 3-6mm Televue eyepiece.  I can't wait to put a camera on the eyepiece end of the scope and capture some great views of our cosmos.  My first target is M16, the Eagle Nebula.  

Special thanks to Arthur Bogard for his hard work on putting the star party together and I look forward to helping with the next one in September.  There are three things that I believe everyone must see at least once:

1. Jupiter
2. Saturn
3. Milky Way from a dark sky site.

I hope you have the blessing of seeing these wonderful celestial sites in your lifetime.  

Star Party Tomorrow Night

A wonderful opportunity for the entire family to take in fantastic planetarium shows as well as view the moon, planets, and deep sky objects will be at the Clarke Planetarium in Portsmouth, OH tomorrow night starting at 7 p.m. It will be first light for my AP 130 refractor and what a way to break it in by sharing views of the cosmos with folks young and old but with imaginative minds. If you live near the planetarium I hope you can join us for a fantastic evening.

I am awaiting a new power supply on my newly upgraded workstation so i may begin work on the most recent acquisitions from the Colorado Plateau. Should begin work this Thursday.

Digital files

Final digital tally is over 3400 digital files and 55 gb of data. I capture jpg and raw so about 1700 unique captures. A lot of captures for digital blending so I would average at least 8 captures for each composition and then I capture numerous compositions of the same scene. So I probably captured about 150 unique scenes with different compositions. The optimization work is now beginning.