A winner of a night

Another night under the stars and this time the transparency cooperated. Last Friday night I visited the wonderfully dark skies of my friend Rob Adkins home in Wayne County. We had a wonderful night of photographing and viewing. The dark lanes of the Milky Way were easily visible from Sagittarius to Scorpius, even with bright Jupiter in the middle of them. We viewed numerous deep sky objects with and without the OIII filter. The views were just stunning on this night and compared favorably to any I have had anywhere over the years. We viewed Venus, Saturn, Jupiter, Neptune, Uranus, and Mars-all in one night. The seeing really steadied nicely for some wonderful early morning views of Jupiter.

Upon first review, it looks like I have at least 2 hours of very good data to work with on Rho Ophiuchus. Astrophotography images come slowly as preparation, imaging, and processing are extremely involved. I hope to have the image up soon. I am about 50% finished with painting the house. Once that project is completed, I can get back into updating images and the website.

Astrophotography night out

Last night was my first opportunity to re-visit the night sky with astrophotography. The night was a complete success technically-meaning that all gear worked as planned and image acquisition was dead-on. The only issue was that the Clear Sky Clock (astronomer's main source for weather conditions) missed a small system of high cirrus clouds coming in from Ohio and it really reduced contrast in the southern Milky Way area. The imaging system is a modified Canon 350D and 135mm f2 L lens. The target last night was the Rho Ophiuchus area. The camera gear is riding on top of my friend Dave Tolley's G11 mount with a TV101 scope used for final polar alignment. It was a great night of practice for me since it has been nearly 4 years since I last imaged. I am very enthusiastic about the compositions to come from this setup and I am hoping for clear skies in the near future to work on these new astronomical images. Take care and stay tuned for more.

Sweetwater Strand

My first photograph from the Florida trip in February is now on the homepage. Look for more information on this print as well as more photographs from Florida.

May Print of the Month-Sweetwater Strand

New Podcast: Ansel Exhibit Impressions

A new podcast of my first impressions from seeing Ansel Adams prints in person for the first time.

Roman Loranc Interview by DOP

Uwe Steinmueller has posted a nice interview with Roman Loranc, a BW photographer from Poland. Another master photographer extolling the benefits of simplifying one's approach to photography. Roman uses one paper, one film, one camera, and one lens (210mm) for 70% of his work. I think it is a valuable lesson that many masters can teach us to simplify our approach and focus on the artistic qualities rather than the gear and technology. Roman Loranc interview link.

Speaking at Almost Heaven Star Party

I have been invited and accepted an opportunity to speak at the Almost Heaven Star Party on Spruce Knob in WV in August. The dates are 9-12 and the location is excellent for dark skies. I will be sharing some of my new thoughts and approaches to astrophotography with a DSLR. I hope you can join us for the event and I look forward to meeting you. More information at www.ahsp.org .

Canon Lens Manufacturing Video

A link to this series of videos was published on the Astro-Physics Users list. If you enjoy seeing "behind the scenes" video, you will enjoy seeing how Canon makes their lenses from scratch. Highly recommended! Link to video.