The solar eclipse from 21st of August 2017. What should you do if you don’t have a brother in a nearby location? We came up with eleven items.
When is Matariki?
It is the month of June again and, once more, here in New Zealand, we celebrate the Maori New Year, Matariki.
PhotoPills: imagine, plan, shoot – an astrophotography planning tool.
“Any photographer that has a question that needs an answer can use PhotoPills. Beginners use it to find sunrise and set times, golden hour and blue hour times…” (my favourite is actually all the crepuscular information) “and for basic calculations like depth of field. Then we have the photographers that plan their Sun, Moon and Milky Way shots… it all depends on your needs.”
Anatomy of an Eclipse Trip – DAY THREE
Since no one has experienced a total solar eclipse passing through their town, it can be hard for City Council to know what to expect. Guernsey has 5 hotels, 5 restaurants, 2 grocery stores and 2 gas stations for some 30,000 people on eclipse day. So you have two choices you can either be “eclipse friendly” or “eclipse unfriendly”.
Anatomy of an Eclipse Trip – DAY FOUR
Yesterday afternoon we loaded and secured our gear into Yurt 4 as a tremendous storm approached our position. The picture of the storm would’ve been perfect with a few lightning strikes below, but apparently that wasn’t Mother Nature’s plan even though we heard the roar of thunder echo constantly across the valley. Today when we arrived it was a completely different story. The sky was beautifully clear and as Gary and I set up our telescopes we practiced on the Sun. We’re ready. Is Mother Nature?
Anatomy of an Eclipse Trip – DAY TWO
Adventure is just bad planning…
We have this trip well planned. We have been considering it for many years. We have secured a site and will arrive six days before the event, test our equipment extensively (yet again), and make any corrections as necessary. We have redundant equipment, provisions of food, water gas, and backup plans in place.
Anatomy of an Eclipse Trip – Day One
Two minutes and 15 seconds. A lot of conversation and planning for years has been spent preparing for those few fleeting moments. It’s called the Great American Eclipse, the first total eclipse to fall across the continental United States since 1979 when the path skirted a few northwestern states. It is the first total solar eclipse to go from sea to shining sea across our country since 1918. Due to its accessibility it is being touted as being the most watched eclipse in the history of the world.
The Evening Sky in August 2017, Wellington, the Centre of the Galaxy, the Black Moon, and the total eclipse of the Sun.
This is an astrophotographer-friendly blog, about what is in the night sky in August 2017.
Moon stuff…
A silver metallic Moon has shown up at my bedroom’s window.
Its hidden through a veil of grey thin clouds, which seem to be pressing against the jagged mountain line in straight horizontal banding. She, who used to be a huge and round disk of bright light, is now smudged in all directions, with charcoal of darkness.
NGC 4444
It’s a rather faint galaxy, but remember, that even in a galaxy far, far away there are always great things happening, sometimes unnoticed, but like life sometimes the small unnoticed things have a great impact for our lives and can keep us centered and on track.
The sky of June – The Rising of the Galaxy
Out I went and nothing prepared me for what I saw that night. On the pitch dark sky of Wairarapa, with luscious hills that hold the horizon in sweet curves that rest the eye, a luminous whirlpool of stars was erupting from the east. Silver river of stars, one of its arms was meandering the eastern horizon in oval arched loops like an octopus’s arm that passed a Southern Cross marking the 12 o’clock position on the celestial time keeper of the south. The galactic arm was thinning down towards the western horizon and righteously so as the further we go from Scorpius and Sagittarius, we are actually looking towards the outskirts of our galaxy, where fewer stars venture. I stood there in silence watching the slow rising of the Galaxy and I realised that it was for the first time in my life when I was truly seeing it with my eyes.
