Recent Astronomy Articles at Cosmic Pursuits

Milky Way Photography on Medium-Format Film – A Q&A With James Cormier

November 1, 2022 by Brian Ventrudo Filed Under: Astronomy Images and Video, Deep Sky

The Pipe Nebula and Milky Way in Scorpius on Fujifilm Acros film shot with a Pentax 6×7 medium format camera. Image credit and copyright: James Cormier.

Before the days of sensitive, low-noise digital cameras, amateur and professional astronomers used chemical emulsions on cellulose film or glass plates to record photographic images. But film astrophotography was not for the faint of heart – it took time, patience, and more than a little skill to produce good images of deep-sky objects or the Milky Way. Modern digital cameras now make astrophotography so much easier, of course, so why would anyone use film anymore? [Read more…] about Milky Way Photography on Medium-Format Film – A Q&A With James Cormier

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Waning October Moon and Autumn Leaves

October 12, 2022 by Brian Ventrudo Filed Under: Solar System

The waning Moon on October 12, 2022 just three days past the full “Hunter’s Moon”. The fall colors linger as the trees slowly shut down their chlorophyll production, revealing the orange and yellow carotenes in their aging leaves. At the next full “Beaver Moon” on November 8, these trees will very likely find themselves covered with snow. This image was captured on Kodak Ektar 100 film with an old Nikon FE camera and Nikon Series E 75-150mm zoom lens, both circa 1980. There’s no school like the old school.

Autumn wind clear
Autumn moon bright,

Fallen leaves gather in piles then scatter,
And crows settling in, cold, startle away.

Will we ever see, ever even think of each other again?
This night, this moment: impossible to feel it all.

Poem by Li Po (c. 701-762 A.D.), translation by David Hinton

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Dark Sky at Last – A Trip Through the Summer Milky Way

September 24, 2022 by Brian Ventrudo Filed Under: Deep Sky

It had been two years since I’d had a good look at the summer Milky Way. At my latitude, it doesn’t get dark enough for visual stargazing from late May to late July, and clouds, smoke, moonlight, and the vicissitudes of life disposed of the remaining late summer nights. But this week delivered what I’ve long awaited – a promising forecast of two nights with a crystal-clear atmosphere and no moon. The excuses were over – it was time to drive an hour west of town to my favorite dark-sky site with a telescope, a bag of eyepieces, and a star map in the back seat. If I was going to see the Milky Way before winter comes, it was now or never.

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Last Gasp of a Big Solar Prominence

August 30, 2022 by Brian Ventrudo Filed Under: Solar System

Full-disk image of the Sun in H-alpha on August 30, 2022 at 15:57UTC.

The Sun kicked it into high gear this week! A few big prominences emerged, especially a towering tornado-shaped construct on the southern solar limb. I just managed to catch the tail-end of it this morning as the Sun cleared the trees at my observing location. Took a few images of the prom, went for a cup of coffee, came back to the telescope, and – POOF! – it was gone. South is up in this image, captured with a Lunt 60MT H-alpha solar telescope and Player One Apollo-M Mini camera.

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The Pleasures of Ugly Astrophotography

August 26, 2022 by Brian Ventrudo Filed Under: Astronomy Images and Video

An untracked snapshot of the North America nebula taken with a ZWO ASI385MC camera and Nikon 28mm manual camera lens at f/2.8.

A recent thread on the astronomy forum Cloudy Nights explored the possibility of capturing quick ‘snapshot’ astrophotos with small but sensitive monochrome cameras and inexpensive, small-aperture lenses of less than 25mm (!) aperture. Even better, this approach used no astronomy mount or tracking at all, just a fixed camera tripod and a PC to capture and stack each image over the course of a minute or two. Lightweight, cheap, simple.

It seemed like a preposterous idea. So of course I had to try it!

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