Brian Ventrudo

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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Going Deep in Taurus Poniatowski

July 29, 2022 by Brian Ventrudo Filed Under: Deep Sky

If you’re looking for something good to see in the sky this month, my recent article at Sky & Telescope magazine takes you on a tour of the sights in and around the asterism known as Taurus Poniatowski. A little offshoot of the constellation Ophiuchus, Taurus Poniatowski spans a patch of sky about the size of your hand held at arm’s length, but it contains all sorts of fascinating deep-sky sights from double stars to open clusters, and even a galaxy (unusual in this part of the sky). Grab some binoculars and your favorite telescope, and head outside to see this fascinating little star group.

You can access a PDF of the article at this link.

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Touring the M81 Galaxy Group

June 27, 2022 by Brian Ventrudo Filed Under: Deep Sky

Messier 81 (bottom left) and Messier 82 (upper right).

At a distance of about 11 million light years, the Messier 81 (M81) galaxy group lies nearly overhead in the late northern spring and early summer and presents a handful of intriguing targets for backyard stargazers. This aggregation of gravitationally bound galaxies lies mostly in Ursa Major with some spillover into Camelopardalis. It’s one of the nearest galaxy groups to our own, and it contains some 40 galaxies and a total of about a trillion stars [Read more…] about Touring the M81 Galaxy Group

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