Category Archives: Astrophotography – from the Observacar

From the Observacar – Comet C/2023 A3, Tusuchinshan Atlas 2023

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Figure 1 – Comet Tusuchinshan Atlas bidding farewell to Earth and Earthlings on October 27, 2024 seen here with the SeeStar 50s. Five minute exposure. (c) DE Wolf 2024

You may have noted a paucity of blogs here lately. I have finally come to grips with the fact that my photography over the last year has become more and more astrophotography. Astronomy was the keystone of my nerd days in my teens. Whom am I fooling? I am still a major techno-nerd. In those days I had a wonderful 60 mm Unitron refractor, would stand on the shores of New York’s East River and well, observe! My eyes were clearer then and the skies of The City were clearer then. About eight years ago I bought a wonderful Skywatcher 127 mm Maksutov telescope – more wonderful observing! I won’t go on and on with each telescope bought and used. Sufficeth it to say that I am the proverbial “pig in slop.” But last year something important happened – the advent of AI smart telescopes. I purchased the ZWO SeeStar 50s and my adventure in Astrophotography began. Teenage Davy may feel happy and fulfilled!

The ZWO Seestar 50s is the ideal low-budget entry companion to personal astrophotography. Released in 2023, the ZWO Seestar 50s is ZWO’s first smart telescope, You basically set it up and tell it what you want to look at. It’s smart! Actually, its been getting smarter and smarter, easier and easier to use as the firmware evolves.

The Seestar 50s is truly built with beginners in mind. Its intuitive controls and mobile app make it easy to operate. The automatic GOTO and tracking capabilities simplify locating celestial objects (always a bugaboo in the past) and make the stargazing experience hassle-free.

The amazing technical specs are:

  • Aperture: 50mm
  • Focal Length: 250mm (f/5 ratio)
  • Sensor: Sony IMX462 (2 megapixels)
  • Battery: 6000mAh, Lithium
  • Image Formats: JPG, FITS, MP4, AVI RAW
  • Dimensions: 10.2 x 5.6 x 5.2 inches
  • Weight: 5.5 pounds

There are, of course, both pros and cons, particularly the fact that it is less than ideal for planets, and at this point I think I have largely grown beyond it. BUT it is the ideal travel scope and leaves room in my backpack for, well, clothes and candy bars.

The Observacar you ask? This is key to the experience. I set my smart telescope up and then control it with my iPad from my car. I’m warm and toasty in winter, cool and bug free in summer. And yes, I always try to pop my head out and marvel at the night sky regularly, to marvel like men and women over all the ages at the glories of the distant light.

I am back

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On Cape Hedge Beach, Rockport, MA October 24, 2021

Dear Readers of Hati and Skoll,

Back in September, Hati and Skoll went euphemistically “down.” Actually what happened is that my site used a PHP that was not supported by the current version of Word Press. Rather than cobble it together, I chose to rebuild the site. I mean, after all the latest version of Word Press was so “improved” and “user-friendly.” Well, kinda not! I have finally got it up and running again. It looks pretty different compared to the earlier version and has both nicer and worse features. I am going to continue to modify the site, particularly modernizing the galleries, but thought that I had better get things going again, before everyone forgets me. However, I am told that no one really cares because bloggers are luddites struggling like troglodytes beneath the earth to maintain the status quo.

Over the last couple of months I have been steadily photographing particularly on Cape Ann in Massachusetts and worked up a number of photographs that I believe worth sharing. So I think what I am going to do for the next few weeks is post these images even if the warm glories of an autumn day seem to clash with the harsh realities of winter. I hope that you enjoy them.

Today’s image is a photograph taken by a friend showing yours truly, camera in hand, on October 24th at Rockport, MA’s gorgeous Cape Hedge Beach. This is my absolute favorite North Shore photography site; so I will be sharing many photographs from Cape Hedge, especially sunsets.

Please send your comments about the site, especially if you find something that just doesn’t work.

Thanks so much for your interest and patience!

David

Light in the forest

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Figure 1 – Light in the Forest, Punkatasset Pond, October 17, 2020 Concord, MA. (c) DE Wolf 2020.

The saga of autumn continues; so I am offering “Light in the forest,” an image that I took at the pond by Punkatasset Hill in Concord, Massachusetts with my iPhone last Saturday. The magic is, as ever, in the light. Sunlight from the pond penetrates the Woods and lights up both the canopy and the turning ferns as well. The hill was originally called Broad-topped Hill by the native Americans.  

In 1775, the Concord Minutemen took their positions on Punkatasset Hill, where they were met by reinforcements from other towns. The the smoke of militia supplies set ablaze by British troops in the center of Concord, and, as a result, Colonel Barrett led his militia down first to a hill only a few hundred yards from the Old North Bridge, and then to the Old North Bridge itself.

This was the birth of American democracy. Take it back! Vote! 

Pennywise

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Figure 1 – Pennywise the Clown, Salem, MA October 2019. (c) DE Wolf 2019.

As we get closer and closer to Halloween, the creatures that you run into on the streets of Salem, MA getting scarier and scarier. So not surprising, I today took the image of Figure1, which I am pretty sure is going to be my creepiest photograph of Halloween 2019. It is Pennywise the Clown.

Nothing is more terrifying than a clown! And for those, who have read the Stephen King novel or seen one of its movie dramatization, the chills run up your spine and you are left wondering whether this is someone dressed as Pennywise to collect tourist tips for the privilege of taking a photo with the clown or … While it is just possible that this is the true child murderer of the centuries. You really cannot be sure, as it is said that he has been found in sketches of ancient carnivals, often seen with a red balloon.

Stephen King is such a master of the macabre that you are left wondering whether IT, or Pennywise, is some mythic character, long whispered about on chilly October nights. Pennywise, according to King, is based upon serial killer John Wayne Gacy who performed at children’s parties as Pogo the Clown. He was responsible for a string of murders of 30 young men and boys in the Chicago area in the 1970s,

Perhaps, I should leave it at that. Leave it for you to stare at the blood red colors of Pennywise’s costume – the blood on his face and the carnivorous teeth. He is something unworldly, something evil, of evil. And whether he is real or merely a creation of the depths of a primordial terror in our minds, may not truly make a difference.

Canon T2i with EF70-200 mm f/4 USM lens at 159 mm, ISO 400, Aperture Priority AE mode 1/125th sec at f/6.3, pattern focusing with no exposure compensation.

 

Photopictorialism Study #18 – Salem Courtyard

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Figure 1 – Photopictorialist Study #18 – Courtyard off Salem, MA’s Essex Street. (c) DE Wolf 2019.

The other personal transition for me this week is my migration of Hati and Skoll Gallery to a new iMac and the Adobe Creative Cloud. My old system was getting just too cumbersome and slow in the “modern era.” So Figure 1 is my first full attempt. The photograph of a brick courtyard, off Salem, MA’s Essex Street, was taken with my iPhone XS and then convert to black and white using Adobe Photoshop CC. As you can see I gave it a subtle selenium tone and then added noise so as to create a grainy photopictorialism effect. This creates a pseudo mist in the image, which the brightness of outside seems to penetrate creating the optical sense of being in a tunnel.

Revisiting Animal Faces – #6 – Carly

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Figure 1 – Border Collie Carly. (c) DE Wolf 2018.

In revisiting Animal Faces I have been trying to sneak in a few one ones. So for today I wanted to share a new photograph, which shows my newest canine friend Carly. Carly is a Border Collie, and as her eyes express, Carly has the gentlest and warmest of canine souls. Here she seeks just a bit of love.

Dogs interact with photographers. Carly is, in fact, leery of the IPhone camera’s click! But do they interact with photographs? First, we should answer the age old question of whether they perceive television, and the answer is yes. Their expressed indifference is the result of the fact that they, a lot faster than we, have determined that it is all just a bit BORING! As for photographs studies based on eye movement definitively show that dogs can recognize their owners in photographs.

But it is important to recognize that smell is the predominant sense in canines. Their world of perception is dominated by the smell map. This is because while humans might have 5 million olfactory receptors in our noses, a more typical number for dogs is 200 Million.

We took Carly and her partner in all things canine, Jack, to Heard Farm, which meanders around giant fields and finally circles back on itself. When the two dogs got out of the car, Carly saw the scent trail immediately as plain as we see light and headed clockwise along the path. Jack saw the trail and headed counter clockwise. Both were correct!

Which brings us back to the television and the photograph. Neither offer up a scent-based map. They are indeed BORING!

Early October on the pond

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Figure 1 – Early October on the pond (c) DE Wolf 2018.

It is October. So, despite the rain and fog my friend and I ventured to the Wildlife Refuge to walk about the pond and take in the early color and the mud. It was singularly cold, wet, grey and spectacular – a world cast for the most part in subdued pastels. Because of the rain, I chose to only bring my IPhone and otherwise just enjoy our solitude. Figure 1 captures a fallen and decaying tree partly submerged and ultimately merging with the pond. The grasses have turned and there is the subtle hint of color in the foggy draped background.

The white rose

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Figure 1 – The white rose, Concord, MA, (c) DE Wolf 2017.

Christmas is, of course, a colorful time of year and is meant to challenge the grey December bleakness. The traditional colors are red and green, silver and gold. To be different, I thought I would offer something different today – a pure white rose.  I have tried this type of image before and am invariably unhappy at some level with the results. Ah well! I will point out that a white rose while complementing winter on one hand is like the colors of Christmas diametrically opposed to it on the other hand. The white rose speaks to spring and summer – to purity and rebirth. In winter it remains the symbol of Persephone still trapped in the underworld.

The relationship of the albino rose to its carmine relatives it but a matter of … Well, perhaps Shakespeare said it best in Henry VI.

“Prick not your finger as you pluck it off,
Lest bleeding you do paint the white rose red
And fall on my side so, against your will.”

Canon T2i with EF-S18-55mm f/3.5-5.6 IS STM lens at 55 mm, ISO 1600, Aperture Priority AE Mode, 1/50 th sec f/9.0 with -1 exposure compensation.

Tufted titmouse

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Figure 1 – Tufted titmous, Sudbury, MA. (c) DE Wolf 2017.

Before we get too far into winter, I wanted to post the photograph of Figure 1. Just after Thanksgiving I put up mu bird-feeder for the winter and literally within minutes it was swarming with birds. One of my favorite feeder birds is the little greyish blue tufted titmouse, Baeolophus bicolor, shown in the photo. I can, of course not resist reference here to Gilbert and Sulivan’s Mikado.

“On a tree by a river a little tom-tit
Sang “Willow, titwillow, titwillow”
And I said to him, “Dicky-bird, why do you sit
Singing ‘Willow, titwillow, titwillow'”
“Is it weakness of intellect, birdie?” I cried
“Or a rather tough worm in your little inside”
With a shake of his poor little head, he replied
“Oh, willow, titwillow, titwillow!”

Well, yesterday we had our first snowfall of the season and the titmice (or mouses) (I will not go into that argument again) are scurrying about very busily. Their size make them very hard to photograph well. But you have to love the little Elvis bouffant and the jet black eyes, that speak so well to their reptilian origin.

They will be outside my window all winter now flit to and from the feeder and foraging for fallen seeds in the snow. One cannot help but admire their ability to endure the vicious Northern winter.