Swirling aurora over Saskatoon, Saskatchewan. Credit and copyright: Colin Chatfield/ Chatfield Photography.
I was personally so pumped to have seen the Aurora Borealis over the weekend in Central Minnesota! It was a beautiful display of a green and white glow with high, towering, bright spires. Unfortunately, I was in the car at the time, and I definitely need to upgrade my camera to be able to take images of the aurora. But lucky for us, astrophotographers from both hemispheres captured gorgeous shots of the Aurora Borealis and Aurora Australis.
According to SpaceWeather.com, the Earth passed through a region of south-pointing magnetism in the solar wind on June 28, “and the encounter set off one of the finest geomagnetic storms of the current solar cycle.”
This shot from Colin Chatfield shows the awesome auroral scenes over Saskatchewan.
The northern lights on June 28/29, 2013 as seen from the Wintering Hills WInd Farm near Drumheller, Alberta. Credit and copyright: Alan Dyer/Amazing Sky Photography.
James Stone from Opossum Bay, Tasmania captured this video of the Aurora Australis:
Moonlight and zodiacal light lights up the skies over ESO's La Silla observatory. (Credit: Alan Fitzsimmons/ESO)
We don’t put much stock in astrology or horoscopes here at Universe Today, but there’s one thing related to the zodiac that’s all science and no superstition: zodiacal light, captured here in a gorgeous photo by astronomer Alan Fitzsimmons above ESO’s La Silla Observatory.
Created by sunlight reflected off fine particles of dust concentrated inside the plane of the Solar System, zodiacal light appears as a diffuse, hazy band of light visible in dark skies stretching away from a recently-set Sun (or before the Sun is about to rise).
The Moon is located just outside the frame of this picture, bathing the observatory in an eerie light that is reflected off the clouds below.
The La Silla Observatory is located at the outskirts of the Chilean Atacama Desert at an altitude of 2400 meters (7,900 feet). Like other observatories in this area, La Silla is located far from sources of light pollution and, like ESO’s Paranal Observatory, it has some of the darkest night skies on the Earth.
The dome in the foreground, just to the right, is the Swiss 1.2-metre Leonhard Euler Telescope named in honor of the famous Swiss mathematician Leonhard Euler (1707–83).
The Moon sets above the Continental Divide in Colorado from 86,000 feet. Taken June 27, 2013 on a meteorological balloon launched from Boulder, Colorado. Credit and copyright: Patrick Cullis.
I love those images taken from the International Space Station that show the Moon rising or setting above Earth’s limb, and when I first saw this image posted on Universe Today’s Flickr Group page, I thought someone had randomly posted one of those images taken by an astronaut on the ISS. But then I saw it was taken by Patrick Cullis, one of our “regulars” in our featured astrophotography posts.
This very beautiful, crisp and clear image was taken from a meteorological balloon at 86,000 feet (26,200 meters) above Earth, and it was no fluke that Patrick captured the Moon setting above Earth — it was planned.
“Once I knew the weather was going to work out for a launch I really planned out what time it needed to happen for the Moon to show up in the frame,” Patrick said via Flickr. “Definitely got lucky since the camera is just swinging around randomly under the balloon.”
He calls this image “Divided Moon,” as it shows the Continental Divide in Colorado. “I-70 can be seen snaking up from the bottom center towards Georgetown (valley stretching from left to right,) Loveland Pass, and the Eisenhower Tunnel,” Patrick explained. If you click on the image above (or go here to see it on Flickr) you can see other landmarks labeled.
37 separate images showing the movement of the Moon as it rises behind the buildings in downtown Houston, Texas on June 22, 2013. Credit and copyright: Sergio Garcia Rill/SGR Photo.
While we recently posted a huge batch of images from the recent “Super Moon,” this new image from Sergio Garcia Rill in Houston is something special. It’s a composite photo of the Moonrise on June 22nd, and is a mosaic made from 37 separate images that show the Moon rising over the course of three hours, with the buildings of downtown Houston in the foreground.
“I stayed in place for over three hours,” Sergio explained on Flickr. “The hardest part was selecting which shots showed a sequential movement of the Moon, since I was altering shutter speeds between shots to compensate for changing light conditions.”
The full Moon of June 2013 was at perigee — or at its closest point in its orbit to Earth, and appeared up to 14% bigger and 30% brighter than other full Moons of 2013.
Want to get your astrophoto featured on Universe Today? Join our Flickr group or send us your images by email (this means you’re giving us permission to post them). Please explain what’s in the picture, when you took it, the equipment you used, etc.
Curtain of Crepuscular Rays at Dawn, on June 17, 2013. Taken from Coral Towers Observatory in Australia. Credit and copyright: Joseph Brimacombe.
Prolific astrophotographer and Australian astronomer Joseph Brimacombe captured this beautiful wide-field view of crepuscular rays from the Sun last week. You definitely want to click on this image to see a larger view on Flickr. This image is made of seven frames; three exposures each. Brimacombe was lucky to get this shot; just seven minutes later (see the view here), the spectacular curtain of rays were gone.
The word crepuscular means “relating to twilight,” and these rays occur when objects such as mountain peaks or clouds partially shadow the Sun’s rays, usually when the Sun is low on the horizon. These rays are visible only when the atmosphere contains enough haze or dust particles so that sunlight in unshadowed areas can be scattered toward the observer.
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The perigee 'Super Moon' of June 23, 2013 (21:43 PHT) over Marikina City, Philippines compared to the apogee Moon of November, 2012. Credit and copyright: Raven Yu.
The full Moon of June 23, 2013 was the largest Moon of the year. This so-called “Super Moon” was at perigee — or at its closest point in its orbit to Earth, and was 14% bigger and 30% brighter than other full Moons of 2013.
But, if you looked up at the Moon last night and didn’t know about this, you may not have noticed! Some claims circulating on the internet tended to exaggerate how large the Moon would actually appear. However, that doesn’t mean the Moon wasn’t photogenic last night! The Moon is always a great target for photography or just gazing with your own eyes, and these images from Universe Today readers attest to the beauty of our closest companion in the night sky.
This lead image from Raven Yu from the Philippines shows the difference in size between last night’s perigee Moon and the apogee Moon (when it was farthest from Earth during its orbit) last November.
Three different views of the Moon over Italy during the night of June 23, 2013 helps debunk the optical illusion of the Moon looking bigger when it’s low on the horizon. Credit and copyright: Giuseppe Petricca.
Three different pictures of the Moon from June 23, shared by Guiseppe Petricca from Italy, detailing not only the perigee Super Moon, but the ‘Moon Illusion” — of how the Moon looks bigger when it is close to the horizon.
“The middle one is the Moon at culmination in the local sky and the other two are taken as low as possible my local horizon permitted,” Guiseppe said via email. “Doing this, I managed to obtain two results: the first one is observing the different colours that due to the Rayleigh Scattering, ‘paint’ our satellite, when it’s low on its elevation. The second one is that, keeping a fixed magnification (24x – 110mm) one can easily debunk the optical illusion of the ‘bigger moon when it’s low on the horizon’. Since, if you observe carefully, the lower two ‘Moons’ are smaller than the higher one. However, the total personal experience is surely wonderful!! And the ‘horizon illusion’ makes you really think that the Moon is way bigger that the reality.”
The Supermoon rising on June 23rd, 22:40 pm above the forest canopy top in Puerto Rico. This is a 6 panel mosaic. Credit and copyright: Efrain Morales, Jaicoa Observatory.The Super Moon on June 23, 2013 as seen over Malta. Credit and copyright: Leonard E. Mercer.The perigee ‘Super Moon’ of June 23, 2013 as seen over Sesimbra, Portugal and the church Nossa Senhora do Castelo. Credit and copyright: Miguel Claro.
Miguel Claro captured this beautiful image of the huge full Moon rising above a Moorish castle in Sesimbra, Portugal. “The church Nossa Senhora do Castelo stands on the spot where king Sancho I built a Romanesque chapel in the early 13th century,” Miguel said via email. “This image was captured 2 km away from the subject.” Miguel used a Canon 50D – ISO640; 1/80 sec. + ED80 APO refractor Astro Professional 560mm at f/7 taken on 23/06/2013 at 21h22.
The perigee Super Moon of June 23, 2013 as seen over São Paulo, Brazil. Time: 01:40 UTC, using a Maksutov Cassegrain Vixen 110 mm – F = 1035 mm – F/9.4 – Plano Focal – Nikon D3100 – 1/80 – ISO 200. Credit and copyright: Ednilson Oliveira.An early image of the perigee Super Moon — the Moon setting the morning of June 23, 2013 just after 5 a.m. EDT over Toronto, Canada. ‘As I understand it perigee occurred between 7:11 – 7:13 a.m. EDT, so this was my ‘launch window’ to ‘Shoot the Perigee Moon’. The atmosphere was thick with haze which dimmed the Moon substantially and allowed the surface maria to be photographed.’ Credit and copyright: Rick Ellis.The perigee Super Moon rising over the floodwaters of the Bow River during a record flood that inundated many parts of southern Alberta around rivers, including here on the Siksika First Nations reserve. Credit and copyright: Alan Dyer/Astronomy Calgary/Amazing Sky Photography.A 3-photo HDR image of the supermoon rising over downtown Tucson, Arizona. During the longer exposure the Moon gave out its own flare due to its intensity. Credit and copyright: Sean Parker/Sean Parker Photography.The full perigee Moon rising on June 23, 2013. Credit and copyright: Sculptor Lil on Flickr.Full Moon Rising Over Northwest Georgia on June 22nd, 2013. Credit and copyright: Stephen Rahn.The perigee Super Moon on June 23, 2013, taken with a Skywatcher ED80 Refractor and a Canon 600D at prime focus. Best 20 of 40 images stacked in Registax 6. False colour removed as the Moon appeared dull red as it was so low in sky. Credit and copyright: James Lennie.The view of June 23rd 2013 Supermoon from Trinidad and Tobago, West Indies (Caribbean). Credit and copyright: Apple Lilly. (This image is the right size to fit a Facebook cover image, the photographer says).
You can see more great images of this perigee Super Moon — and lots more great astrophotography at our Flickr group page.
Want to get your astrophoto featured on Universe Today? Join our Flickr group or send us your images by email (this means you’re giving us permission to post them). Please explain what’s in the picture, when you took it, the equipment you used, etc.
Solar transit of the Chinese space station Tiangong-1 with the Shenzhou-10 module docked, taken from Southern France on June 16, 2013 at 12:14:50 UTC; using a white light filter. Credit and copyright: Thierry Legault.
As soon as you see these images, you’ll probably guess who the photographer is … yes, Thierry Legault. He had less than half a second to capture these incredible shots of the Shenzhou-10 module docked to Tiangong-1 Chinese station transiting across the Sun, and it he did it not only once, but twice, on two consecutive days. Can you see the tiny spacecraft among the sunspots? And keep in mind, there are three taikonauts in these images as well, as the Shenzou has been docked to the Chinese space station module since June 11!
The Tiangong-1 space station is just 10.4 meters (34.1 ft) in length, while the Shenzou 10 is 9.25 meters (30.35 ft) long. This top image is a crop of a full-face view of the Sun, (see the full-face view on Thierry’s website) taken with white light filters by Thierry from southern France on June 16, just after noon UTC. The transit duration was just 0.46 seconds, and Thierry calculated the distance of the spacecraft to observer was 365 km away, and the spacecraft was traveling at 7.4km/s (26,500 km/h or 16,500 mph).
He used a Takahashi TOA-150 refractor, Baader Herschel prism and Canon 6D (1/4000s, 100 ISO).
Below is another solar transit of the two Chinese spacecraft, also taken from Southern France, but the next day, June 17, 2013 at 12:34:24 UTC. This one, in Hydrogen-alpha shows the Shenzhou-10/Tiangong-1 complex in multiple shots over the 0.46 second transit.
Hydrogen-alpha solar transit of Shenzhou-10 module docked to Tiangong-1, taken from Southern France on June 17, 2013 at 12:34:24 UT. Credit and copyright: Thierry Legault.
For this image, Thierry used his Takahashi FSQ-106, Coronado SM90 double stack, camera IDS CMOSIS 4Mp sensor at 38 fps.
This isn’t the first time Thierry has trained his cameras on the Tiangong-1 – in May of 2012 he captured the tiny space station alone transiting the Sun, and it was dwarfed by a huge sunspot sported by the Sun at the time.
For transits I have to calculate the place, and considering the width of the visibility path is usually between 5-10 kilometers, but I have to be close to the center of this path,” Legault explained, “because if I am at the edge, it is just like a solar eclipse where the transit is shorter and shorter. And the edge of visibility line of the transit lasts very short. So the precision of where I have to be is within one kilometer.”
Legault studies maps, and has a radio synchronized watch to know very accurately when the transit event will happen.
“My camera has a continuous shuttering for 4 seconds, so I begin the sequence 2 seconds before the calculated time,” he said. “I don’t look through the camera – I never see the space station when it appears, I am just looking at my watch!”
He uses CalSky to make his calculations and figure out the timing.
Congrats to Thierry and our thanks to him for sharing his amazing images and skills with Universe Today!
Diagram of Shenzhou-10 (right) docked with Tiangong-1 (left). Via Wikimedia Commons.
Photographer Graham Gaunt recently spent a week on the beautiful island of St. Agnes, Isle of Scilly during an unusual stretch of clear weather. “I spent every night awake dragging my gear out at dusk and returning to sleep at dawn,” Graham wrote on Vimeo. “No matter how much I thought I had planned out each shot the unraveling of the nights events always brought new and different surprises.”
Thanks to Graham for capturing and sharing his wonderful night views and experiences!
Three-image panorama of the Milky Way arching of the Badlands of South Dakota. Credit and copyright: Randy Halverson/Dakotalapse
We’ve oohed and ahhed many times over the handiwork of Randy Halverson and his Dakotalapse timelapse videos and imagery of the night sky. He may have outdone himself with his latest timelapse, called “Horizons.” Randy shot the footage from April – October 2012, mostly in South Dakota, but also some at Devils Tower in Wyoming.
“Growing up in South Dakota the landscape itself can be beautiful at times,” Randy says, “but that doesn’t compare to what the sky can do, especially at night.” Not only is the imagery absolutely breathtaking, but the accompanying music is an original called “I Forever” by Bear McCreary (The Walking Dead, Defiance, Battlestar Galactica, etc) his brother Brendan McCreary and his band Young Beautiful in a Hurry.
There’s a four-minute version below, but also available on Vimeo On Demand is a full 30-minute feature . Enjoy!!
The lead image and this one below are recent images from Randy that he has posted on Flickr.
Mirrored Aurora – Aurora mirrors off a small lake in central South Dakota on June 6, 2013. Credit and copyright: Randy Halverson/Dakotalapse.
Fireworks and the quarter Moon seen over the skies of Pisa, Italy on June 16, 2013. Credit and copyright: Giuseppe Petricca.
This lovely image of the Moon with fireworks exploding nearby in the sky was taken by astrophotgrapher Giuseppe Petricca over the weekend. “In Pisa, it was the Patron Saint’s Day, and I managed to catch fireworks, launched from the middle of the river Arno, exploding near the first quarter Moon!” This is an actual shot — not a mosaic — and Guiseppe said he only used Photoshop to make the Moon’s surface detail more clear and reduced the overall noise in the picture.
The event must have been awe-inspiring in person!
This image taken with a Nikon P90 Bridge Digital Camera on tripod.
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