Astrophotos Archives

July 13, 2012December 23, 2015 by John Williams

Stunning Starry Nights of Lincoln Harrison

[Spoiler] I guarantee that these spectacular swirls of color will have you wasting a good chunk of your Friday. But well worth it.

Victoria, Australia-based photographer Lincoln Harrison has been taking pictures for just two years. Harrison says his images are created by taking one shot during twilight and then up to 500 shots in complete darkness throughout the night. Harrison says most of his pictures are of star trails and landscapes usually around Lake Eppalock in Victoria, Australia.

“Locations are chosen in pretty much the same way as I would choose landscape locations,” says Harrison. “I just drive or walk around until I see something that looks good.”

After Harrison returns from his night shoot, he processes the image in Adobe Photoshop, stacking the images using the lighten and blend modes, to create his spectacular images. He then adds the twilight image, sometimes shot using HDR (High Dynamic Range) and a combination of layer masks.

His favorite? At the moment Wormhole. You can see more of his incredible images at his website or at 500px.com

We’d like to see your star trails. Send us your photos or post it on our Flickr page.

Image Caption: Resembling Vincent van Gogh’s The Starry Night, a collage of star trails photos from Lincoln Harrison.

Image Caption: 256 by Lincoln Harrison

Image Caption: Lincoln Harrison’s Wormhole.

July 12, 2012December 23, 2015 by Jason Major

A Shimmering, Simmering Sunspot

This quick animation made by astrophotographer Alan Friedman shows a 30-minute view of sunspot 1520, a large region of magnetic activity on the Sun that’s currently aimed directly at Earth. Although 1520 has been quiet for the past couple of days, it’s loaded with a delta-class magnetic field — just right for launching powerful X-class flares our way. There’s no guarantee that it will, but then there’s no guarantee that it won’t either.

(Click the image to play the animation.)

Alan captured the images from his location in upstate New York using a 10″ Astro-Physics scope and PGR Grasshopper CCD. A master at solar photography — several of his hydrogen alpha images have been featured here on Universe Today as well as other popular astronomy news sites — Alan’s work never fails to impress.

A static, color version of sunspot 1520 can be seen here… what Alan calls “a magnetic beauty.”

Although the sunspots don’t change much over the course of the animation, the surrounding texture on the Sun’s photosphere can be seen to shift and move rapidly. These bright kernels are called granules, and are created by convective currents on the Sun. An individual granule typically lasts anywhere from 8 to 20 minutes and can be over 600 miles (1000 km) across.

The overall wavering effect is caused by distortion from Earth’s atmosphere.

While 1520 is facing Earth we’re subject to any flares or CMEs that may erupt from it, potentially sending a solar storm our way. In another week or so it will have rotated safely around the Sun’s limb and eventually dissipate altogether… but then, it is solar maximum and so there’s likely to be more active regions just like it (or even larger!) coming around the bend.

When they do come, there’s a good chance that Alan will grab some pics of those too.

Check out more of Alan’s photography on his site AvertedImagination.com.

July 10, 2012December 23, 2015 by Nancy Atkinson

Astrophotos: Monster Sunspot Evolution

Caption: A 5-day sequence of sunspot group AR1520. Credit: Shahrin Ahmad, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. Click to see a larger version.

There’s a monster sunspot making its way across the face of the Sun, and it’s captured the attention of several astrophotographers. This first image is from Shahrin Ahmad, who created a sequence of images as the sunspot moved to face towards Earth from the southeastern limb. He used a Skywatcher 120ED at F/15 (2X barlow) with a Baader Solar Filter and a IMG132E camera for his images.

AR1520 stretches more than 127,000 km (10 Earth diameters) from end to end, and the magnetic field of this enormous sunspot harbors energy for strong solar flares. NOAA forecasters estimate an 80% chance of M-flares and a 25% chance of X-flares during the next 24 hours, according to Spaceweather.com.

Here are some more looks at AR1520:

Caption: Closeup of monster sunspot AR1520. Credit: John Chumack.

One of our favorite astrophotographer, John Chumack, took this image of AR1520 in white light on July 8, 2012 using a Lunt Solar Herschel Solar Wedge filter, DMK 21AF04 Fire-wire Camera, 2x barlow, with 1/1000 second exposure. See more at his Flickr page, or his website, Galactic Images.

Caption: Sun and sunspots: Credit: Mike Black

Mike Black took this one on July 9, 2012

Gear: Canon 1D Mark IV + Canon 400mm f/2.8 + 2x Extender III. Baader solar film in front of lens. See more on Mike’s Flickr page.

Want to see a size comparison of AR1520? The mascot of the Solar Dynamics Observatory, Camilla the Rubber Chicken posted this comparison to Jupiter, the biggest planet in the solar system:

Caption: Size comparison of AR1520 to Jupiter. Credit: Camilla_SDO on Twitter.

Here’s a look at the previously active region on the Sun, which last week blasted out numerous M-class flares and at least one X.1-class flares, again a sequence of images from Shahrin Ahmad:

Caption: A 7-day sequence of sunspot AR1515. Credit: Shahrin Ahmad, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.

Thanks to everyone for sharing their images!

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.

July 9, 2012December 23, 2015 by Nancy Atkinson

Things on the Sun: Zipper, Airplane and Spots

Caption: ISS Solar Transit. Credit: Fred Locklear.

A couple of awesome pictures of the Sun today from amateur astrophotographers: Above is a composite view of the International Space Station transiting across the Sun, making it look like a zipper on the Sun’s face. This great image is by Fred Locklear (zAambOni on Flickr) using a Celestron C6-N and a SPC900NC webcam. Also visible is the big region of sunspots that spewed out dozens of flares this past week. Fred took this image on July 1, 2012.

What else can we find on the Sun?

Caption: A plane crossing the Sun. Credit: Steve Scheer.

This incredible shot of an airplane crossing the Sun was taken by Steve Scheer on July 7, 2012.
“Luck was on my side as I happened to go outside and saw a plane about 90 deg away from the Sun,” Scheer wrote UT, “so I quickly setup the scope, pulled the battery off charge, fitted the camera to the scope, pointed to the Sun and crossed the fingers. Luckily the focus was already set from a previous Moon imaging session as I had literally seconds to spare.”

More spots show up on this image including the monster new Active Region AR1520 on the left, which is larger than Jupiter.

Specs:
Telescope- C102-HD refractor
Camera- 500D with t-ring
Solar filter

July 6, 2012December 23, 2015 by Nancy Atkinson

Astrophoto: Jupiter and Venus over São Paulo

A great reason to get up early these days is the pre-dawn show now available from Venus and Jupiter. The two brightest planets in the night sky are paired together in the eastern sky, and Ednilson Oliveira from São Paulo, Brazil got up early this morning, July 6, 2012, to take this gorgeous shot of the planetary duo in the constellation Taurus, hovering over the city.

His specs: Nikon D3100, 18 mm, F/6.3 – Texp = 3 s – ISO 3200.

Beautiful!

For more information about seeing Venus and Jupiter in the early morning skies, watch the video below from Science@NASA:

If you don’t watch the video in its entirety, one thing of note: Venus and the bright star Aldebaran will be right next to each other on the morning of July 9 — which will be a great sight.

Image caption: Jupiter and Venus in the constellation Taurus in the city of Sao Paulo. Credit: Ednilson Oliveira

July 5, 2012December 23, 2015 by Nancy Atkinson

Astrophoto: Milky Way Over Afghanistan

Here’s a lovely image of the Milky Way as seen from Afghanistan — Istalef Valley to be precise, about 20 kilometers from Kabul. This was taken by Yunos Bakhshi, one of the founders and leaders of the Afghanistan Astronomy Association. We wrote about Bakhshi and his work to share the wonders of astronomy with the Afghan people, and how dangerous it can actually be at times.

Bakhshi sent us this image, telling us he is still leading groups of people out to look at the night sky, and he pointed out the light pollution in this image coming from the Bagram US military base, which has huge flood lights on at all times. “I would like to ask you once again to pay attention to this light pollution, which disturbed the beauty of night sky,” Bakhshi said. “Kabul and suburb still have good and dark sky.”

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.

Image caption: The Milky Way over Istalef Valley. Credit: Yunos Bakhshi

July 1, 2012December 23, 2015 by Nancy Atkinson

Astrophoto: Galactic Relaxation

Ah, the good life! “Probably one of my favorite things to do is sit outside underneath the stars,” said astrophotographer Harley Grady from Texas, who took this self- and galactic-portrait on June 19, 2012. Grady said this is a single 30 second exposure, with a red LED light to illuminate himself and 6″ Dob telescope.

How many of our other readers could take a similar picture of themselves?

Shot with a Nikon D700,Tokina 16-28mm f2.8 Lens, ISO 3200, WB 4000K.

June 27, 2012December 23, 2015 by Nancy Atkinson

Astrophoto: Iris Nebula by Thad Szabo

Here’s a great deep sky photo of the Iris Nebula (NGC 7023) in Cepheus by astrophotographer Thad Szabo. This image was taken from near Alder Springs, California, USA on the night of 23/24 June 2012. On Flickr, Thad said this is a “combination of a stack of 2 min exposures and a stack of 6 min exposures. Shot with 9.25″ Edge HD at f/2.3 with Hyperstar and Atik 314L+ color CCD. Stacking done in Nebulosity; final processing in PS CS 5 with help from Annie’s Astro Actions.”

June 25, 2012December 23, 2015 by Nancy Atkinson

Astrophotos: Crazy Solar Prominences

We’ve got three cool images of the hot Sun submitted by various astrophotographers! Raymond Gilchrist enhanced his image from June 23, 2012 of three solar prominences using Inspire Pro on his iPad. He used different colors to differentiate the the various “strands” of the prominences, which highlights the “texture” of these huge solar features. See more of Raymond’s great astrophotos at his Flickr page.

See more below:

Renown Australian amateur astronomy Month Leventhal captured this pyramid-shaped prominence on the NW limb of the Sun, which reaches an approximate height of 93,000km! Wow! Monty took this image early today (June 25, 2012) using a Canon 600D camera, H-alpha 6Å filter and a Meade S.C. 10 inch telescope.

This is an awesome look at the Sun on June 16th from Efrain Morales Rivera from the Jaicoa Observatory in Puerto Rico. Visible are a huge prominence, several active regions, (AR1504, 5, 7 & 8), and interesting filaments. At the time this image was taken, Efrain noted that AR1504 had developed a ‘beta-gamma-delta’ magnetic field that harbors energy for strong solar flares. See more at the Jaicoa Observatory website.

Lead image caption: Solar Prominences, imaged edited with Inspire Pro. Credit: Raymond Gilchrist.

Second image caption: Prominence on the NW limb reaching an approximate height of 93,000km. Credit: Monty Leventhal.

Third image caption: Several sunspots, prominences and filaments on the Sun on June 16th 13:27UT. Credit: Efrain Morales Rivera, Jaicoa Observatory

June 22, 2012December 23, 2015 by Nancy Atkinson

Astrophoto: Supernova PTF11kly During and After

It was literally an event of stellar proportions! In August 2011, a new Type Ia supernova was seen in spiral galaxy M101 a.k.a the Pinwheel Galaxy, located 25 million light-years away. Called PTF11kly, the bright supernova was a target for many astrophotographers. But what does it look like now? Here is a side-by-side comparison by Bill Schlosser from Ohio. It shows his image of the supernova on Sept. 26th, 2011 and then more recently, on June 9th, 2012. “The first was taken through my Astro Tech 10″ RC (I have since sold it) and the second through my TEC 140mm APO,” Bill wrote, and it clearly shows the supernova at its height (brightest object in the left picture, in the lower left side of the galaxy) to what it is today — a small blue blob in the right-hand image. Bill is wondering if it is possibly a becoming nebula now?

Great comparison shots! Check out Bill’s Flickr page for more great photos.