I take a lot of photos. I have no idea how or where to host them. Here’re some recent’ns.
International Space Station (for some reason) makes it sound enormous, but even tremendous things are hard to spot from 542 km (337 mi) away. At that distance, the station appears 1/60th the size of the width of your pinky finger held at arm’s length—51 arcseconds wide.
The picture above is a composite of six photographs, each taken within a single second.
Equipment:
- Nikon D610
- iOptron skyguider pro
- iOptron tripod
- Sigma 150-600mm 5-6.3 Contemporary
- Cheap intervalometer
- Thousand Oaks solar film (gaffer’s taped over my lens hood)
Software
- transit-finder.com
- SkEye (for polar alignment during the daytime—point at σ-Octantis!)
- AtomicClock for accurate time
- Ventusky + skippysky + clear dark sky for cloud reports
EXIF | |
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ExposureTime | 1/3200 |
FNumber | 6.3 |
FocalLength | 600.0 mm |
CreateDate | 2021-07-30 15:44:12 |
Lens | 150-600mm f/5-6.3 |
ISO | 3200 |
Model | NIKON D610 |
Make | NIKON CORPORATION |
A van on fire in Longmont, CO on Pratt St, West of 6th ave today.
EXIF | |
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ExposureTime | 1/60 |
FNumber | 7.1 |
FocalLength | 185.0 mm |
CreateDate | 2021-06-15 13:11:47 |
Lens | 150-600mm f/5-6.3 |
ISO | 125 |
Model | NIKON D610 |
Make | NIKON CORPORATION |
I had the day off work today and I noticed there was a good pass of NOAA 18 today so I went to the Izaak Walton park with my BaoFeng UV-5R and tape-measure yagi and came back with this image from a satellite. Radio is neat!
Satellite: NOAA. Direction: southbound. Creation Time: 30 Mar 2021 00:56:23 GMT.Satellite Type: NOAA. Channel A: 1 (visible). Channel B: 2 (near infrared). Enhancement: class. Audio File: NOAA18-11025_2021-03-29T11:09:28.wav. Software: WXtoImg version 2.10.11.
Single, untracked shot of the comet NEOWISE from Sandstone Ranch in Longmont, Colorado.
I hadn’t planned on going to see the comet–it’s been cloudy the last few days and I was slowly starting to lose hope for a clear night.
An hour before this picture was taken, as I was taking the dog out just before going to bed, I noticed the stars for the first time in days. I threw my camera in the car, grabbed the binoculars, and drove to the highest, closest public spot.
Blazey’s niece is staying with us for a few weeks of this strange summer. We attempted to see NEOWISE on Saturday from the same vantage, but all we found were cloudy skies and roving hordes of teenagers. Tonight was very different–small groups of nerds gathered around telescopes, all there to see the same thing.
EXIF | |
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ExposureTime | 2 |
FNumber | 2.8 |
FocalLength | 200.0 mm |
CreateDate | 2020-07-20 21:40:13 |
Lens | 70-200mm f/2.8 |
ISO | 3200 |
Model | NIKON D610 |
Make | NIKON CORPORATION |
Tamar Adler’s book Something Old, Something New is filled with anachronistic dishes reimagined and revised. Gelée di pomodoro is found in a short section on aspic. It’s a gelatin made from tomatoes, basil, jalapeño, olive oil, and salt.
Balancing this piquant aspic atop sourdough, butter lettuce, and center cut bacon was my contribution. It tasted like summer in sandwich form.
EXIF | |
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ExposureTime | 1/60 |
FNumber | 1.8 |
FocalLength | 4.4 mm |
CreateDate | 2020-06-14 15:29:29 |
ISO | 439 |
Model | Pixel 2 |
Make |
Summertime is michelada time.
EXIF | |
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ExposureTime | 1/40 |
FNumber | 1.8 |
FocalLength | 4.4 mm |
CreateDate | 2020-05-29 18:08:07 |
ISO | 547 |
Model | Pixel 2 |
Make |
First attempt at using my webber kettlepizza to make a pizza on the grill. I think it worked out pretty ok. Shishitos, red onion, and pepperoni.
My pizza dough recipe is straight from Peter Reinhart’s Artisan Breads Every Day.
EXIF | |
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ExposureTime | 1/192 |
FNumber | 1.8 |
FocalLength | 4.4 mm |
CreateDate | 2020-05-03 18:56:17 |
ISO | 46 |
Model | Pixel 2 |
Make |
3 different meads I’ve had for a while. From left-to-right:
- Hairy vetch session mead
- Orange blossom sweet sack mead
- Sweet sack blackcurrent melomel
Computational photography fail: this was taken using the Pixel 2’s “portrait mode” that attempts to computationally blur the background of images. Of course, glassware wreaks havoc on this technique
EXIF | |
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ExposureTime | 1/198 |
FNumber | 1.8 |
FocalLength | 4.4 mm |
CreateDate | 2020-05-02 13:58:43 |
ISO | 48 |
Model | Pixel 2 |
Make |
- 8 lb brisket
- Morton’s Kosher Salt + Black pepper about 50/50
- Hickory wood
- Start spraying brisket with beer after 3 hours
- 9am–3pm on smoker, tried to maintain 250°F–275°F
- Kept fire vent open all the time, aiming for complete combustion, opened firebox door when it got too hot
- When I couldn’t raise the temp, I had to empty the ashbox and start new coals
- Stalled at 170°F for last 2 hours (between 170 and 173)
- Pulled during stall, wrapped then moved to the oven
- Moved to oven at 265°F
- Bark didn’t look very dark when I pulled it, but got plenty dark in the oven
- Too salty, other than that: perfect
EXIF | |
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ExposureTime | 1/17 |
FNumber | 1.8 |
FocalLength | 4.4 mm |
CreateDate | 2020-03-29 18:56:49 |
ISO | 210 |
Model | Pixel 2 |
Make |
EXIF | |
---|---|
ExposureTime | 1/250 |
FNumber | 16.0 |
FocalLength | 50.0 mm |
CreateDate | 2019-06-19 12:32:13 |
Lens | 50mm f/1.8 |
ISO | 640 |
Model | NIKON D610 |
Make | NIKON CORPORATION |
EXIF | |
---|---|
ExposureTime | 1/200 |
FNumber | 8.0 |
Title | Golden Gate Bridge from Crissy Field |
FocalLength | 35.0 mm |
CreateDate | 2019-01-27 16:13:13 |
Lens | 35mm f/1.4 |
ISO | 50 |
Model | NIKON D610 |
Make | NIKON CORPORATION |
This is a composite image combining some of the 689 pictures I took of the full lunar eclipse on the night of Sunday, 20 Jan 2019 from the middle of my backyard in Longmont, Colorado. The time span covered in this image spans from roughly 21:00–23:45.
Gear ¶
- Nikon D610
- Nikon 70-200mm f/2.8G ED VR II
- Nikon Auto Focus-S FX TC-20E III 2x Teleconverter
- iOptron SkyGuider Pro
- Cheap Pangshi intervalometer
Acquisition ¶
I took 50 shots (or so) every 15 minutes for the duration of the eclipse.
Software ¶
I do all image processing with FOSS software (with the unfortunate exception of camera and tracker firmware).
- Debian Buster
- Darktable
- Chromatic aberration
- Lens correction
- Cropping
- Export to 16-bit TIF
- Siril
- Create new FITs sequence from exported TIF
- Planetary Full-Disk registration
- Average stacking with rejection – Windsorized Sigma Clipping
- Wavelets sharpening
- Save final stacked as 16-bit TIF
- GIMP 2.10.8
- Combining images into one composite
- Export as 8-bit JPEG
- Bash
- So much bash.
EXIF | |
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ExposureTime | 1 |
FNumber | 5.6 |
FocalLength | 400.0 mm |
CreateDate | 2019-01-20 22:21:59 |
Lens | 70-200mm f/2.8 |
ISO | 1600 |
Model | NIKON D610 |
Make | NIKON CORPORATION |
Sunrise looking West towards Meeker from the path around McIntosh Lake.
EXIF | |
---|---|
ExposureTime | 1/6 |
FNumber | 8.0 |
FocalLength | 105.0 mm |
CreateDate | 2018-10-27 07:25:18 |
Lens | 70-200mm f/2.8 |
ISO | 50 |
Model | NIKON D610 |
Make | NIKON CORPORATION |
EXIF | |
---|---|
ExposureTime | 5 |
FNumber | 1.4 |
FocalLength | 35.0 mm |
CreateDate | 2018-08-09 22:08:35 |
Lens | 35mm f/1.4 |
ISO | 6400 |
Model | NIKON D610 |
Make | NIKON CORPORATION |
Interior HDR Vertorama composed of 15 bracketed photos taken hand-held inside Sagrada Família in Barcelona, Spain.
Technical ¶
15 photos, 3 exposures -1, 0, +1 EV, lens correction applied in Darktable, blended using align_image_stack
and G’MIC to create 5 HDR images. Imported to Hugin to create a vertorama.
EXIF | |
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ExposureTime | 1/160 |
FNumber | 2.8 |
FocalLength | 14.0 mm |
CreateDate | 2018-05-17 07:33:55 |
Lens | 14mm f/2.8-1.4 |
ISO | 1600 |
Model | NIKON D610 |
Make | NIKON CORPORATION |
A pretty overcast day, flat altostratus clouds made for a totally boring background that I completely blew out. On the plus side, the Nikon 28-300mm f/3.5-5.6 that I rented was more than up to the task of taking a nice sharp picture of the statue.
EXIF | |
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ExposureTime | 1/320 |
FNumber | 8.0 |
FocalLength | 300.0 mm |
CreateDate | 2018-03-28 10:32:43 |
Lens | 28-300mm f/3.5-5.6 |
ISO | 100 |
Model | NIKON D610 |
Make | NIKON CORPORATION |
Orion cloud complex from my back yard.
Equipment ¶
- Nikon D610
- iOptron Skyguider Pro
- 11 Frames captured at ISO 800, 45 seconds, f/2.8
- Processed using all libre software.
Software ¶
- Debian GNU/Linux buster
- Siril (GPLv3 license)
- Global Star Alignment (deep sky)
- Sum Stacking
- Winsorized Sigma Clipping – all images in sequence
- Background Extraction
- Color Calibration
- Auto stretching
- Raw Therapee (GPLv3 license)
- LAB noise reduction
- Cropping
- GIMP 2.8 (GPLv3 license)
- Saturation
- Sharpening
EXIF | |
---|---|
ExposureTime | 42.2 |
FNumber | 2.8 |
FocalLength | 200.0 mm |
CreateDate | 2018-03-10 21:35:40 |
Lens | 70-200mm f/2.8 |
ISO | 800 |
Model | NIKON D610 |
Make | NIKON CORPORATION |
Taken from my backyard, bortle 6/7 zone
Equipment ¶
- Nikon D610 using T-Ring at prime focus
- Celestron NexStar 5se
- 41 Frames captured at ISO 800, 1/500 sec
- Processing
- Processed using all libre software.
Software ¶
- Debian GNU/Linux buster
- Siril (GPLv3 license)
- Image Pattern Alignment (Planetary Full Disk)
- Sum Stacking
- Best Images (planetary) — 50% of frames (21 images)
- Wavelets Transform — BSpline, 1st plan 25.00 and that’s it
- Raw Therapee (GPLv3 license)
- LAB noise reduction
- Cropping
- White balance
EXIF | |
---|---|
ExposureTime | 1/80 |
FNumber | 0 |
FocalLength | 0.0 mm |
CreateDate | 2018-03-04 00:13:35 |
Lens | 0mm f/0 |
ISO | 125 |
Model | NIKON D610 |
Make | NIKON CORPORATION |
Had the day off today for President’s Day. Decided to spend it hunched over taking macro photos of snowflakes. This was taken using 3 extension tubes totaling 68mm. I found that I needed auto-focus very much so I decided to forego doing reverse-lens work, although I think the additional magnification would have been nice to have. This is an averages stack of 3 aligned images.
EXIF | |
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ExposureTime | 1/5 |
FNumber | 11.0 |
Description | Had the day off today for President’s Day. Decided to spend it hunched over taking macro photos of snowflakes. This was taken using 3 extension tubes totaling 68mm. I found that I needed auto-focus very much so I decided to forego doing reverse-lens work, although I think the additional magnification would have been nice to have. This is an averages stack of 3 aligned images. |
Title | Snowflake Macro |
FocalLength | 50.0 mm |
CreateDate | 2018-02-19 15:52:18 |
Lens | 50mm f/1.8 |
ISO | 100 |
Model | NIKON D610 |
Make | NIKON CORPORATION |
This is the Great Orion Nebula, M42. I realized this is fairly easy to see with a sufficient optical boost from my backyard which is roughly Bortle 6/7. This is my second night trying to image this object (or any DSO, actually).
This is a stack of 10x88-second exposures (roughly 15 minutes total exposure time). Polar-alignment on my SkyGuider Pro proved to be a bit difficult (once I added the camera and counter balance I had to re-align), so this 15 minutes is the result of me fiddling for an hour and a half or so. I did all the processing for this photo using libre software. Camera/lens correction in RawTherapee, aligned using align_image_stack
in Hugin, average stacking using G’MIC, final stacked image tone curve/RGB curve/saturation adjustments in RawTherapee.
EXIF | |
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ExposureTime | 88 |
FNumber | 2.8 |
Description | This is the Great Orion Nebula, M42. I realized this is fairly easy to see with a sufficient optical boost from my backyard which is roughly Bortle 6/7. This is my second night trying to image this object (or any DSO, actually). This is a stack of 10x88-second exposures (roughly 15 minutes total exposure time). Polar-alignment on my SkyGuider Pro proved to be a bit difficult (once I added the camera and counter balance I had to re-align), so this 15 minutes is the result of me fiddling for an hour and a half or so. I did all the processing for this photo using libre software. Camera/lens correction in RawTherapee, aligned using align_image_stack in hugin, average stacking using G’MIC, final stacked image tone curve/RGB curve/saturation adjustments in RawTherapee |
Title | Orion Nebula, M42 |
FocalLength | 200.0 mm |
CreateDate | 2018-02-17 20:34:58 |
Lens | 70-200mm f/2.8 |
ISO | 400 |
Model | NIKON D610 |
Make | NIKON CORPORATION |