Astrophotography

Comets, Stars, and Satellites


8 June 2004 Riviera Beach, Maryland: I caught this photo of a bird crosing the face of the sun while I was trying to photograph the Venus transit of the Sun. Both the bird (left side) and Venus (black dot, right side) are visible.

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5 February 1999 Hawley, Pennsylvania: The Constellation Orion. The Zoom is a zoom in on orion's belt and sword, which contains the Orion Nebula -- The red- orange blob in the lower center of the zoom. (28mm, f4.0, 15 sec)


28 March 1998, Bull Run Regional Park, Virginia: An interesting view of the North Star [Polaris]. The north star is the bright spot in the middle of the photograph. (85mm, f13, 10 min)


28 March 1998, Bull Run Regional Park, Virginia: The Mir Space Station. (ASA1000, 85mm, f2.0, 30 sec)


28 March 1998, Bull Run Regional Park, Virginia: Another shot of the Mir Space Station. The dim streak of light below the main Mir streak is from an airplane. (ASA1000, 85mm, f2.0, 30 sec)

If you want to find out on-line which satellites are visible from where you live, check out http://www.heavens-above.com/. With most satellites, knowing your latitude and longitude to the nearest degree is accurate enough.

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13 April 1997, Pasadena, Maryland: Comet Hale-Bopp (ASA1000, 85mm, Automatic Shutter)

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13 April 1997, Pasadena, Maryland: A magnitude -8.4 Flare from the Iridium 46 Satellite. (ASA1000, 28mm, f5.6, 90 sec)

To learn more about why the Iridium series of satellites flare from mgnitude 6.0 to magnitude -8.4 and back to magnitued 6.0 over a period of 30 seconds to a minute, check out http://www.satobs.org/iridium.html. To learn more about the purpose of the Iridium satelites, check out http://www.iridium.com/. If you want to see an Iridium flare yourself, check out http://www.heavens-above.com/. Note that with Iridium flares, it is important to know your latitude and longitude to the nearest hundreth of a degree. The more accurate you know it, the better. A variation of a couple miles can change the apparent brightness of the flares by several levels of magnitude.

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4 April 1997, Pasadena, Maryland: Comet Hale-Bopp (ASA1000, 85mm, f1.8, 20 sec)

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12 March 1997, Pasadena, Maryland: Comet Hale-Bopp (ASA1000, 28mm, f2.8, 30 sec)

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11 March 1997, Pasadena, Maryland: Comet Hale-Bopp (ASA1000, 85mm, Automatic Shutter)

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9 March 1997, Pasadena, Maryland: Comet Hale-Bopp (ASA1000, 28mm, f2.8, 30 sec)

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9 March 1997, Pasadena, Maryland: Comet Hale-Bopp (ASA1000, 28mm, f2.8, 60 sec)

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3 April 1996, Silver Spring, Maryland: Lunar Eclipse (ASA1000, 300mm, Automatic Shutter)


23 March 1996, Pasadena, Maryland: Comet Hyakutake (ASA200, 75mm, f4.0, 60 sec)

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23 March 1996, Pasadena, Maryland: Comet Hyakutake (ASA1000, 75mm, f4.0, 15 sec)

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23 March 1996, Pasadena, Maryland: Comet Hyakutake (ASA1000, 75mm, f4.0, 30 sec)


23 March 1996, Pasadena, Maryland: Quarter Moon (ASA1000, 1000mm, f16, Automatic Shutter)

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Last updated: 20 August 2007

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