A thunder storm

We did get an inch-and-a-half of rain and the landscape is greener.  During the storm, I tried out the video feature of the Canon 60Da because we were getting quite a lightshow.  The camera was running at 59.94 fps.  The CMOS sensor reads out from top to bottom,  so it records only partial frames of … Read more

Scutum from Rancho Hidalgo

Here’s the result using the Canon 60Da on my little tracker head.  I spent a lot of time fooling with these in Pixinsight and then Photoshop.  Unusual for this part of New Mexico, I had problems with gradients due to smoke from wildfires in Arizona.  (See https://www.jjmcclintock.com/?p=139) I believe this is stacked from  5-180 second … Read more

Soybeans are blooming

The inch or so of rain that came with the Derecho is making the beans happy.  while they look (to me) like they would be attractive to insects, soybeans are self-pollinating.  And they are very accommodating to summer conditions.    Only about 30% of the flowers will produce seeds, the rest aborting due to dry or … Read more

Aerial haze in New Mexico

The normally great skies at Rancho Hidalgo were somewhat marred by aerial haze from fires burning in Arizona. Here’s a picture from the El Paso- Phoenix plane showing the source of some of the aerial haze.   We’re at about 36,000 feet. I showed this to Dan Klinglesmith, who is studying astronomical seeing at the … Read more

Canon 60Da First Light

At Rancho Hidalgo, I set up the Canon with my standard 28-135 zoom and the tracker head.  The tracker has a small polar scope, and the alignment just uses that.  I shot constellation scale tests, mostly at 28mm with ASA from 1600 to 6400. Here’s a 3 minute exposure of the Scorpius region at 6400.  … Read more