The Geeky Atheist

Last night as many of you know was the peak of the Perseids. I had driven up into the mountains on Monday night as well, but left my tripod mount back at the house. I set back out again last night with all of my gear in tow. The results were spectacular. After my comments and pictures, I'll give a few tips that I didn't read anywhere else on how to best set up your camera to capture meteors.

The view from up at roughly 10k feet is absolutely spectacular. Here's a 30 second exposure of my view of Santa Fe. According to another observer, the lights at the very edge of the horizon is actually the start of Albuquerque. I believe that's true because between Santa Fe and Albuquerque is pretty much nothing.

You'll probably have to click to enlarge to see it. The boxes help guide you to it. The full size image is available here

Full size image

Full size image

I had a great time, but photographing meteors can be tricky. Here's some tips to ensure a few exposures:

1. Use a tripod. A must for anything nearing a 1 second exposure, let alone 30 seconds.
2. Either have a cable release, IR remote, or set your camera to shoot delayed on a timer. The pressure from you hitting the shutter button will nudge your camera causing a shake. You need to have the exposure start when you're not touching the camera.
3. Long exposures are great, but at a low ISO setting (ie, 200) the meteors won't register. I experimented with ISO 1600 and 2500 on these exposures. I was still able to do 30 second exposures without things being blown out.
4. Snap lots of pictures.
5. Pick a spot in the sky and try for 5-10 minutes. Don't rotate between every shot.
6. When sorting through the images, you can compare two shots of the same area of sky by using the arrow keys back and forth. This helps spot the faint ones.
7. Don't use built-in noise reduction. Even software noise reduction really affects the quality of the streaks.

Lastly, don't get too frustrated. As we all know, karma plays a large role in this, and obviously my karma is low. Nearing 2am, I told myself, "Last picture" about 4 times, and then finally started taking things down. By the time I had my tripod fully packed up, I had seen 3 bright meteors. That's really frustrating when you know you didn't capture any big ones in your exposures.

But then I realized, this was my first time, and I still loved it. Anyone else have any good exposures?

I've had a great summer for astronomy. At some point last year when I began to grasp the universe's true age, it filled me with a sense of wonder. But when I look back, I think it must have been the winter vacation home my wife and I rented out in the mountains of Virginia. The moon wasn't out and with the nearest town miles away, the view of the stars was simply stunning. I point to that moment as being what rekindled my love of the stars.

I began listening to several podcasts about astronomy:

• AstronomyCast
• 365 Days of Astronomy
• Blueshift

I yearned to watch the stars. Back in February when Comet Lulin was becoming visible, I tried unsuccessfully to capture it on camera. I knew I needed a telescope to satisfy my desires.

Fast-forward to The Amazing Meeting 7, I was part of the winning group of the auction to have a private planetarium and observing trip with Phil Plait.

This was a great experience, and I learned a lot. We did see a few globular clusters, binary stars, Jupiter and Saturn, but the biggest disappointment of the night was that this observatory was next door to two baseball fields. Despite not having a game on that night, the lights were on. Overcoming the odds, Phil and the great people at the planetarium helped guide us to things we could still see. This was the first time I had actually looked through a decent telescope at the sky, and I got hooked.

Returning back to my humble summer abode, I've been hunting for telescopes when I finally decided to see if there were any astronomy clubs in Santa Fe. There is one, but their site is horribly out of date. However, in searching I found another person who has a great domain name: Cosmonut.org. And he has a 20" Dobsonian. I was sold.

Unfortunately my wife just wasn't going to have a chance to make it out there with me because of her busy schedule, so I booked a trip myself. I drove 45 minutes out into the desert/mountains and we were at a lovely dark sky spot. The only thing impeding the view was that it was a full moon.

Despite not being Phil Plait, Peter Lipscomb had a mastery of the sky and we saw nearly everything on my list. If it weren't for the brightness of the moon, we would have been able to check off "galaxies" from my list. With his scope, we saw clearly the bands of Jupiter (including seeing roughly where the red spot is, even though the color contrast wasn't good enough to actually make it out), four moons of Jupiter and a 5th impostor (it's in the constellation of Capricorn), several globular clusters, a few nebulae, and we even were pointed to where the Apollo 11 mission landed on the moon.

After the family of three left, I stuck around for a moment to try to take a few moon pictures, and Peter and I began chatting. I was picking is brain about astronomy, telescopes, and more. I wasn't completely useless -- I helped him load his scope into his truck. While we were chatting, I saw a meteor and he informed me it was one of the Perseids. I was a bit shocked because I thought it was too early. I asked him for his favorite, public dark sky spot, and he pointed me up the mountain through the Santa Fe National Forest up into Hyde Park. He was spot on.

I drove up there last night shortly after midnight. I arrived at the lookout point I had been to during the day two months ago. On the way up I was reminded I truly was in the forest. Deer lined the roads, and I could have sworn I saw a bear cub climbing up a hill as I came around a bend. I could have been mistaken, but the shape and proportions looked pretty spot on, but the darkness could have easily fooled me. Finally I arrived at the lookout point and stayed in my car. At first I didn't see much, and then a lone motorcycle came up and parked at the spot with me. It was silly of me to be scared, but honestly I was. I stayed in my car for a bit and noticed he was just standing off looking into the sky as well. I finally got out of the car and chatted him up a bit.

While we were chatting, I saw at least 30-40 meteors. It was beautiful. This was the perfect dark sky spot. Unfortunately in haste I left my camera tripod attachment at the house, and so I wasn't able to take any good pictures. I'm returning there tonight to try to get good pictures.

What amazed me was that with the roughly half-moon last night, I could see the faint cloudiness of the milky way in the sky. It was spectacular. Off in the distance I saw the lights of Santa Fe and then even further my new friend pointed out was the beginning of Albuquerque. The view was spectacular, not only of Santa Fe but of the sky as well. I want to experience this every night of my life.

I'm hoping to get some pictures tonight to share. Without the tripod mount, it was futile trying to take any pictures of the sky. If I get any good ones, I'll be posting them here. Hopefully I've inspired the itch to go look at the sky. I highly recommend doing it tonight, as the Perseids are in their peak. My personal viewing tips:

• Go out at least 15 minutes away from your nearest decent sized city. Light pollution is killer.
• Give yourself 20 minutes with no lights on for your eyes to adjust.
• Look into the north-eastern section of the sky.
• Do this slightly after midnight and watch for at least an hour. You'll see them.

Best of luck in your observing!

One major change in my life after giving up my belief in God was my fascination with astronomy. I had always enjoyed astronomy, but what came with the acceptance of the age of the universe and big bang was a renewal of my interest in what lays beyond us. I've spent a lot of time reading and listening about astronomy.

For the new years my wife, dog, and I spent a little over a week in a log cabin in the mountains in Virginia. Without light pollution and at a little higher elevation, the night skies were simply amazing.

Unfortunately in Austin, TX, while you can still see stars, it's nothing like it was out in the Virginia mountains. I tried to get pictures of Comet Lulin, but I failed quite miserably.

However, I'm excited for this summer. We're going to spend it in Santa Fe, NM, and I am anticipating some wonderful viewing opportunities. The elevation there is over a mile above sea level, and there's lots of easily accessed areas in the mountains outside of Santa Fe. I'm having fantasies of grabbing my tent and spending some nights out in the mountains with my telescope and camera.

I have a penchant for astrophotography, which when reading about, is an idea I shouldn't try to bother with initially :-) But what do all the article authors know ;-)

Anyone else astronomy aficionados? I'd love to hear any anecdotes in the comments.