Recently, I was able to take a trip to the Big Island of Hawaii. Of course I packed up my camera to take some pictures of the night sky! My goal was to be able to capture the constellation of the Southern Cross and our closest neighboring star system, Centauri. Both of these targets were visible just before sunrise, with the Southern Cross rising before the Centauri system. I was able to capture a few decent shots.
Both the Southern Cross and Centauri are located on the southern end of the Milky Way band that we can see at night. Unfortunately, from the northern hemisphere, we cannot see either of these. Neither of these are visible while the constellation of Cassiopeia is in the sky. For those of us in the northern hemisphere, Cassiopeia is visible year round.
I was also able to travel up to the Keck Observatory which is where many of these pictures will be from. It was decently dark up there, but very crowded with people. I wasn't able to drive right up to the actual observatories, but to the visitors center where they had about a dozen or so telescopes set up pointing at different targets in the sky. Four-wheel-drive vehicles are required to make it all the way to the summit, which I didn't have. Maybe next time! I was able to get a few decent pictures of the Keck Observatory from the place where I stayed.
I traveled to one of the active volcanoes on this particular Hawaiian island as well. Many people, including me, stayed until after sunset to see the glow of the lava from this volcano. I have several pictures which I have included just a few since it's not really astronomy related. Of course, I took some astronomy pictures from this location also.
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| Volcano Caldera |
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| Lava Glow |
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| Lava Glow and a few Stars |
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| Orion at Volcano |
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| Volcano Glow, Stars, and Meteor |
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| Pleiades at Volcano |
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| Lava Glow Close-up |
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| Lava Glow Close-up |
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| Above the Clouds at Keck Observatory |
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| People Watching Sunset at Keck Observatory |
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| Meade LX200GPS Telescope at Keck Observatory |
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| Celestron Telescope at Keck Observatory |
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| Pleiades from Keck |
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| Stars and Descending Cars |
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| ISS, Stars, and Lava Glow |
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| Orion from Keck Observatory |
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| Stars at Keck Observatory |
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| Stars and Cars at Keck Observatory |
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| Orion and Sirius at Keck Observatory |
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| Pleiades Through Clouds and Palms |
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| Moon glow, Palm Trees, Stars, and Keck Observatory in the Distance |
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| Keck Observatory and Star spin |
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| Southern Cross and Centauri |
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| Southern Cross and Centauri |
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| Moon and Stars |
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| Big Dipper Between the Palm Trees |
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| Southern Cross and Centauri |
If you need help finding the Southern Cross in these pictures, it is the four stars just above the hill in the distance. It's leaning slightly to the left. If you follow the two stars that form the horizontal part of the cross to the left, you will see a fairly bright star just above the palm trees. This is Centauri.
If you are having trouble finding anything in any of the pictures, please let me know!
