I was able to take Hercules out to Area 62 the last week of August. This was likely the last night under the stars Hercules will have until I get a break from school. I was also able to make a quick trip to Cedar Breaks National Monument (CBNM) in early October but only took my camera.
- Area 62
The weather in August was fantastic and I was able to see many galaxies, star clusters, nebulae, double stars, and a couple of planets. After setting up my gear, my first target was the Moon. I had recently bought a couple of moon filters, which I probably didn't need on this particular night since the Moon was less than half illuminated. I wanted to try them out anyway and they worked as I expected! I'm excited to use them again when the Moon is reflecting more of the Sun's light.
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| The Moon with smart phone and Hercules. |
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| The Moon with smart phone and Hercules. |
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| The Moon with smart phone and Hercules |
After the Moon, I had Hercules target Jupiter which was just to the upper left of the Moon from our perspective. It was low in the sky so I couldn't make out as much planetary detail as I was hoping for. After my short views of Jupiter, I located Saturn. The ringed system looked as amazing as I was hoping for. I was able to get a few pictures with my phone that are a little blurry, but you should get the idea.
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| Saturn with smart phone and Hercules. |
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| Saturn with smart phone and Hercules. |
I spent the next several hours looking at the Andromeda Galaxy, many star clusters and double stars, and a few nebulae. Everything that I could see looked great! I took many pictures at Area 62, but I feel like I'm sharing things that I have already posted here. So I will share just my favorites.
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| Panorama of Area 62 |
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| The Moon setting and some campers. |
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| The Pleiades and city glow. |
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| Star Trails. |
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| The Pleiades again. |
- Cedar Breaks National Monument
We arrived at Cedar Breaks National Monument less than an hour before sunset. I quickly set up my camera and started firing off shots almost immediately. I think we were there for close to 2 hours and I took over 250 pictures. There was a slight breeze on this night, and a little bit of smoke on the western horizon. We were about 10,000 feet in elevation and it was
cold. The sky looked spectacular as CBNM is a national dark sky park. The Milky Way was easily seen shortly after sunset. I felt like I could see millions of more stars here than I can at Area 62. The pictures also lacked the reddish color of the sky glow that I capture in my images from Area 62.
Most of the pictures looked absolutely amazing on the camera's view finder. After getting home and looking at the pictures on a larger screen, nearly all of them are blurry! So I am only going to share a few of them.
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| View to the Southwest at CBNM. |
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| View to the South at CBNM. |
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| Sunlight on the rocks. |
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| Sunlight on the rocks. |
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| Sunset at CBNM. Notice the smoke. |
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| Ursa Major (The Big Dipper). |
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| Stars through the trees. |
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| Milky Way and stars through the trees. |
- Conclusion
As mentioned earlier, I really like the atmosphere and images I was able to capture at CBNM. I just wish they weren't blurry! There's always next time though.
You know what to do.....
Now get outside and look up!
