Objects in the Night Sky–March 2025

April 5, 2025 / Add comment

We have had several opportunities in March for good-to-excellent night sky viewing and astrophotography sessions. High on my list was capturing NGC 1499 (“California Nebula”). It resides in the western sky during March and is located near Pleiades but is actually in the constellation Perseus.

The nearly vertical zodiacal light shares the western sky with the winter Milky Way and are faintly reflected in the waters of Upper Lake Mary near Flagstaff, Arizona.

One drawback to observing it in the spring is that there can be interference from zodiacal light. From Wikipedia,

The zodiacal light is a faint glow of diffuse sunlight scattered by interplanetary dust. It appears in a particularly dark night sky to extend from the Sun’s direction in a roughly triangular shape along the zodiac…

…Since zodiacal light is very faint, it is often outshone and rendered invisible by moonlight or light pollution.

I made several attempts at NGC 1499. The first attempt was about as expected as I didn’t actually know where to point the camera so I used a short telephoto focal length (80mm) with a wide field of view (25.3° x 17.0°). Luckily, I pointed it correctly but unluckily I bumped the focus ring and everything had a soft focus. Okay, not a success but not too bad for a first attempt.

First attempt at NGC 1499 (19 March 2025).

Third attempt at NGC 1499 (24 March 2025).

On my second attempt I used a longer focal length (180mm) which meant a smaller field of view (11.4° x 13.7°). I had very good focus and other camera settings but managed to actually point it at the wrong object. Instead, I photographed NGC 1579 (“Northern Trifid Nebula”). Oops! But the result was still a success–even if not the object I was seeking.

The third try worked out well. I reverted back to a shorter focal length (85mm) and wider field of view (23.9° x 16.0°) because that might give me a pleasing image with the nebula and neighboring stars. This worked out well except for the previously mentioned zodiacal light. The light was present in the field of view so it was necessary to crop the image to remove the bright band.

I actually prefer the first image as it has better color and less lens flare than the second image.

Finally, I shot images of the zodiacal light using an ultra-wide fisheye lens to capture both the foreground of Upper Lake Mary and the stars and planets up through the zenith. NGC 1499 and NGC 1579 are located to the right of Pleiades but are too small to be visible in this wide view.

The nearly vertical zodiacal light shares the western sky with the winter Milky Way. Annotated to show Pleiades, Jupiter, and Mars. NGC 1499 and NGC 1579 are located to the right of Pleiades.

I have recently started using Siril for my astrophotography processing and have been generally pleased with the results.

Moon, Venus, and Jupiter

March 18, 2025

A few weeks ago I shot photographs of the crescent phase of Venus (~11% illuminated) in the southwestern twilight sky. I then decided to also get photographs of the crescent Moon (~32% illuminated) and the planet Jupiter. These were in different parts of the sky and not all visible in the same photograph. I composited them into this image which shows the relative sizes of the three bodies. All images were shot using a 500mm telephoto lens.

Composite image of the Moon, Venus, and Jupiter.

Below is a screen shot from Stellarium showing the actual positions of Jupiter, the Moon, and Venus.

Night Sky and Orion

March 6, 2025

These two images were taken a few months ago when the constellation Orion was in the eastern/southeastern sky. Both imaging sessions were tests of my recently acquired Nikon D850 and of the Siril software package.

Wide view of Orion and the surrounding Orion Molecular Dust Cloud.

The Witch Head Nebula (IC 2118) near the constellation Orion.

The first was taken with a 50mm lens to show all of Orion as well as the neighboring features. The image is a stack of 32 frames @ 60 seconds, f4, ISO 1600, and shot on a Nikon D850. The images were processed in Siril–a tool I’m still learning to use–and the final result nicely shows the Orion molecular cloud complex (or, simply, the Orion complex). From the Wikipedia article:

The Orion complex includes a large group of bright nebulae and dark clouds in the Orion constellation. Several nebulae can be observed through binoculars and small telescopes, and some parts (such as the Orion Nebula) are visible to the naked eye.

The second image was taken a few nights later with a 180mm telephoto lens and is looking at the Witchhead Nebula (IC 2118), located very near Orion–and is also faintly visible in the previous image. This image is a stack of 38 frames @ 60 seconds, f4, ISO 1600, and shot on a Nikon D850. As before, the stack of images was processed in Siril. From Wikipedia:

IC 2118 is an extremely faint reflection nebula believed to be an ancient supernova remnant or gas cloud illuminated by nearby supergiant star Rigel in the constellation of Orion.

I have been happy with the results on the Nikon D850 for capturing astro images and equally pleased with how easy it is to use Siril in post processing.

Edit: Fixed blockquote formatting

Four Planets in the Evening Sky

March 3, 2025

For a brief period between sunset and astronomical twilight there were several planets visible in the evening sky. Mercury, Venus, Mars, and Jupiter were all easily seen with the unaided eye. With a few seconds exposure, cameras easily resolved Uranus. Missing was Saturn which was so low in the sky that it was overpowered by the bright glare of early twilight.

Four planets (Mercury, Venus, Jupiter, and Uranus) plus the crescent Moon during evening twilight.

Here is an image with Mercury, Venus, Jupiter, and Uranus, plus the Moon. Mars was too far to the east to be included even with this wide-angle lens. Also included is a zoomed-in crop of the original image to clearly show Uranus.

Multiple planets visible in the sky simultaneously is not a rare event. Rather, it happens on a regular basis. Here are links to other events that have been posted on this site.

Twilight Rocket Launch and Noctilucent Clouds

February 23, 2025 / 2 Comments

There was another twilight rocket launch from Vandenberg Space Flight Base that provided a spectacular event visible in Arizona on Saturday evening. The sky was still fairly bright so it was difficult to capture the expanding rocket exhaust in the early moments of the flight. But as the sky eventually darkened I was fascinated by the twisting shapes of the rocket contrail and rocket-induced noctilucent clouds. It was dark enough at this point to shoot longer exposures and create a time-lapse video of the clouds. The colors were magnificent–and very similar to what might be observed from naturally occuring noctilucent clouds at higher latitudes.