Tag: Wupatki National Monument

Milky Way at Wukoki Pueblo

Many years ago I shot an image of the Milky Way rising behind Wukoki Pueblo in Wupatki National Monument in northern Arizona. Afterwards, I promised myself that I would do that shot again using newer lenses and cameras along with, hopefully, better technique.

Composite image of the Milky Way with Wukoki Pueblo, Wupatki National Monument, Arizona.
Composite image of the Milky Way with Wukoki Pueblo, Wupatki National Monument, Arizona.

I finally committed to getting the photograph earlier this week. The date/time required that the Milky Way be low in the eastern sky so it was not too far above the pueblo. It also required the waxing crescent Moon be high enough in the western sky to illuminate the foreground—but also low enough to set before the Milky Way got too high in the eastern sky.

I took a shot of the foreground and pueblo with an exposure time of 300 seconds using long exposure noise reduction; LENR doubled the total time required for image acquisition to 600 seconds. I wasn’t in a hurry…

And then I waited about 30 minutes for the Moon to set. Fortunately, I had brought a camp chair to sit on.

After the Moon had set I took several 300-second shots of the Milky Way in a very dark sky—again with LENR on.

Once back home, I took the Milky Way shots and did image stacking to remove both image noise and, more importantly, aircraft/satellite tracks. The stack became the background photo to combine with the foreground photo.

The result was pretty good but I wanted to try something more. I imported the Milky Way image stack into Siril, an astrophotograhy software package, and ran the “reduce stars” script. This has the effect of removing and/or dimming most stars while leaving the glow of the Milky Way alone.

The result is shown above.

I think I will try this again with some changes. Looking forward to this.

An Early but Brief Start of the Monsoon

The North American Monsoon got an early start in northern Arizona this year with copious amounts of precipitation over the San Francisco Peaks and surrounding areas. Unfortunately, we are now experiencing an extended monsoon break with mostly clear skies and hot temperatures.

Here are some photograph taken during that wet period.

A partial rainbow over Upper Lake Mary near Flagstaff, Arizona.
A partial rainbow over Upper Lake Mary near Flagstaff, Arizona.
The rainbow is gone but sunset colors are seen in the clouds and the reflection in the lake.
The rainbow is gone but sunset colors are seen in the clouds and the reflection in the lake.
A partial rainbow over the grasslands of Wupatki National Monument.
A partial rainbow over the grasslands of Wupatki National Monument.
A zoomed-in segment of the rainbow showing supernumary bows.
A zoomed-in segment of the rainbow showing supernumary bows.
Sunset at Wukoki Pueblo in Wupatki National Monument.
Sunset at Wukoki Pueblo in Wupatki National Monument.

Here are the June rainfall totals from the Flagstaff rain gauge network.

June rainfall totals for the Flagstaff raingage network.
June rainfall totals for the Flagstaff raingage network.

Stable Auroral Red Arc over Northern Arizona

A strong geomagnetic storm a few days ago (05 Nov 2023) triggered brilliant auroras over high and middle latitudes. At lower latitudes a different phenomena was observed. This was a Stable Auroral Red (SAR) Arc. But this feature is neither stable nor an aurora.

A mix of green airglow and Stable Auroral Red (SAR) arc is joined by a Taurid meteor over Wupatki National Monument in northern Arizona.
A mix of green airglow and Stable Auroral Red (SAR) arc is joined by a Taurid meteor over Wupatki National Monument in northern Arizona.
A mix of green airglow and Stable Auroral Red (SAR) arc over Wupatki National Monument in northern Arizona.
A mix of green airglow and Stable Auroral Red (SAR) arc over Wupatki National Monument in northern Arizona.

From the SpaceWeather.com web site:

During this past weekend’s strong G3-class geomagnetic storm, low-latitude auroras spread as far south as Texas and Arizona. Upon further review, most of those lights were not auroras at all…

SAR arcs were discovered in 1956 at the beginning of the Space Age. Researchers didn’t know what they were and unwittingly gave them a misleading name: “Stable Auroral Red arcs” or SAR arcs. In fact, SAR arcs are neither stable nor auroras.

Auroras appear when charged particles rain down from space, hitting the atmosphere and causing it to glow. SAR arcs form differently. They are a sign of heat energy leaking into the upper atmosphere from Earth’s ring current system–a donut-shaped circuit carrying millions of amps around our planet.

Okay, so it was not an aurora. But it was still pretty amazing to witness and photograph. I even managed to capture a meteor that was part of the Taurid shower moving across the SAR.

But wait, there’s more. There was green airglow in the same part of the sky as the SAR.

Time-lapse of SAR arc and green airglow over northern Arizona (1908–2217 MST 05 November 2023.)

Summary: SAR arc, Taurid meteor,green airglow…and some coyotes.

Comet C/2023 P1 Nishamura

This comet was discovered by Japanese amateur astronomer Hideo Nishimura. It was briefly visible in the morning twilight but became increasingly difficult as it got closer to the sun and was lost in the glare. It will very briefly be the evening sky this week but, again, the glare of the Sun may make it difficult to see.

Here are a few images taken in the pre-dawn hours on 08 September. In the foreground is Wukoki Pueblo in Wupatki National Monument.

Comet C/2023 P1 Nishimura at 0449 MST 08 September 2023.
Comet C/2023 P1 Nishimura at 0449 MST 08 September 2023.
A tight crop of the previous image.
A tight crop of the previous image.
Comet C/2023 P1 Nishimura at 0454 MST 08 September 2023. This is just a few minutes later than the previous image but the sky is already getting very bright.
Comet C/2023 P1 Nishimura at 0454 MST 08 September 2023. This is just a few minutes later than the previous image but the sky is already getting very bright.

Nikon D750, 85mm, f/2.8, ISO 3200, 10×3 seconds and stacked using Starry Landscape Stacker to reduce noise.