Uploads from Steven Christenson, tagged sun, with geodata

Drift Mode [composite]

nobody@flickr.com (Steven Christenson) — Sat, 09 Jun 2012 18:19:46 -0700

I used a solar filter which renders the sun WHITE, not the orange you see here. The sun is SO bright that you have to stretch the data to see some of the grain, and orange/yellow helps to make the solar details easier to see. However since this is a STACK most of that good data is lost in the stacking process.

What is a stack? Photoshop people will know this as a "layer" but instead of using screen mode or lighten mode as one with a star trail, I used ***** mode.

For information about how Venus' motion differed according to your location on earth see: transitofvenus.nl/wp/where-when/local-transit-times/ enter "Trona Pinnacles, CA" in the search box. You'll notice from the slider that Venus doesn't move at a uniform speed. Lots of reasons including that the apparent motion of Venus across the face of the sun is due to a combination of: Venus' rotation around the sun; Earth's Rotation around the sun AND earth's rotation on it's axis. For super fun, enter "Manila, Phillipines" in the search box and you'll see something rather interesting. Advance the slider and you'll notice the ingress is slow but the egress is rapid. (It also makes a LOOP).

My results from Trona Pinnacles look quite linear - but I was using an Equatorial mount so was getting very little field rotation.

From our vantage point (Phil McGrew was with me), the motion was quite linear - see below for the forecast path.

© Copyright 2012, Steven Christenson
StarCircleAcademy.com
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All rights reserved. Curious what "all rights reserved means?" it means that without written permission you may not: copy, transmit, modify, use, print or display this image in any context other than as it appears in Flickr.

Solar Corona + Keck & Subaru

nobody@flickr.com (Steven Christenson) — Thu, 31 May 2012 18:55:30 -0700

Steven Christenson posted a photo:

Here is an event older than the recent (May 20, 2012) Annular solar eclipse. This shot is from near the summit of Mauna Kea using a low quality digital camera (the best available at the time).

The last eclipse visible from Mexico and Hawaii was in 1991.

Yes, those are clouds below the observatories.

And THIS IMAGE is a FORGERY, just like many of the "AnnularSolar Eclipse 2012" photos. Read about it and detecting other forgeries here

© Copyright 2012, Steven Christenson
StarCircleAcademy.com

BLOG || Events || FaceBook || Twitter || 500px

All rights reserved. Curious what "all rights reserved means?" it means that without written permission you may not: copy, transmit, modify, use, print or display this image in any context other than as it appears in Flickr.

Monument Peak - 320 Degrees (or so)

nobody@flickr.com (Steven Christenson) — Thu, 12 May 2011 14:57:03 -0700

Steven Christenson posted a photo:

Nik (about dead center here) and I hiked to Monument Peak in the Mission Peak Preserve. This image was taken at one of the summits. The super tall tower at the right edge is part of Monument Peak and to the far right another of the Monument Peak summits. Between the tower and the rightmost peak (and barely discernible in the small image) is Mount Allison, the tallest of the 3 named peaks in this range. Also near the center is the City of San Jose, California at the bottom of the San Francisco Bay.

Of course I have more shots, including a short trial star trail which by semi-accident was anchored around one of the transmission towers.

Yes, that big bright thing is the sun!

Processing
This is 17 (x 3) shots forming a complete 360 degrees, less one. I tried to overlap each shot by 1/3 or so. The x 3 is because I did +-2 auto exposure bracketing. I then let Photomatix batch process them and threw the results into Microsoft ICE to stitch the panorama.

Stitching went pretty well even though I don't have a panorama head, and didn't align things all that well. Some cleanup was necessary - especially in the sky which had bright and dark vertical aberrations. I cheated by blurring the heck out of the sky and smudging all the way using Photoshop. That removed some small clouds at the left, but oh well. I also cloned out a backpack (Nik's), some flare elements and cloned over some obvious seams.

©Copyright 2011 Steven Christenson
StarCircleAcademy.com (or the BLOG)
TheAmusing.com
All Rights Reserved!

What does "All Rights Reserved" mean? It means that without written permission from me you may not: copy, transmit, modify, use, print or display this image in any context other than as it appears in Flickr. Any other use is copyright theft. You don't want to go there!

In the Right Spot (on Vimeo by Royal Observatory Greenwich)

nobody@flickr.com (Steven Christenson) — Thu, 16 Sep 2010 07:21:05 -0700

Steven Christenson posted a photo:

This short film is an interview with Steven Christenson (me), winner of the People & Space category of the Astronomy Photographer of the Year competition 2010. My thanks to Jan and Simon of Buzz Films for making the filming of this quite fun.

www.nmm.ac.uk/astrophoto
www.flickr.com/groups/astrophoto/

Oh, and to see a sweet panorama of both the photgraphee (me) and the photographer (Simon) see my buddie Eric's photo. That dude knows panoramas!

Watch this video on Vimeo. Video created by Royal Observatory Greenwich.

Solar Keyhole [5_019720]

nobody@flickr.com (Steven Christenson) — Thu, 24 Dec 2009 05:37:03 -0800

Steven Christenson posted a photo:

Now this is a perspective I haven't seen before... I wonder how long it will be before someone flatters me by copying it (and doing a better job of it, too!). I did do some bracketing, but I'm not sure I can recover much of the shadow detail. This photo was taken just before sunset. (That is the sun, not the moon in case I've confused you before!).

NOTE: This photo is not faked, or saturated. It's a real place (see the tags).

WARNING If you try to copy this shot, please do NOT to try to get up from near the beach front. That would be suicidal. A more circuitous route is needed and yes, you will find use trails!

© Copyright 2009, Steven Christenson
All Rights Reserved.

NOTE: These photos were taken at an event of the Night Photography group.