Marblehead Light with Star Trails. Photo by Alan Studt.
A nighttime visit to Lake Erie’s Marblehead Lighthouse provided the perfect opportunity for the Cuyahoga Astronomical Association’s Alan Studt to create this beautiful image. This nightscape isn’t a simple, single-exposure image as done in the old film camera days.
Here’s what went into making this picture:
Shot an approx. 22-minute star trail between 11:30 and Midnight (100 – 13 second shots at ISO 3200).
Edit out dozens of airplanes – probably all but a handful of the shots had multiple planes flying by.
Foreground is made of 45 images median stacked equaling about a nine-minute exposure.
Tools:
Nikon D850
Tamron 15-30mm @ 15mm, f /2.8
Post done in Sequator, StarTrails.exe, Lightroom, and Photoshop
“Beautiful evening!” says Studt. We agree, and thanks for sharing!
The night sky could look like this anywhere in Ohio if we would simply control our lighting. Image Credit: “Saving the Dark”
What do we lose when we lose sight of the stars? Excessive and improper lighting robs us of our night skies, disrupts our sleep patterns, and endangers nocturnal habitats. Saving the Dark explores the need to preserve or restore night skies and what we can all do to combat light pollution. This film will be shown October 5 & 6 at the Chagrin Documentary Film Festival
The Cuyahoga Astronomical Association (CAA), in cooperation with Cleveland Metroparks, will host an Eclipse Watch event at Edgewater Park, on Cleveland’s western Lake Erie shore, from 12:30 to 4:00 PM, Monday, August 21. The event will be free and open to the public, no reservations required, to observe the day’s solar eclipse. In case of rain, the event will be canceled.
Eclipse at Maximum – Edgewater Park, Ohio, August 21, 2017 – SkySafari 5 Simulation
The Edgewater Eclipse Watch will include:
Telescopes equipped to safely view the eclipse, tended by CAA members
Eclipse viewing glasses provided by AstroZap, one per group, please!)
Non-profit organizations, including Cleveland Metroparks, with family activities.
Additional activities to be announced!
The venue for the Edgewater Eclipse Watch will be at the west end of Edgewater Park’s lower level parking lot (see map below). Telescopes and other activities will be in the grassy area adjacent to the parking lot. Visitors may come and go as they please during the event.
Here is where the Eclipse Watch will take place. Click to visit Google Maps for a more complete map and directions.Timing of Our Partial Solar Eclipse, August 21, 2017 – Via SkySafari 5
Millions of people will enjoy this eclipse of the Sun, some portion of which will be visible from everywhere in the continental United States; it’s even been dubbed “The Great American Eclipse” and “The National Eclipse.” Locations along a relatively narrow strip of land stretching from Oregon and the Pacific Northwest to the Atlantic off South Carolina will enjoy the full glory of a total solar eclipse. Here in Northeastern Ohio, we will see a deep partial eclipse with, at its peak, the Sun reduced to a brilliant crescent in our early afternoon sky.
CRITICAL: Vision safety is a major concern: It is important to note: even during the maximum point of our partial eclipse it is not safe to look at the Sun without proper vision protection. According to a statement from NASA, “The only safe way to look directly at the uneclipsed or partially eclipsed Sun is through special-purpose solar filters, such as ‘eclipse glasses’ or hand-held solar viewers. Homemade filters or ordinary sunglasses, even very dark ones, are not safe for looking at the sun.” Here’s a quick video about how to safely view the eclipse via WKYC and our own Jay Reynolds.
A solar eclipse takes place when our Moon comes between Sun and Earth casting its shadow on Earth’s surface. The illustration below shows how the depth of Moon’s shadow varies depending upon how much of Sun is covered. The small black dot indicates the area where all of the solar disk is covered and where a total solar eclipse is in progress; outside of that dot, a large shaded area shows where various levels of partial coverage — the partial eclipse — is visible.
Diagram of the Solar Eclipse – Image Credit: NASA
This video from NASA shows how eclipses work and why they don’t happen every month. Spoiler: Moon’s shadow “misses” the Earth most of the time…
North Chagrin Nature Center, Willoughby, Ohio by Alan Studt. Click to enlarge!
The Cuyahoga Astronomical Association (CAA) has several skilled photographers amongst its membership. Taking advantage of a clear, starry night February 6, CAA member Alan Studt spent some time with his camera making this wonderful image. Creating an image as beautiful as this nighttime landscape isn’t as simple as simply pressing the shutter release, even on an advanced DSLR. Here are Alan’s notes concerning this photograph:
The image is a combination of a few shots to get the various dynamic ranges involved.
Camera – Nikon D600 with 14mm Rokinon lens, producing three shots processed in Adobe Lightroom CC, and layer blended in Adobe Photoshop CC:
Sky – ISO 1250, 15 seconds, f/2.8
Land/Lights – ISO 6400, 15 seconds, f/22
Lake/Boardwalk – ISO 1000, 15 seconds, f/2.8
Constellations and objects seen in this image include: Canis Major & Minor, Orion, Lepus, Taurus, The Pleiades, and the lower part of Gemini in the upper left corner.
