Toenail moonrise over Sutro Tower

Thought this moonrise from last week was pretty fun.
 

Lucky few minutes of SF visibility!

The marine layer, clouds and light fog cleared up just enough for a few minutes to get a mostly clear view of last night's partial lunar eclipse.

Images are a bit soft because there was still a fair bit of haze and light clouds. I was also hand holding the camera because we weren't expecting it to clear up at all.

So happy to see this since we have had cloud cover here in SF for months and have missed most of the recent astro fun.

This last photo shows the clouds coming back in to cover up the view but it was pretty spooky looking which was fun.


 

Artemis II is flying by the moon!!!

I probably look a lot like the big yellow lego head right now -:P

Sun?

I look a quick look at the sun this morning and saw the big sunspot so grabbed the camera and took some pictures.

This 2nd picture is the actual orientation it was in from our perspective.
 

Monday night auroras from SF

Not sure if there was any green but maybe. The city lights are due north so it washes out the best direction to look for the auroras. There may be a bit of green peaking through or maybe it's just the yellow city lights blending with the blueish sky and haze?

There is clearly red/purple visible and I could just make out a little red with my eyes but it was super hard to see.

The haze didn't help any but it did look neat in the long exposure.

Sunset hang 5, surf chat, and sun spots!

It's always fun to catch some fun shots at sunset.

This guy had a nice long ride on the nose and the shot probably doesn't do it justice.

Looked like some very relaxing chats going on out in the line up.

I also managed to get a shot of sunspots using the hazy atmosphere as a make shift sun filter. Even with the thick atmosphere I had to set my camera to 1/8000th of a second at f32 and iso100 to get the shot exposed close to correct. Lots of atmospheric ripples just like the ocean -:]
 

Big sun spot turning to face us!

This is the biggest group of sunspots in a while and I was excited to get a picture.

It could send some solar flairs in our direction causing some more big aruras and interfering with electronics and wireless communications in the next few days.

Quick and dirty Jupiter shot through the kitchen window

 I looked out the kitchen window and saw Jupiter shining super bright. Put my camera and 500mm lens on a tripod and ran exactly 2 short captures. A 1min capture exposed for Jupiter and a 30sec capture exposed for the moons.

I think I spent 5 minutes total setting up and capturing the images. Then maybe another 60min to process and stack the movies into the still.

Pretty amazing how easy it can be to capture an okay image of Jupiter and it's moons.

At some point soon I need put a little more effort into it and go outside with my good telescope and get a higher res image.

October Full Moon Rise by Sutro Tower

 Another photo I didn't post last week of the October Full Moon Rise.

Again seen walking back from our local grocery store so the only camera I had was on my cellphone so wasn't super happy with it. But it's still pretty cool and goes well with the sunset and equinox sunset pictures so figured I should post it.

Near Fall Equinox Sunset

This is a few weeks old but saw it looking through some old photos.

We were walking home from our local grocery store and the sunset just about lined up with the end of the east/west road and I couldn't pass up the chance to get a picture.

Leftovers

I had some video footage of Jupiter shot from the kitchen window sitting around from the test runs before the Moon Mars occultation. Decided to try processing it.

Not bad for a quick test with just my Canon R7 + 500mm (750mm crop) zoom lens 60fps 4k on a Move Shoot Move tracker. Probably didn't really need the tracker for this but it was setup for testing and it things closer to center and easier to process.

The moon has a pimple!

 Lunar occultation of Mars captured from our kitchen window in SF. 

Does the moon have a pimple or is that Mars being occluded?

It started from lower left and ended top middle.

Light cloud cover that you can't see in the photos but it did cause the beginning images (lower left) to be softer. The clouds actually made it look nice and spooky through binoculars. Maybe at some point I'll edit a short video from the footage I captured to stack.

Full Moon set in Half Moon Bay

 Pre Surf full moon set in Half Moon Bay. Didn't surf here because the surf wasn't great but it was pretty.

Outer Sunset Sunset

 

Still pretty photogenic

 C/2023 A3 is still up and on the edge of naked eye visible. With the moon coming up a little later it is still pretty photogenic.

c2023 a3 is still here

 

Tail and Anti-Tail!

The fog in SF lifted right at sunset and C/2023 A3 was easily naked eye visible. Best comet I have seen to date! You can see an Anit-tail and Venus reflected in a tide pool. 

The sun set wasn't half bad either. If you look close you can see some sunspots mixed in with some birds.

The tail was so long it barely fit in the 70mm view (well more like 100mm on my crop sensor). I kept thinking the anti-tail was an artifact like a lens flare or reflection but then found out what an anti-tail is and that it's just how it looks from the earth's current perspective.

It's a little hard to tell but you can see it reflecting in the water just a little.

It started looking a little red as it was setting and getting into the thick atmosphere and low haze.

 

Farallon Surprise!

 Comet C/2023 A3 Tsuchinshan–ATLAS over the Farallon Islands.

We had just clear enough skies in SF that I was able to see the comet just after sunset. It was just on the edge of naked eye visible. Fingers crossed for clear skies tonight (Oct 12th) when it should be at it's brightest.

Moon and Venus Sunset in the Sunset

Sunset with the Moon and Venus was pretty amazing tonight! The weather was perfect and the sky was nice and clear.

Love that I caught a surfer walking back.

Some random person having a drink while some pelicans fly by.

 

Our local star a month ago and this afternoon

An image of our local star rise from 2024/09/03

Our local star this afternoon (2024/10/04)