Bailey Beads Solar Eclipse 2017

Bailey beads and prominences the moment the sun appears behind the Moon. Picture taken during Solar Eclipse 21 August, 2017 in Rexburg Idaho.

Occultation Zuben Elakrab by the Moon

The Moon is 20% illuminated and low above the south-west horizon. The star Zuben Elakrab can be seen on the picture, left near the dark side of the Moon. The occultation itself was not visible as the Moon was hidden by trees in my yard :( This pictures was taken 21 minutes before the occultation.

Moon 12% Stacking DNG Files

Picture shown of the Moon illuminated 12% is a result of stacking DNG files and edited using CS4.

Nikon D7500 TAL200K f/8.5 ISO800 1/80s (Stacked)

Moon 12%

Finally a clear sky and some time to take out the telescoop. The last time I did use my telescoop was on August 21. As I wanted to try my Nikon D7500, I took the moon as target. And yes, the power of pixels do make a difference. Very clear and bright pictures.

Nikon D7500 TAL200K f/8.5 ISO800 1/80s

Solar Eclipse 2017 Sequence

Sequence of the 2017 Solar Eclipse - Great American Eclipse. Pictures taken in Rexburg Idaho with Nikon D7500 and TS/TL APO80 480 f/6 with settings ISO100 and exposure time between 1/4000s and 1/15s using Solar Astrofilm from Baader ND5. Raw pictures are converted into DNG format using Adobe DNG converter and edited using CS4.

Meteor Crater Flagstaff

Meteor Crater 14km from Interstate 40 

When driving 60km east from Flagstaff on the Interstate 40 you have the chance to visit a real meteor impact crater. It's the famous and well preserved Meteor Crater (other common names are Canyon Diablo Crater and Barrington Crater).

Panorama of the Meteor Crater 

At the bottom of the crater previous mining activities are still visible aswell as a astronaut plaque

The crater is the result of an impact 50.000 years ago by an object (asteroid) of 50m, a weight of 300.000 tons and a speed of 12km/s.  The result is enormous : a crater 1,2 km in diameter and a depth of 170m. The rim around the crater is 45m above the ground level.

Holsinger Meteorite - 639kg - Visitor Center Meteor Crater

The biggest piece found of this Ni-Fe meteor is a meteorite called the Holsinger meteorite and has a weight of 639kg and can be seen in the Visitor Center of Meteor Crater.  Last year I visited Adler Planetarium in Chicago which shows a smaller fragment of 460kg of the same meteorite.

Fragment of Meteorite - Meteor Crater - presented in Chicago Adler Planetarium

Removing Nikon D60 CCD sensor

Removing CCD (10MP) sensor from Nikon D60 (left) - and IR blocking filter (right)

I always wanted to remove the IR blocking filter to get a full IR spectrum (700-1200nm) for astropictures. Since my Nikon D60 can not be repeared it was now time to exercise. If this can be done succesfully I could decide bying a second hand Nikon D60.
Unfortunately, it's not that easy. And after removing the first set of screws, I already damaged the card connections. Anyway, I continued and got the CCD sensor out together with the IR blocking filter.
It's still very impressive even when you compare with my new Nikon D7500 IMX321 CMOS sensor from Sony.