Here's a couple of photos showing a crescent Moon during two consecutive mornings. In the first photo the Moon is 4% lit and since the sky is quite dark it's possible to see the unlit part of the Moon due to so called Earthshine. Earthshine occurs when sunlight reflects off the Earth's surface and illuminates the unlit portion of the Moon’s surface.
Nikon D850 and Nikon AF-S 300mm f/4E PF ED VR
This morning, the moon was 28.6 days old of its 29.5-day lunar phase and only 1% illuminated. Such thin crescent moon is hard to see with the naked eye, but with a pair of binoculars or a camera with a little higher magnification, it's much easier to see.
Nikon D850 and Nikon AF-S 300mm f/2.8 D IF-ED with a TC-20E III teleconverter.
Last week during the full Moon of November I had planned to take a photo of the full Moon rising behind the 800 year old Frösö church. I got this idea in May this year when I was wandering about on Andersön, a nature reserve located on an island 5 km Southwest of Frösön. Back in May I did notice that Frösö church was clearly visible and that it would make a nice foreground against a full Moon.
Frösö Church as seen from Andersön in May 2018.
When I returned home I started planning my shot and look through different software to see when the Moon should rise behind the church. The first date that popped up was November 22nd 2018.
So after waiting for 6 months, the time had finally come, now it was all down to the weather, and this time I was lucky to see clear skies with pretty good atmospheric conditions. This is the final photo.
Final photo of the full Moon behind Frösö church.
The still photo was taken using my Nikon D850 on my Nikon AF-S 600mm f/4 D IF-ED II lens. The real time footage of the Moon rising was shot using my Nikon D500 and Nikon AF-S 300mm f/2.8 D IF-ED with a Nikon AF-S TC-20E III teleconverter.
Here's a film from the 22nd of November showing how I took the photo.
The photo of a Gibbous Moon flyby was taken on the 29th of October in 2018 and was taken in the mountain area of Jämtland, Sweden
Just as I had set the camera for the correct exposure of the Moon and the mountain, this plane passed by. I quickly snapped a couple of shots and this is one of them. The photo was taken using my Nikon D850 with the Nikon AF-S 300mm f/4E PF ED VR lens.
This is APOD number 17 for me and it's always such an honor to be featured by NASA.
Here's a couple of photos of today's beautiful Sun. Lots of nice activities going on despite the fact that the Sun is heading for a activity minimum in the solar cycle. Including a closeup shot of today's big beautiful prominence. Taken using a Lunt LS80THa telescope with a PointGrey Grasshopper 3 camera.
Yesterday I saw some really colorful Iridescent clouds, one of my favorite cloud phenomena. These clouds are visible when parts of clouds are thin and have similar size droplets, diffraction can make them shine with colours like a corona. I like how the Sun was covered enough to be visible through and not totally overexposed.
Nikon D850 with Nikkor 70-200mm f/2.8E Exposure: 1/8000 sec. ISO 64 @ 112mm f/8
During this time of the year, the Milky Way stretches from North East to North West in the sky, perfect position to combine our galaxy with a faint Aurora. If the Aurora is to bright and active, it will block the light from the Milky Way. This panoramic photo I took last week is a perfect example of what a faint Aurora and the Milky Way looks like together.
Nikon D850 with Nikkor 14-24mm f/2.8 Exposure: 20 sec. ISO 1600 @ f/2.8
The astronomical nights is soon coming to an end. Last night we only had 2 hours of astronomical darkness so despite the Northern Lights (Photo of that is coming later) my main focus was to do some deep sky photography. My plan was to take photos of the Heart and Soul nebula since I haven't done them for quite some time and not with the Nikon D810A. All in all I'm quite happy with the result.
Photo was taken with a Nikon D810A, Nikkor 70-200mm f/2.8E @ 135mm f/4. Exposure 45 x 60 seconds for a total exposure of 45 minutes at ISO 1600. Stacking and calibration (Darks, flats and bias frames) was done in PixInsight, final processing in Photoshop.
In this photo taken on the 24th of March 2018, I've exaggerated the colors on the lunar surface. The different colors correspond to real differences in the chemical makeup of the lunar surface - blue hues reveal titanium rich areas while orange and purple colors show regions relatively poor in titanium and iron.
This is a single exposure and no tracking was used. This night we had exceptional good air conditions with very good seeing.
Nikon D850, Nikkor AF-S 600mm f/4 + TC-17E II 1/80 sec. ISO 64 @ 1000mm f/8
