Comet Lovejoy and ISON update

Yesterday was an exciting day to follow comet ISON through it's passage close to the Sun. I followed the events on NASA:s live Google Hangout and it was exciting to see the development. At first it looked like ISON broke up and that it didn't survive the close encounter with the Sun, but new reports this morning shows that something did survive, so it will be interesting to see what this comet that is full of surprises has in store for us.

Inspired by all the talk of comets I defied the bad weather forecasts for last night and went out to capture another comet named Lovejoy. This is a 4,5 minute exposure of the comet showing it's core and tail. Hopefully the weather will be better soon so I can get better images of this comet.

Green and blue flashes

En bild från gårdagens soluppgång som uppvisade gröna och blå solblixtar. Dessa gröna och blå solblixtar är ett optiskt fenomen som kan uppstå i sällsynta fall vid soluppgång och solnedgång. Fenomenet uppstår då solstrålarna böjs i jordens atmosfär. Ljus med en högre frekvens (grönt och blått ljus) böjs mer än till exempel det röda ljuset som har en lägre frekvens. Dessa blixtar kan därför synas även då solskivan inte syns. Se en tidigare bild jag tagit som visar detta - http://blogg.astrofotografen.se/2012/06/gron-blixt.html. De blå blixtarna är betydligt ovanligare än de gröna.

---

A picture from yesterday's sunrise that showed some green and blue flashes. These green and blue flashes is an optical phenomenon that can occur in rare cases at sunrise and sunset. The phenomenon occurs when the sun's rays are bent in the Earth's atmosphere. Light with a higher frequency (green and blue) is bent more than, say, the red light of a lower frequency. These flashes can be seen even when the solar disk is not visible. See a previous picture I took that shows this - http://blogg.astrofotografen.se/2012/06/gron-blixt.html. The blue flashes is much rarer than the green ones.

Comet ISON over Storsjön in Östersund

Kometen ISON närmar sig solen allt mer. Den 20 november var första gången jag fick tillfälle att fotografera denna omtalade komet. Tyvärr börjar den komma så nära solen nu att den är svår att fotografera. Det hade det redan börjat ljusna en aning efter att ISON kommit upp över horisonten. Den 28 november kommer ISON att runda solen (perihelium) och det blir spännande att se om den överlever den passagen eller om den bryts sönder. Håller den samman så får vi nya chanser att se kometen då den lämnar vårt solsystem.

I övre vänstra hörnet ser ni en närbild av kometen och i bilden till höger har jag ökat ljusstyrkan i bilden för att kometsvansen skall framträda.

---

Comet ISON is rapidly closing in on the Sun. On November 20 I finally got to photograph ISON. Unfortunately it's hard to photograph the comet now since it's already so close to the Sun. The sky had already begin to brighten just after ISON came up over the horizon. On 28 November, ISON will be at it closest tot the Sun (perihelion) and it will be interesting to see if it survives the passage or if it will break up. If it holds together, we'll get new views of the comet as it leaves our solar system.

In the upper left corner you can see a closeup of ISON and in the image to the right I've enhanced the brightness to better show the comets tail.

Montes Apenninus

Last night I did a big panorama of the Moon using my small refractor telescope and my high speed CCD camera. The finished image is made of a total of 12 images and each of the 12 images was created by capturing 1,000 frames.

In the enlarged area you can see a big rugged mountain range named Montes Apenninus named after the Apennine Mountains in Italy. The total length of the mountain range is about 600 km (370 mi), with some of the peaks rising as high as 5 km (3.1 mi).

The red spot marks the landing site of Apollo 15. It was the first mission on which the Lunar Roving Vehicle was used.

Uppsala Amatörastronomer

De senaste två dagarna har jag varit i Uppsala och besökt Uppsala Amatörastronomer (UAA - http://uaa.saaf.se). Många teleskop att titta på och många samtal om astronomi, utrustning och fotografi. Andra kvällen höll jag ett föredrag om mitt fotograferade i deras klubblokal. Ett riktigt givande och kul besök och jag har lärt känna många nya vänner.

---

The past two days I've been in Uppsala visiting Uppsala Amateur Astronomers (UAA - http://uaa.saaf.se). Several telescopes to look at and a lot of interesting talk about astronomy, equipment and photography. The second night I held a lecture about my work in their clubhouse. For me it was a very enjoyable visit and I got to know many new friends.

Handöl, a paradise in Jämtland

Here's a few photos from a place called Handöl. It's a small village in Jämtland, Sweden, that has a fantastic nature and night sky. During my latest visit I had several nights with clear weather and it truly is a paradise for an astrophotographer.

Slut på sommartid / Summer time ends

Natten till idag vred vi tillbaka klockarna till normaltid igen. Det innebär att det blir mörkare en timme tidigare på kvällen, till astrofotografers stora glädje. Natten till idag var jag ute för att fånga de sista timmarna av sommartid. Här är en bild då halvmånen precis kommer upp bakom Östersunds rådhus, ett av våra mer kända landsmärken. I bakgrunden syns några moln som lyses upp av månen.

---

Last night the summer time come to an end here in Sweden and we're back to normal time. This means that it will be darker one hour earlier in the evenings, to all astrophotographers big delight. Last night I went out to capture the last hours of the summer time. Here's a photo of the half moon rising behind the city hall of Östersund. In the background you can see some clouds that are lit by the moon.

Nebula made of water and fire

We had some really bad weather here in Sweden lately and the restlessness kicked in yesterday so I thought I would try something new to create some space photos and this is what came out of it.

I started of by doing some smoke photography and then took it one step further and added water. I used a plant mister to get small water drops act like stars along with the smoke. The idea was to create something that look like nebula's. So these fake nebula's where made from two of our four elements on Earth, water and fire.

The shot is one single exposure and I used used three off camera flashes to light up the smoke and the water.