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July 20, 2006
My God! It's full of stars!
Clayton Cramer on one reason why he moved to Idaho, in a post he aptly titled Dark Skies.
At the encouragement of my wife, I am resuming astrophotography ... I was outside last night doing star trails, where you aim the camera at the North Star, and set various exposure times: 5 minutes, 10, 20, and 40. As the stars rotate around the North Star, you get photographs like this.
My wife shared my amazement at how dark the sky was at our house. The Moon had not risen yet, and the Milky Way stretched across the entire sky, from north to south. Even the skyglow of Boise wasn't enough to drown it out. I couldn't find the constellation Hercules at first, because it was overwhelmed by all the other stars.
It's easy for city dwellers to forget how bright the night sky can be; nothing beats being in mid-ocean on a naval ship maintaining blackout conditions to provide a perfect view of the heavens. Some nights the twinkling stars above were matched by the phosphoresence of the plankton below, sparkling like green supernovas as the bow wave of our sub disturbed the tiny creatures into brief flashes of cold fire.
Cramer has more details on his astrophotography here.
Posted by Mike Lief at July 20, 2006 08:27 AM
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I can identify with the at sea experience.
I was afforded some periscope liberty many years ago when we were off the coast of Oahu- the lights of Waikiki, just over the horizon, creating an orange hue on the clouds above.
After my eyes adjusted form soft flourescence to pitch black the stars started to pop up. Some of them were so bright and so low on the horizon that they appeared to be running lights on ghost ships.
I heard the Quartermaster give the 5 minute warning for moonrise and then I asked for a bearing. I continued my sweeps and then I started to see the glow of the moon as it approached the horizon. I wanted to get a few shots of it with the scope camera and as I peered through the optics I was hit with a flash of light that lit up the ocean as far as I could see.
I pulled away from the scope and asked the JOOD to take back the scope because I couldn't see. He asked me what happened and as I was explaining to him the Captain, who heard me talking on the open microphone in his stateroom, came running into control.
"You saw a zenith? You little bastard; I have been waiting my whole career to finally see one."
I was still blind in one eye for sometime and finally made my way into sonar where the soft blue flourescent light bathed my eyes to normalcy. I asked if anyone knew what the hell a zenith was but the only reference they had heard was linked to the electronic company.
I have, since that event, taken many elective college classes and I have never heard of the zenith being referred to in this way. Perhaps my Captian was not using the proper terminology. Whatever the it is called, it had the look of a trillion bioluminesence getting really pissed off at the same time and then immediately returning to thier business.
Posted by: Trickish Knave at July 20, 2006 12:21 PM
Yes, there is a lot out there. I image objects from my driveway 99% of the population on earth never sees or cares about. Our universe is vast beyond belief -- ">check it out.
Posted by: Jeff at July 21, 2006 04:22 PM