Comet Neowise 2020

Crex Meadows

Since Covid-19 hit, I haven't done much photography and what little I did was around the homestead.  Well, we have been blessed with a spectacular event this year as Comet Neowise has passed us in the night sky.  I love night photography and Neowise has provided me with the excuse/impetus to get off my butt and do some photography.  It is also giving me a push to get back to producing my blogs.

To be honest, I haven't had much ambition for this stuff lately.  Well, it is time to pull things together and get back in the game (every blog needs several cliches so there are a few in this one).  I decided to take a trip to one of my favorite locations, Crex Meadows in Grantsburg, Wisconsin.  I picked a night when clear skies were forecast and I tossed my gear into the Subaru (the deer death machine - two so far, one at Crex).  I took a complete set of lenses to capture the comet in a landscape and a close-up.    

I arrived at Crex in the afternoon and had my peanut butter and jelly sandwich for dinner.  I scouted most of the old spots in an attempt to find some nice foregrounds.  I like trees in my night shots and found several with the correct orientation to capture the comet in the sky with the trees as frames.  As darkness approached, I drove up to the highest spot at Crex, which is an overlook where you have 360-degree views.  The comet was forecast to be in the north-west area of the sky, just below the "Big Dipper".  I first caught it with binoculars just after the sunset.  I set-up the camera and got a "record" shot with the sunset glow on the horizon.

It was not yet visible with the eye, but the camera does a nice job of capturing the light.

I moved from here to my chosen location and set-up for some more interesting shots.  As the night progressed, you could see Neowise with the naked eye, but again the camera sees it much better.  Also, binoculars work well.  

Neowise shot with a wide-angle lens.

A little wider shot.

Neowise shot with a telephoto lens.

Twin Cities

I ventured out on two more nights in an attempt to catch the comet in an urban environment.  One night I saw Neowise and the camera captured it, but not very well. Downtown Minneapolis looked good with the evening lights, so I shot an image of the skyline that I rather like (sometimes you just need to go with the flow). 

Neowise is faint in the upper quarter of this image.  Too much light pollution for a good image.

Downtown Minneapolis from Lake of the Isle (no comet here).

For my third attempt (second in the urban environment), I tried the Stone Arch Bridge in Minneapolis.  This was a complete failure that I happily share with you.  The lights from downtown are just too bright to get any shot of the comet (it is there, but not visible).  I did get a nice shot of one of the bridges with a great light display.

If you spot Neowise, let me know.

Great light display.

All in all, it was fun getting out to shoot.  If we stay under control for the virus, I'll do it again.  In fact, there are some very good meteor showers in August, so I might take a trip to shoot them.  I usually do these outings with my photo buddy John, but with the virus, it is tough to do.  Maybe soon!  Stay well, wash your hands and wear your masks and we may just make it through this.

  

Crex Meadows Summer Photogaphy

Photo buddy John Pennoyer (see his website for some great photography -https://www.impressionsofnature.net/) and I spent last Wednesday and Thursday at Crex Meadows in God's country (Wisconsin!!).  We had some good photo-ops and, sadly, a falling out over my "guide" services - more on that later.

We reached the Grantsburg area around 2:30 pm and started a reconnoiter of the Fish Lake area where John was looking for butterflies.  We found and photographed two that John identified as "Fiddlemary Astro-something" and a "Blue Little Guy".  Here is an image of the Blue Little Guy:

"Blue Little Guy"

"Fiddlemary Astro-something"

I may not have the names exactly correct, but it's close and they are cute.

After checking into the five-star Grantsburg Inn, we did a trip around Crex looking for places to shoot the milky way and possibly a sunset.  After a nice drive around the area (due to my excellent guiding), we went into Grantsburg for a gourmet dinner at T-Dawg's bar and grill.  Unfortunately, the sunset was a bust (very few clouds, only on the horizon, and they blocked the sun).  We went back to the Inn for a nap and ventured back out at 10:30 for our night photography.  We were treated to the milky way and several meteors.  Here are a couple of my favorite shots.

Milky Way looking towards Grantsburg (thus the light pollution).

Stars over an old oak.

We photographed until 1:00am and headed back to the Inn for a restful night. 

At 4:30am we crawled out of bed and headed out to Phantom Lake for a possible sunrise.  That turned out to be the highlight of the trip.  We got to photograph a beautiful pink sunrise over a calm reflective bay on Phantom Lake.

A great trip!

Now for the sad part.  My photo partner (henceforth "client 1") accused me of leading him on the wrong route as we left Crex.  I felt it was a much nicer route and one "client 1" had never been on.  As a result of this, "client 1" refused to pay for my services (which at $500 an hour seems fair to me).  In addition, "client 1" dropped his camera and long lens on my coffee cup, resulting in the loss of at least 50% of my morning joe. 

I have been in touch with my lawyer, Ima Frawd (of the firm Ware, Dafug, Awee) and Ima assures me we have a solid case.  Ima is a world-renowned guide lawyer and should strike fear into the heart of "client 1".   He points to my sterling reputation based on my past guiding work on the Lewis and Clark Expedition and the more recent lunar landings.  In addition, I have found my way home every single time I've been out - a record most of you can't claim.

I'm sure this suit will make the international press, so keep an eye on the progress.  Also, pass this blog on to your friends so that the jury pool will get the inside scope on the lawsuit.

Until next time. 

Spring Wildflowers 2019

Pennington Bog

My photo buddy John and I made a short trip to the Itasca State Park area in northern Minnesota.  It was late May and John wanted to get some images of the Calypso Orchid.  We started our search at the Pennington Bog.  Pennington is a nature area that requires a permit to enter.  It is a delicate area with a variety of wildflowers throughout the spring and summer.  Our goal was to photograph the Calypsos in a group (John has single flower images from a prior visit, but no group shots).  We spent most of the morning in the bog fighting mosquitoes and ticks.  Wearing the "bug tamer" and using repellents helped but the bugs were still a nuisance.

Our efforts resulted in spotting about a dozen Calypsos, but none in a nice group.  We photographed what we could and called it a morning.  The Calypso is a beautiful orchid living in a challenging area.

Fairy-slipper (Calypso bulbosa)

These guys are tiny, 3-6 inches tall and a challenge to photograph (the old knees feel it after a morning of kneeling down).

Lake Bemidji State Park

After a quick lunch in the car (the bugs were so bad, we couldn't use the picnic area!), we headed to Lake Bemidji State Park to see if we could find the Calypso in the Big Bog Lake area of the park.  No luck, but a nice day for a hike.  The trail in this bog is restricted to a boardwalk, so it is tough to do any photography even if we did find the flower.

Big Bog Lake

Itasca State Park

The remainder of our two-day visit was spent in Itasca State Park. This is one of my favorite Minnesota state parks.  It has great trails, a variety of flowers, and many activities year round.  The park employees are friendly and do a great job of making this a fun place to visit.  

We hiked the Nicollet trail searching for the Calypso, but once again we were skunked.  We did find some other wildflowers and had a good time shooting them.  

Round-lobed hepatica

Large-flowered bellwort

The bellworts were everywhere in the park.  We found multiple areas to shoot them in.

We also saw plenty of trillium.  There were carpets of them in many spots along the road.  We came back one evening to shoot them in the nice soft sunset light.  We also got a nice sunset over the lake.  The sun was bright orange due to some wildfires in Canada.  The only thing missing was some nice clouds.

Snow Trillium

Bellworts near a Hobbit house

Fishing at sunset

The first night of our stay was cool and clear, so we decided to do a night shoot at the headwaters of the Mississippi.  We sat in the car for about an hour and a half until the night sky appeared.  We wanted to get a shot of the milky way and had to wait until midnight when the fat part of the galaxy rose over the horizon.  We also tried some star trail photography.

The Mississippi River headwaters

The milky way over the Mississippi River headwaters

A composite of 60 thirty second images
The Northstar is the focal point that the others rotate around.

I really enjoy night photography, but it sure is nice having a companion with in case the bears' attack!!

Another fun trip with my pal John.  The flowers were a little out of synch due to the weather we had this spring.  But, all-in-all, we had a great time.  

2019 Lunar Eclipse

The Lunar Eclipse, January 20, 2019.

The story behind the images.

I love astronomy and have tried to capture lunar eclipse images in the past.  This is my fourth shot at getting some good images and I'm starting to learn how to do it.  I went out with my pal John Pennoyer on the evening of the 20th of January.  Our strategy was to capture some Minneapolis skyline images to use as a background for the moon.  In our area, the eclipse began at 9:30pm and ended at about 2:00am on January 21st.  John and I started at Lake of the Isle for the skyline shots.  I also got an interesting shot of the moon reflecting off the ice (this was before the eclipse began).  The moon that night was a "super moon" and shows up well on the image.  I used a 150 - 600mm zoom lens at 150mm for this image.  

Once we had our base images, we spent some time scouting other spots.  The problem with this eclipse was the moon was way too high in the sky at the time the eclipse began.  This meant we would have to use very wide angle lenses to capture the moon and any foreground elements, such as a building or trees.  That would have made the moon appear as a small dot in the image.  We decided to shoot telephoto shots of the stages of the eclipse then paste them into one image showing the progression of the eclipse.  This is the result of pasting together five of the moon phases into one photo. 

Below is a shot of downtown Minneapolis with the "blood moon" that actually never happened.  Some folks may not think that is ethical and they may be right.  From a pure record of what happened, the image is "fake photography".  I like it as an artistic expression and have included it here for your enjoyment.  Let me know in the comments section what you think of doing something like this photoshopped image.

The final image is a shot of the lunar eclipse at it's maximum.  This image is the one I used to paste into the downtown skyline above.  I shrunk it and placed it above the buildings.

It was a fun evening.  Cold but beautiful.  The moon was fairly small by the time the eclipse occurred and even the 600mm lens was a bit on the short side.   The next one occurs in 2021, so I hope to be out shooting it again!

Geminid Meteor Shower 2018

The stars at Crex Meadows

My buddy John Pennoyer and I made a short overnight trip to Crex Meadows in western Wisconsin to photograph the Geminid Meteor shower.  We arrived on Friday afternoon in time for a very nice sunset.  The clouds were lit with a nice pink glow that was complimented by the ice on the main dike.  

My favorite birch grove.

Crex main dike.

Nice as the sunset was, we were there for the meteor shower.  We had a very good fish fry at T-Dogs in Grantsburg, Wisconsin and were back out to Crex by 11:00pm.  We spent a little over two hours photographing the stars.  I had two goals.  0ne was to create a star trail and the other was to capture a couple of shots of the shooting stars.  The peak for the Geminid show was estimated to be 100 meteors per hour.  We didn't get near that many (however we were concentrated on one section of the sky so we may have missed some).  We saw 20 meteors in about two hours.  Here are the results of the photo session.

Star trails - a composite of 100 images.

The best single meteor captured in the sessions.

The approach to getting the images was to set-up a series of 20-second shots with a two-second delay between shots.  To create the star trail image, I combined 100 images using a software package called Star Stacker.  John and I stood out in the 20 degrees cold for about 45 minutes, then retired to the car for warmth.  

The main problem in this type of photography is the rude interruption of the series by a passing car.

Damn car!

I had three images with the car and its headlights.  We went out and restarted the series, so it worked out ok, but it is always a hazard.  We figured there wouldn't be anyone out this late on a cold winter night, but we were wrong.  I mean who is crazy enough to do that?

The next morning we had breakfast at the Cozy Cafe then went out for a final run around Crex.  John spotted some nice ice formations on the lake and we stopped for some bonus images.

Ice ripples in black and white.

My buddy John, happy to be cold and shooting photos!

All in all, this was a great trip.  John is always good company and we got more photo ops than we anticipated.  

Minnesota State Fair 2018

Some folks from the Minnesota Nature Photography Club decided to do some night photography at the state fair.  Although this is not nature photography, it is a lot of fun.  We met at 7:00pm and shot from then until about 10:00pm, with a small stop for a beer.

Split Rock Night Photogaphy

My photo buddy John Pennoyer and I took a trip to the north shore of Lake Superior to do some night photography.  We picked the morning of March 16th as the moon was a new moon, so we had no light from the moon to compete with the stars.  My goals were to capture the milky way and to do a star trail.  We set the alarms for 2:15 a.m. and drove over to the lighthouse.  We were rewarded with a clear, relatively warm night.  The results below are my favorites from the shoot.

In addition, John and I got out for sunset on the evening of the 15th.  The weather forecast predicted no clouds and that was correct.  Usually, I like clouds in my sunrise/sunset shots.  However, no clouds present the possibility of nice blue/pink on the horizon - which is what we got!