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You are here: Home / Photo Blogging / On The Road / On the Road and In Your Backyard

On the Road and In Your Backyard

by Alain Chamot (1971-2020)|  November 7, 20185:30 am| 14 Comments

This post is in: On The Road, Open Threads, Readership Capture

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On the Road is a weekday feature spotlighting reader photo submissions.

From the exotic to the familiar, whether you’re traveling or in your own backyard, we would love to see the world through your eyes.

Submit Your Photos

Good Morning All,

On The Road and In Your Backyard is a weekday feature spotlighting reader submissions. From the exotic to the familiar, please share your part of the world, whether you’re traveling or just in your locality. Share some photos and a narrative, let us see through your pictures and words. We’re so lucky each and every day to see and appreciate the world around us!

Submissions from commenters are welcome at tools.balloon-juice.com

Have a wonderful day, and enjoy the pictures!

 

I got sick of waiting for results, so turned things off and went to bed earlier than planned.  Hopefully, by the time this runs, the stack of good news outweighs the bad. My Congresswoman is no longer the odious Barbara Comstock. I am thankful for that, but I am saddened by some of the news out there as of this writing.

 

not sure why this didn’t auto publish but I just forced it through

Today, pictures from valued commenter ?BillinGlendaleCA.

Upside down Milky Way

I did not take these pictures…however they were taken with my camera and I processed them.
As I may have mentioned, my stepdaughter recently returned from a 2 1/2 week vacation in Australia and New Zealand. While she was not jumping off perfectly good bridges or out of perfectly good airplanes, she stopped at one of the least light polluted spots to take a astronomy tour and take some Milky Way pics. She felt, in hindsight, that the tour was probably a bit of a mistake since by the time it was over the Milky Way was setting and it was really cold. While I was processing the shots, I noticed that elements of the galactic center were reversed from the what I’m used to seeing here in the Northern Hemisphere(the Lagoon Nebula is above the Sagittarius star cloud down there).

Taken on 2018-10-01 00:00:00

Tekapo, South Island, New Zealand

Again a nice view of the Large and Small Magellanic clouds with the Carina nebula at the bottom center. At right center we see two meteors right next to each other.

Taken on 2018-10-01 00:00:00

Tekapo, South Island, New Zealand

These two clouds are small galaxies that orbit the Milky Way. They are only visible in the far southern latitudes on a regular basis, as you get closer to the equator they become only visible for short periods of the time during the year.

Taken on 2018-10-01 00:00:00

Tekapo, South Island, New Zealand

While this photo is similar to the first photo(and was taken a few moments before), I used a different processing technique. The kid shot these photos using a higher sensitivity(ISO) than what I’d normally us and got a noisier picture. Normally, you will take a ‘dark frame’, a shot on site of the same duration and ISO as the original with the lens cap on to be able to filter out the noise in post. While the photo does have some noise in the foreground, I think it did a nice job in the sky.

Taken on 2018-10-01 00:00:00

Tekapo, South Island, New Zealand

So after her return from downunder, the kid dropped off the camera and lens and about 300 photos. While processing the photos, I noticed that two of her Milky Way pics had portions that were the same, so I decided to try to stitch them together for a panorama. They stitched right together for a really nice panorama. So the next time the kid visited, I showed her the picture and asked if she was trying to shoot a panorama, she wasn’t. So it’s a pretty good unintentional panorama of the Milky Way.

Taken on 2018-10-01 00:00:00

Tekapo, South Island, New Zealand

This was taken right at the shore of Lake Tekapo. You can the Lagoon nebula just to the right of the church with the Sagittarius star cluster just to the right of the nebula. The portion of the Milky Way that is visible in the Northern Hemisphere ends just left of the church.

 

Thank you so much ?BillinGlendaleCA, do send us more when you can.

 

Travel safely everybody, and do share some stories in the comments, even if you’re joining the conversation late. Many folks confide that they go back and read old threads, one reason these are available on the Quick Links menu.

 

One again, to submit pictures: Use the Form or Send an Email

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Reader Interactions

14Comments

  1. 1.

    Baud

    November 7, 2018 at 5:50 am

    The apple doesn’t fall far from the tree. Wonderful photos.

  2. 2.

    JPL

    November 7, 2018 at 6:15 am

    Love your photos.

  3. 3.

    Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes

    November 7, 2018 at 6:30 am

    Gorgeous.

  4. 4.

    debbie

    November 7, 2018 at 6:45 am

    Oh, to live under a sky where I can see so many stars!

  5. 5.

    J R in WV

    November 7, 2018 at 6:55 am

    Your pre-travel instruction stuck pretty well with her, these night sky photos turned out very nice. She may be a tad smart, also, too. Plus she knows a great processor to get the most from the exposures!

  6. 6.

    ?BillinGlendaleCA

    November 7, 2018 at 7:57 am

    @Baud: Thanks, I hope I’ve planted an interest in shooting the stars.

    @JPL: The kid did good.

    @Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes: Thanks.

  7. 7.

    ?BillinGlendaleCA

    November 7, 2018 at 8:03 am

    @debbie: While you may not be able to find as dark a place as Lake Tekapo, you can find some pretty good spots in the US once you can get far enough from the cities.

    @J R in WV: She’s a quick study, as long as you avoid math. I started to explain the 500 rule(to avoid star trails you divide 500 by the focal length and then by the crop factor), she replied “You said there’d be no math”. She claims to be the only Korean who can’t do math.

  8. 8.

    Jerzy Russian

    November 7, 2018 at 9:19 am

    Nice work, StepBillinGlendaleCA!

    OK class, here is a thought assignment: why do the constellations near the celestial equator and the Milky Way appear “upside down” down when viewed from south of the equator? Also too, why do you see a mirror image of the Moon (for example the right side is lit at the first quarter phase when seen from the northern hemisphere, but when viewed from the Southern Hemisphere the left side is lit).

  9. 9.

    sherparick

    November 7, 2018 at 9:41 am

    @Jerzy Russian: I look forward to the answer (I playing geography games in my head but basically my starting point is that in the Northern Hemisphere, the Sun is always southern half of the sky, setting from East to West, but in the Southern Hemisphere the Sun is in the Northern half of the sky, setting from East to West. Is that the start to the answer. Gosh what great pictures.

  10. 10.

    Jerzy Russian

    November 7, 2018 at 11:04 am

    @sherparick: It helps to have a globe. Put a model of yourself on a globe in the northern hemisphere, and have that model look at a picture on the wall that is roughly on the same level as the globe’s equator. Have the model of yourself walk towards the southern hemisphere. As your model gets far enough south, you will discover that the model is no longer looking at that picture. You will need to turn the model around 180 degrees. When you do that, the left-right symmetry changes. Going back to the north, that picture has a “top” and a “bottom”. The top is higher in the sky, when viewed from the north. As your model walks from the north to the south, eventually the “bottom” of that picture will be “up” as seen from the model’s position. Thus, constellations are upside down.

  11. 11.

    ?BillinGlendaleCA

    November 7, 2018 at 11:31 am

    @Jerzy Russian: I was told there’d be no math.

    ETA: Hmm, just noticed that the order of the pics are reversed from the order I entered them.

  12. 12.

    CapnMubbers

    November 7, 2018 at 12:15 pm

    @debbie: @?BillinGlendaleCA:
    Click and drag for other locations.
    I found night-sky shots in Lord of the Rings movies disorienting, never having visited NZ. The moon looked wrong, too.

  13. 13.

    Miss Bianca

    November 7, 2018 at 2:44 pm

    Wow, gorgeous!

  14. 14.

    ?BillinGlendaleCA

    November 8, 2018 at 12:32 am

    @CapnMubbers: I have a tab for the Dark Sky Map always open on my browser.

    @Miss Bianca: Thanks, it’s almost as good as your place.

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