{"id":75,"date":"2008-05-13T08:00:23","date_gmt":"2008-05-13T08:00:23","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.steves-astro.com\/?p=75"},"modified":"2008-05-19T09:50:57","modified_gmt":"2008-05-19T09:50:57","slug":"usa-dark-clear-skies","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.steves-astro.com\/?p=75","title":{"rendered":"USA Dark Clear skies"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Just thought I`d post some of the better astro related shots I managed to take while away in the USA for 2 weeks. These were all taken with my unmodded 350d on a normal camera tripod, so excuse any trails that you might see<\/p>\n<p>OK, for starters, this was how clear the sky was in Death Valley (the sun is hiding behind my fingers), and it was a bit hazy that day.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter\" src=\"\/images\/usa2008\/astro\/deathvalley_sky.jpg\" alt=\"null\" \/><\/p>\n<p>When the sun went down, the sky was black&#8230; and I do mean completely black! This following image was made up from a few 15 second exposures stacked together, but absolutely no light pollution or gradient removal has been applied&#8230; and this was taken from the middle of the lawn area at hotel complex at Stove Pipe Wells.<\/p>\n<p>(Click on image for larger version)<br \/>\n<a href=\"\/images\/usa2008\/astro\/deathvalley_001_large.jpg\"><\/a><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><a href=\"\/images\/usa2008\/astro\/deathvalley_001_large.jpg\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"\/images\/usa2008\/astro\/deathvalley_001_small.jpg\" alt=\"\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter\" src=\"\/images\/usa2008\/astro\/deathvalley_001_small_astrometry.jpg\" alt=\"\" \/><\/p>\n<p>(Click on image for larger version)<br \/>\n<a href=\"\/images\/usa2008\/astro\/deathvalley_002_large.jpg\"><\/a><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><a href=\"\/images\/usa2008\/astro\/deathvalley_002_large.jpg\"><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter\" src=\"\/images\/usa2008\/astro\/deathvalley_002_small.jpg\" alt=\"\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter\" src=\"\/images\/usa2008\/astro\/deathvalley_002_small_astrometry.jpg\" alt=\"\" \/><\/p>\n<p>The image below was supposed to be a single &#8220;star trail&#8221; image at ISO100 for 20 minutes, but had to be cut short when the lawn sprinklers fired off at 11pm and I had to retreat rapidly with the camera and tripod<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter\" src=\"\/images\/usa2008\/astro\/deathvalley_trails_small.jpg\" alt=\"\" \/><\/p>\n<p>Later in the trip, we stopped at Sedona (Arizona). Again, no light pollution or gradient removal is applied.<\/p>\n<p>(Click on image for larger version)<br \/>\n<a href=\"\/images\/usa2008\/astro\/sedona_002_large.jpg\"><\/a><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><a href=\"\/images\/usa2008\/astro\/sedona_002_large.jpg\"><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter\" src=\"\/images\/usa2008\/astro\/sedona_002_small.jpg\" alt=\"\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter\" src=\"\/images\/usa2008\/astro\/sedona_002_small_astrometry.jpg\" alt=\"\" \/><\/p>\n<p>and then this one, also from Sedona, needed a little light pollution and gradient removal, but only because of the location of the bright light in the image causing some issues:<\/p>\n<p>(Click on image for larger version)<br \/>\n<a href=\"\/images\/usa2008\/astro\/sedona_001_large.jpg\"><\/a><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><a href=\"\/images\/usa2008\/astro\/sedona_001_large.jpg\"><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter\" src=\"\/images\/usa2008\/astro\/sedona_001_small.jpg\" alt=\"\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter\" src=\"\/images\/usa2008\/astro\/sedona_001_small_astrometry.jpg\" alt=\"\" \/><\/p>\n<p>Of the 14 nights I had over there, only 3 were cloudy, and one of those was at Las Vegas and the sky was orange anyway! I was also pleased to see that even as we march onto towards the summer months, sunset was early due to their more southerly location&#8230; sunset at 7.15-8.00pm (depending on location), and &#8220;astrodark&#8221; in 90 minutes or so. Then I come back to the UK and get a nasty shock when I find out just how late it gets dark here<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Just thought I`d post some of the better astro related shots I managed to take while away in the USA for 2 weeks. These were all taken with my unmodded 350d on a normal camera tripod, so excuse any trails that you might see OK, for starters, this was how clear the sky was in [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[4],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.steves-astro.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/75"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.steves-astro.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.steves-astro.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.steves-astro.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.steves-astro.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=75"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.steves-astro.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/75\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.steves-astro.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=75"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.steves-astro.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=75"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.steves-astro.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=75"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}