Meredith and Jeffrey doing great. I'm back at work full time now. Students are all gone, except those who are sticking around for commencement this weekend. The campus is very quiet and it is a good time to get work done.
I've been goofing around for a while now in the backyard with nighttime photography. I have a little canon point and shoot (A570IS), so it's not optimal at all for high sensitivity photography. But, despite that, I can put it on a tripod and open the shutter for a max of 15 seconds at a time. With a 15 sec. exposure on the correct settings I can image stars that are just a little fainter than what the naked eye can see. Although during true darkness, ISO200 is as high as I can go for 15 seconds before the image gets too noisy.
Anyway, one target that's fun (in a geeky way) is shooting Iridium Flares. These are very brief, very bright emissions reflected off of one of the Iridium Constellation Satellites. Apparently, the shape of these particular satellites makes allows them to reflect a pinpoint spot of very intense light. The precise timing and locations of these 'flares' is very predictable -- see the heavens above website.
This one is Iridium 10, captured at 09:05 EDT tonight (May 10, 2010). It is still twilight, but the first stars are poking out, as you can see. It's a 15 second exposure. In real time, it doesn't look like an elongated flying saucer, as it seems in my image. It is a weak dot traveling relatively slowly (for a satellite) until it suddenly becomes very bright for 3 or 4 seconds, then quickly fades again. I think it will be impossible to shoot a movie with my equipment.
Gwen had better start to post soon so I don't geek up our blog too much for her!
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