Astro
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Annular Solar Eclipse, 2023
This composite image of the October 14, 2023 annular solar eclipse was captured from Kodachrome Basin State Park in Utah. The landscape was taken just before the rising sun cleared the hoodoo, and then 58 exposures of the sun (captured with solar filter), taken 4 minutes apart, covering the entire duration of the eclipse, were added. As with all my astro landscape images, all exposures were taken from the same camera position, using the same lens, therefore accurately reflecting the actual unfolding scene. An annular solar eclipse happens when the moon goes between the sun and Earth while near its apogee (furthest point from Earth in its elliptical orbit), and therefore does not complete cover the sun. While not as spectacular as a total solar eclipse, the “ring of fire” is still a sight to behold.
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Blood Moon, 2022
This image of the totally-eclipsed moon was taken in the pre-dawn hours of November 8, 2022. Unlike a total solar eclipse that is viewable only along a narrow path of totality, a total lunar eclipse can be seen from the entire night side of the Earth.
A total lunar eclipse is also called a “blood moon”. The eclipsed moon is not totally dark – sunlight can reach the moon via refraction by Earth’s atmosphere. The reddish colour of the moon is due to the blue part of sunlight being scattered by Earth’s atmosphere, leaving primarily red and orange light reaching the moon – the exact same reason why the sun is orange during sunset.
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Partial Solar Eclipse, 2021
A partial solar eclipse during sunrise on June 10, 2021.
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Total Lunar Eclipse in Toronto, 2019
This image captured the progression of the total lunar eclipse on January 20-21, 2019. The winter full moon was high in the sky and that made it hard to compose an eclipse shot with an interesting foreground … unless the foreground is pretty tall, like the CN Tower! With lunar trajectory information available online, Google Maps, and a bit of calculation using high school trigonometry, Simcoe Park on Front Street, Toronto turned out to be the location where the eclipsed moon could be seen passing exactly behind the tip of the CN Tower. The entire sequence lasted about 3 hours with images taken approximately 5 minutes apart, and was taken on a frigid night when the temperature plunged to -22°C.
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Re-emergence, 2017
The Bailey’s Beads signified the end of totality in the 2017 total solar eclipse. As the moon receded towards the top left, the first rays of sunlight shone through depressions on the lunar surface – valleys or craters – forming the two Bailey’s Beads on the lower right of the eclipsed sun.
Also visible in this image are all three layers of the sun’s atmosphere. The white part of the image is the corona, the outer layer of the sun’s atmosphere which extends millions of kilometres from the sun, with temperature reaching a million degrees Celsius.
The red area on the right side of the eclipsed sun is the chromosphere, the thin middle layer of the sun’s atmosphere. The chromosphere is red due to the large amount of hydrogen present in this layer.
Through the Bailey’s Beads we get a small window to peek at the photosphere, the bottommost layer of the sun’s atmosphere, where sunlight comes from.
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Total Solar Eclipse, 2017
This composite image captures three different views of the total solar eclipse of August 21, 2017.
“Prominence” (left), the red flame-like structures, is plasma erupting from the solar surface. While they look small in the image, multiple Earths can fit into each of them.
“Corona” (middle) shows the delicate features of the sun’s corona. The corona is the outer layer of the sun’s atmosphere and extends millions of kilometres from the sun, with temperature reaching a million degrees Celsius.
“Diamond ring” (right) was captured at the end of totality, when the first rays of sunlight shone through depressions from craters on the lunar surface. The bloom from the strong sunlight formed the “diamond” on the ring of corona. The same phenomenon can also be seen at the beginning of totality.
These images were captured at Rock Island State Park, Tennessee.
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Comet C/2023 A3 Meets Milky Way
A cosmic encounter of Comet C/2023 A3 Tsuchinshan-ATLAS and the Milky Way. Of course, this is true only from the perspective of Earth. The Milky Way is a vast galaxy of almost 100,000 light years across, while the comet was in the inner solar system and its light reached Earth in a matter of minutes.
This image, a stack of 9 individual exposures, was taken on October 24, 2024 by the Lake Huron shore in southern Ontario, 75 minutes after sunset. During this period called the astronomical twilight, stars and the Milky Way appear. The afterglow to the west is very dim to the naked eyes, but on long exposure it is a vibrant yellow and orange, turning into deep blue as one looks up.
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Comet over Moonlit Farmscape
This image of Comet C/2023 A3 Tsuchinshan-ATLAS was taken on October 16, 2024 in Perth County, southern Ontario. The farmscape was brightly lit by the almost full moon. The image is a stack of 32 individual exposures.
Comets are “dirty ice balls” made up of ice, dust, and various organic compounds. As a comet approaches the sun, the ice sublimes, and the dust is pushed away by the solar wind, creating the dust tail which always points away from the sun.
In this image, an “anti-tail” could also be seen pointing in the opposite direction. The anti-tail came from dust left along the orbit of the comet, which became visible as Earth crossed the comet’s orbital plane.
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Comet Tsuchinshan-ATLAS in Twilight
Comet C/2023 A3 Tsuchinshan-ATLAS was the brightest comet visible in the northern hemisphere since 1997. The comet reached perihelion (closest approach to the sun) on September 27, 2024. By mid-October, the comet emerged from the glare of the sun, bright enough to be visible to the unaided eyes after sunset, and spotting a long dust tail.
This image was taken on October 17, 2024 in Perth County, southern Ontario, 70 minutes after sunset. 34 exposures were stacked for noise reduction in creating the final image. The dust tail measured approximately 20 degrees in this image. An “anti-tail”, formed by comet dust left along the orbit of the comet, could also be seen pointing in the opposite direction.
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Good Morning, Neowise
Comet C/2020 F3 Neowise was discovered on March 23, 2020 on its way towards the inner solar system. It emerged from perihelion (closest approach to the sun) on July 3 as the brightest comet visible from the northern hemisphere in 23 years, and was visible to the naked eye through the month of July 2020.
This image was taken on July 10, 2020. Neowise was a bright magnitude 2 comet at the time with a beautiful long tail. It had no problem outshining the early morning twilight and the 75% moon, which provided the warm illumination for the farmscape. Neowise is now on its way out of the solar system and will not return for another 7000 years.
Twenty one individual exposures were stacked to create this noise-free image.
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The Great Northern Lights Show, 2024
The aurora activities on May 10-11, 2024, was truly a great northern lights show. A series of violent explosions of a sun spot a few days earlier created the ideal condition for a Kp 8-9 storm (9 being the highest on the Kp scale) that lasted over 24 hours. Millions of people around the globe, including tropical areas like Puerto Rico and Africa, were able to see the aurora with unaided eyes. This image was taken on Pelee Island, the southernmost inhabited land in Canada. Even at such southerly latitude (42 degrees), aurora filled the sky.
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Spring Equinox Aurora
A severe (Kp 8) geomagnetic storm on March 23, 2023, just 3 days after spring equinox, produced colourful aurora visible in the outskirt of the Waterloo Region in Ontario. Aurora is driven by solar activities, which ebb and flow following an 11-year cycle. The current solar cycle is expected to peak some time in 2024. In addition, aurora activities also peak around the spring and fall equinoxes, when the sun’s magnetic field and the earth’s magnetic field are in better alignment, increasing the chance of solar wind particles reaching Earth’s upper atmosphere creating aurora.
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The Night Northern Lights Danced
One doesn’t have to travel to faraway northern locations to see the northern lights. This intense northern lights display was photographed in east Perth County, 20 minutes west of Waterloo, during a strong Kp 7 geomagnetic storm on September 18, 2023.
Northern lights come in different colours. Green is the most common, created when solar wind particles excite oxygen atoms in the atmosphere. Red is seen during more intense storms when oxygen atoms are excited at high altitude.
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The Galaxy We Call Home
The summer Milky Way reveals itself during the evening blue hour.
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Underneath the Summer Sky
Milky Way, our home galaxy, can be seen year-round in the night sky. However, the most spectacular view can be found in the summer months, when the core of the Milky Way can be seen in the southern sky after dusk, as in this quintessentially Canadian nightscape. The summer Milky Way reveals itself during the evening twilight, as the sky darkens into a deep blue, behind the Georgian Bay landscape. The two brightest objects left of the Milky Way core are the gas giants Jupiter and Saturn, both near opposition and shining brightly.
A 16-image stack renders the night sky with great details and low noise. The foreground was done with a 32-image stack.
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Midsummer Night’s Wishes
Meteor photography is part planning, part luck, and lots of time spent under the stars – check for moon phase and clear sky, find a safe, dark location (which hopefully is not mosquito-infested), and shoot lots and lots of exposures. For the annual Perseid Meteor Shower I typically capture a few thousand exposures over several nights, using two cameras. Usually a few dozen exposures contain meteors, some bright and many other dim. This one is a rare gem – two bright, colourful meteors, streaking through the sky close to the Milky Way, both striking during the same 15-second exposure time, and both within view of the camera.
