mistressofmuses (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
mistressofmuses) wrote2025-09-26 07:21 pm
mistressofmuses) wrote2025-09-26 07:21 pm
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Sunday, September 14: Stargazing
On the evening of September 14th, we saw some reports that the northern lights might be visible in Colorado. We saw them last year (first time I ever saw them!) and it was very cool. We decided to head up to the plains to find some good dark areas and see if we could catch them again.
We saw some very cool pictures from other people... almost exactly where we'd been the previous night, driving home from the model show, haha.
Unfortunately, by the time we got up to some truly dark areas, the numbers had dropped pretty sharply. There wasn't much of anything visible, and even using a camera, there was just the faintest pinkish glow. (Not sure how visible it even is in the picture, unless you're in the dark, haha.)
The faintest glow along the horizon, ha.
However, the stars were spectacular! For the first time in a very long time, we saw the milky way. While that certainly didn't show up on my cell phone camera, I was honestly impressed that my cell phone does capture stars at all!
Look at all those stars!
So many stars!
The glow faded from the horizon, but the stars were nice. And the big dipper was right there!
Zoomed in a bit, the big dipper again!
There was also a very dramatic moonrise, which was cool.
As usual, especially with celestial stuff, I swear it was cooler in person, haha. But even though the northern lights wound up being a bust for the night, the stars were beautiful, and I was glad we went out and saw them.
We saw some very cool pictures from other people... almost exactly where we'd been the previous night, driving home from the model show, haha.
Unfortunately, by the time we got up to some truly dark areas, the numbers had dropped pretty sharply. There wasn't much of anything visible, and even using a camera, there was just the faintest pinkish glow. (Not sure how visible it even is in the picture, unless you're in the dark, haha.)
The faintest glow along the horizon, ha.
However, the stars were spectacular! For the first time in a very long time, we saw the milky way. While that certainly didn't show up on my cell phone camera, I was honestly impressed that my cell phone does capture stars at all!
Look at all those stars!
So many stars!
The glow faded from the horizon, but the stars were nice. And the big dipper was right there!
Zoomed in a bit, the big dipper again!
There was also a very dramatic moonrise, which was cool.
As usual, especially with celestial stuff, I swear it was cooler in person, haha. But even though the northern lights wound up being a bust for the night, the stars were beautiful, and I was glad we went out and saw them.
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Not getting any shake was definitely the hardest part - I had to mostly try bracing the phone against the truck so that my hand wouldn't wobble.
I'm impressed by the camera on my current phone (which is a reasonably nice, but not wildly upscale phone.) I miss having even my little old point-and-shoot digital camera, though. It broke years ago. I've wanted to get another, but never can quite justify the expense, especially when my phone does all right for most of what I tend to want.
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Astrophotography is HARD, and very, very quickly becomes bonkers crazy expensive so absolutely give yourself massive credit for taking such quality pictures above!
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The color for the northern lights only showed up on camera for us last time. To the naked eye last May it was like you said: kind of white or silvery cloud- or fog-like things. Though at their peak, they also sort of... pulsed, in a way we couldn't get to show up on camera at all. It was really cool.
Oh yeah, getting a really *good* camera rig can get really pricey fast! Maybe someday that'll be the sort of expense I can justify, but for now I'm pretty impressed that even mid-grade cell cameras have improved to such a degree!
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