Merry Christmas 2023 (where did this year go??) & Happy New Year 2024 from the Half Circle House gang – Suzanne & Paul; Zeus & Gracie; the (bee) girls; the Cardinal; and Big Zeus, Big Bertha & the Southern Cross
2023 AP in review…
Mother Nature has been particularly disagreeable on New Moon clear skies at our dark sky locations all year long. We have had five (yes, 5!) nights in dark skies and only two of them were in the Beast. Boo!! So, as you’ve seen, most of the DSO images were captured from the front patio this year.
I was planning to attend an astrophotography workshop in Chile’s Atacama Desert during the New Moon in August. In March when I started doing my target planning, I discovered that the Southern Hemisphere objects that we never see from the Northern Hemisphere (the purpose of going all that way!) are not visible during that time of the year there either! I checked with the organizer to see what targets he had in mind. When he replied, “the Milky Way (see: https://beersastrophotography.com/milky_way/milky-way-images/), M8 (see: https://beersastrophotography.com/gallery/m8-lagoon-nebula/), and M16 (see: https://beersastrophotography.com/gallery/m16-eagle-nebula/)” I backed out of that trip. It is now planned for March 2024 – when the Carina Nebula and all the amazing Southern Hemisphere targets ARE visible!
The collage (put together in October in time for my OCD Christmas card process) includes: Thors Helmet, Elephant Trunk Nebula, Pelican Nebula, Milky Way over Powderhorn Colorado, East Veil Nebula, Pickering’s Triangle (from the Veil Nebula), Jellyfish Nebula, Monkey Head Nebula, and the annular solar eclipse collage. The “rest of the story” of all these images are in the gallery section.
Happy Holidays to you and your loved ones. Thank you for your friendship and allowing me to share my astrophotography journey with you…it means the world to me!