Moon Rock Displays and Peekskill Meteorite

Not that it's a competition, but I couldn't help but notice differences in the moon rock displays in the National Air and Space Museum compared to the National Gem and Mineral Collection at the Museum of Natural History. What do you think? Who showed it best?

Moon rocks displayed at (L) the National Air and Space Museum, and (R) the National Gem and Mineral Collection in the Museum of Natural History

Let's take a step back and look at the display case for each. I'm realizing half way though this post that I sound like a real jerk judging the displays - when really just seeing moon rocks in person is totally awesome and mind blowing. But I couldn't help but notice a big difference!

Displays at the National Air and Space Museum look a little dated, the display window is foggy, and the lighting is flat

Moon rock in the National Gem and Mineral Collection looks futuristic and befitting a moon rock! The light sources are hidden, and the light is crisp white

Here's another interesting anecdote - the gem collection has a lot more meteorites than the Air and Space Museum, and when I was in the gift shop I asked about buying small meteorites. The person behind the counter said they no longer sell them and alluded to a controversy, saying that the 'air and space guys' decided meteorites were their 'thing,' and that the gem collection gift shop shouldn't be able to carry them. Museum gift shop turf war!

Speaking of other items in the gem collection, here is a meteorite celebrity of note... the Peekskill meteorite!

Peekskill is famous for being caught on multiple video cameras and smashing into the trunk of a car

Peekskill meteorite

Best Photos of the Year for 3 Year Blog Anniversary

January 28, 2012 was the day I learned that my point and shoot camera has a long exposure mode. This brought the night sky much closer to home, and started me down a path I'd never imagined! This is turning into a blog anniversary tradition to look back over the past year and reflect on my favorite and/or best photos of the year, just like I did for year 1 and year 2 of informed stargazing and night sky photography.

Personal best Andromeda and first successful run with my EQ-1 motorized mount. I owned the mount for months before getting the chance to really do it justice, and it's been paying off ever since. It takes a lot of work, but it is like night and day.

A super nice Perseid meteor with change in color and perfect javelin shape. This was really the year of the meteor photos even though I didn't get any Geminids like I did the past 2 years. This is probably my most colorful and possibly best meteor.

Huge Camelopardalids meteor with visible smoke trail, as seen in this animated GIF I made using multiple frames. This was a new shower, and I really lucked out! This is the real deal, it made me really feel like an astrophotographer!

Change in Ceres and Vesta positions in 24 hours, as shown in this animated GIF from two different nights. This was also the year of the animated GIF, I really like this image and it took a ton of work!

The year I entered into solar photography, and a gigantic sunspot! I made my own solar filter for my camera with a sheet of black polymer and was able to get a totally new view of the sun. A real milestone!

Partial solar eclipse, viewed from my office window with my home made solar filter. This was an exciting event and I feel like I showed some real persistence to get this image through the clouds a few minutes before going into an appointment at work. Just shows you can make time for it even if you're busy!

My first total lunar eclipse and my best photo probably so far, I'm super proud of this! I had to wake up super early on a work day, and spent hours stacking photos for each stage of the eclipse. It was an amazing event to see and to document, I'll cherish this photo for years to come. My parents had a huge poster of it framed and it's in my family room now.

Amazing sunset and iPhone photo at that! Indiana is amazing for skywatching, I've never seen so many rainbows and cool sunsets. Forget 'big sky country' it's all about the crossroads of America when it comes to cool sky colors.

Supermoon and one of many moon photos of my suburban skyline. It's nice to have a backyard and a view to the South, as well as a view down the corridor of backyards to see the moon rising over the rooftops.

Lagoon Nebula and Trifid Nebula with my EQ-1 motorized mount. This year I really upped my deep sky game with the mount, and I've only used it a few times. Still plenty of room for improvement!

Probably my best Milky Way photo to date, I just wish I had my EQ mount for this one. I took it on a fixed tripod during a work retreat into the woods. It was the darkest sky I was under all year, and I got some good naked eye views of the Milky Way as well. Hoping to improve on this over the summer with some tracking and maybe even see some of the colors.

New year comet, this one I got with just a fixed tripod. Pleased with the nice color with what seemed like minimal effort. It must be a sign that I'm getting better and more comfortable because this really seemed like a pretty casual acquisition.

Interesting earthshine moon photo: This year I've been working on including more foreground objects to add interest. I've sort of gotten over the hump of being so new that I just try to get the right settings, and now I'm turning some attention to composition and the more artistic side of astrophotography.

That time I was on NPR Science Fridays, wow what a treat! This was out of the blue, one day I got a call about taking moon photos with an iPhone, and a couple days later I was live on the air. This is like my peak fame, my 15 minutes, I still can't believe it haha! Me, on NPR, wow!

Getting to see Neil deGrasse Tyson speak for free on the UIndy campus. Honestly, the excitement of the event was better than the talk. It was more a celebration of science than a science lecture. It was very pop culture and fun. Being part of this audience of 4000 was great, and my husband came with me - which is always nice when he supports my interests!

Too legit to quit Orion Nebula, this image is my pride and joy for the year. I feel like it's a huge milestone and a gateway into the realm of 'real' astrophotography. I take a lot of dumb little fuzzy blob photos, but this is legitimately a deep space image from my own backyard. I feel validated and like my improvement is undeniable, and it makes me excited to keep learning. I also have this image framed in my family room.

So there you have it, this was a fun walk down memory lane for the year! Here's hoping for a successful and productive new year, plenty of new territory and things to learn!

Favorite Can't Miss National Air and Space Museum Highlights

I took a spontaneous trip to the National Air and Space Museum so I didn't have the chance to plan ahead and map out every must-see can't-miss artifact in the collections. I'd been there before, about 15 years ago, but I didn't remember what the best highlights were. I ended up spending over 3 hours roaming around and snapping photos of my favorite pieces!

1. The last boots to ever leave human footprints on the moon - This was by far my favorite piece in the entire museum! There's something special and intimate about these spacesuit accessories. I don't know what it is about them - maybe the instantly recognizable tread pattern, or the fact that when these boots left the surface of the moon we never went back. It's special, and cool, and sad, and makes you think. It's just the kind of thing that belongs in a museum!

The last boots on the moon! Gene Cernan 1972 last boots to leave human footprints on the lunar surface in 1972

I spent 10 minutes with the boots, and asked a stranger to take a photo for me!

2. The REAL 1903 Wright Flyer - This begins my trend towards appreciating the REAL stuff so much more! I grew up in Dayton, Ohio and we learn all about the Wright Brothers from elementary school right through middle school. It's a big deal! However, our Air Force Museum doesn't have 'the' original first airplane, it has the 1909 Wright Military Flyer. I really liked see THE FIRST airplane, the real deal.

3. Apollo 11 Command Module - There and back again, the command module from Apollo 11 the first moon landing. This is definitely a national treasure! It kinda sucks that it's under foggy plastic, it's difficult to see the real surface detail and get a good photo because of the glare.

The command module hatch door is open so you can see inside. The door itself is pretty cool, it's in a different display upstairs!

4. Mercury Friendship 7 Capsule - The capsule that carried John Glenn as the third American in space and the first to orbit the Earth.

Mercury mission Friendship 7 capsule - carried John Glenn first U.S. orbital flight

Elsewhere in the museum you can see equipment carried during this flight, including this 35mm camera and a huge survival knife and rescue signal mirror. It's sort of weird to think about bringing a huge knife into space, like the kind you would take camping.

5. Gemini IV Capsule - the capsule that carried Ed White to perform the first spacewalk by an American. The Gemini missions bridged the technology gap between Mercury and Apollo and made technical achievements such as changing orbits and docking - basically making space flight controlled instead of just shooting a can around the world a few times!

Gemini IV command module capsule - first US spacewalk

Elsewhere in the museum you can see the maneuvering jetpack, helmet, and gloves used by Ed White on his first EVA or extravehicular activity AKA space walk.

6. Stardust Capsule - returned the world's first particles from a comet. It's amazing to think that this capsule went to a comet, collected tiny particles of dust using aerogel in the tennis racket type arm, and came back to Earth to end up in this case right in front of me. I was in the presence of a comet chaser! Pretty cool. Plus the aerogel is just weird and neat to look at. Hardware provided to the Smithsonian includes actual flight components, again making it that much cooler that this is REAL stuff!

7. Actual Moon Rocks - I'm going to write a future post about 'who displayed it better?' because the gem and mineral collection at the Natural History Museum actually wins out on the attractive display of these precious bits of the moon. Nonetheless, here is one on display here in the Air and Space Museum.

8. For coolness factor, Apollo 11 sunglasses - these iconic sunglasses are perfect Smithsonian artifacts as bits of culture. The style just screams space race!

Not the most historically significant pieces in the museum, but one of the coolest - the style is iconic of the space race!

These are my personal favorites! Do you have something that is your favorite that didn't make my list? Leave comments below! I know there are a ton of amazing things to see in the museum, and obviously they are all important and noteworthy - that's why they're in the museum! But these objects had the biggest personal impact on me and that's why I included them in the list.

Crescent Moon and Saturn Conjunction January 16, 2015

I was writing the previous blog post and looked into Stellarium to see the separation of Venus and Mercury but I was distracted by the Moon and Saturn in conjunction - I didn't even realize! I looked out the back window and sure enough there they were hanging out in the pre-dawn light.

Refine edge layer composite photo

I tried something a little different with this composite photo (above) and I'm not quite sure I pulled it off. It's definitely borderline tacky, but I'm working on it. It's a composite photo with one longer exposure to show the earthshine on the dark side of the crescent moon, and an appropriately exposed crescent moon photo to show the crater details. Combining them in a believable way is the tricky part!

Above: The crater detail moon is ISO 200, 300mm, f/11, 1/25 sec; the earthshine layer is ISO 200, 300mm, f/9, 1.3 sec with the brightness turned up even more. I used the refine edge tool in Photoshop to try to blend the layers.

Below: This is the kind of composite I'm familiar with, it's a simple crop composite of two different exposures, one for the moon and one for Saturn. In this one, Saturn is at ISO 200, 300mm, f/11, 1 sec; the moon is as ISO 200, 300mm, f/11, 1/25 sec.

Simple crop composite photo

Venus Mercury Conjunction January 9, 2015

The two inner planets, Venus and Mercury, put on a dance that lasted several days in the evening sky. I was able to photograph them in a close conjunction just before they disappeared behind the roofline of my neighbor's house.

Venus and Mercury just above the roofline - composite image

I tried something a little different this time, and used two different exposures to create a composite image that shows a more true-to-life view of what they scene looked like. The foreground shot of the house is at ISO 800, 75mm, f/11, 1 sec. The background sky is the same settings with shorter exposure time of 1/20 sec. 

I combined them using Photoshop and the refine edge feature in the Selection tool. I noticed that you can preview the edge on top of a background layer to see if the blending looks natural and if the edge of the selection is too sharp or too feathery. The photo on the left is the foreground shot, and then I remove the sky to reveal the layer behind it which is the longer exposure for the sky. 

Refine edge tool in Photoshop to blend the two exposures

I think it turned out pretty good! It looks natural, which is what I was going for. I don't like to over-process my photos but this one I think is a mild alteration. 

Venus and Mercury, Single frame, Canon T5i, ISO 800, 300mm, f/11, 1/25 sec

Here is the kind of shot I normally take, a close up of the conjunction at 300mm with the roofline visible. I used a higher f-stop number to keep the roof line in focus as much as I could - it also cleans up the shape of the planets keeping them round.

I took these photos out my kitchen sliding door. I don't recommend it usually, because heat from inside escaping outside will cause atmospheric distortion in front of your target. However, it was cold and I was lazy, and this was a good quick setup for me.