Saturday night, 13 June 2015, I was at Oracle State Park, our IDA "International Dark Sky Park", along with Dr. John Barentine of the International Dark-Sky Association and his friend Woody. John wanted to test some sky quality measuring equipment at a dark sky site as well as do some observing. I planned to do some sky astrophotography from the Park.

We arrived at the Park shortly before sunset. While John set up his telescope, I did a 6 minute Periscope Livestream session showing one of the awesome views from the Park. Here are some photos from the video:

You can view the full video with audio narration by clicking this thumbnail (video opens a new window). Be patient while the 23 MB video loads.

Click or tap on image for video (23 MB)

I plan to do more Periscope Livestreaming of events at Oracle State Park. Watch my Twitter feed (@mweasner) for announcements.

Sunset displayed some nice crepuscular rays, with Jupiter and Venus high in the sky, as seen in this Nikon D7200 DSLR photo, f/5.6, 1/30sec, ISO 400, FL 18mm:

Mouseover or tap on image for labels

After sunset we enjoyed watching the stars come out. John and Woody viewed Venus, Jupiter, and Saturn in John's f/3.8 telescope. This photograph of the western sky, Nikon D7200 DSLR, f/5.6, 30 seconds, ISO 1600, FL 18mm, was taken at 2050 MST, about 25 minutes before the end of Astronomical Twilight:

Mouseover or tap on image for labels

After astronomical twilight ended John and Woody did some observing and I began taking a series of photographs of the northern sky as seen over the historic Kannally Ranch House using a D7200 DSLR camera with a FL 8mm fisheye lens. The exposure setting was f/5, 1 minute, ISO 2000. Two hours of photographs have been merged for this "Star Trails over Kannally Ranch House" image:

Click or tap on image for larger version

Here is an alternate version showing the star trails as "comets":

Click or tap on image for larger version

I also created a 20 second video spanning the two hours. Click the photo below to watch the video with a music soundtrack (50 MB; patience while the video loads):

Click or tap on image watch video

I also photographed the Milky Way as seen from Oracle State Park. This is a f/5, 1 minute, ISO 6400, FL 8mm fisheye lens, photograph taken at 2341 MST:

Click or tap on image for larger version

While I was photographing the night sky John did some sky quality measurements using his Unihedron SQM meter. He got consistent readings greater than 21.5. After I finished my sky photography, I did SQM readings using the Park's Unihedron SQM-L meter and got 21.46. Apparently the breezes that began late in the night kicked up some dust. But the night sky quality at Oracle State Park is still amazing for being located so close to the large city of Tucson.

We left the Park a little after midnight. We all agreed that it was an enjoyable night under the dark night sky at Oracle State Park.

---

Comments are welcome using Email. If you are on Twitter you can use the button below to tweet this report to your followers. Thanks.

Tweet

---

Previous report

Cassiopeia Observatory Home Page