A look back at 2024
It was another busy and eventful year. Seemed like it zoomed by.
Ad:
As:
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Me:
Vacations:
Aurora in Iceland
Aurora in Connecticut
Total Solar Eclipse
Looking forward to Mars occultation by the Moon on Monday (Jan 13) night around 9:30 pm EST. The weather seems to be iffy but observing this in partly cloudy skies won’t be a problem as long as the Moon stays away from clouds. 🤞🤞
My son is quite thrilled that the poster abstract about his research from last summer was accepted at the national ACS spring meeting in San Diego. He is hoping that the PI will choose him as one of the students to go to the meeting in person.
Went in for a diagnostic test. The lab tech asked me questions about my age and weight. Received the results back and on there he had hand-written notes - my age, weight and Chinese!!! Can’t imagine what made him think I am Chinese. People thought that I was Mexican but never Chinese before this.
The last time I tuned to NPR (my only source of news) was on Nov 6th. I haven’t followed any news in the last 2 months except an accidental glance at the headlines. Don’t think I missed anything. Outside of work, burying my head deep in astronomy and outdoors activities is good for me.
On this last evening of this holiday break, I am a little sad that it is over. Can’t believe two and half weeks just evaporated in the blink of an eye. It was a nice and enjoyable break. I can’t recall my password so first thing tomorrow morning will be a call to the IT desk.
Went out for a hike in the woods today. It was a clear and crisp morning - cold but windless. Listened to “The Writer’s Voice” podcast from the New Yorker where the authors narrate their stories published in the magazine.
“I must study politics and war that my sons may have liberty to study mathematics and philosophy. My sons ought to study mathematics and philosophy, geography, natural history, naval architecture, navigation, commerce and agriculture in order to give their children a right to study painting, poetry, music, architecture, statuary, tapestry, and porcelain.”
- John Adams, 2nd US President
Finished watching season 1 of “Silo” on Apple TV. Excellent dystopian drama. Can’t wait to dig into season 2. Unfortunately, the holiday break is coming to an end. But, will have to find some time for this.
The open star cluster Pleiades (M45) aka Subaru cluster is about 440 light years away. It consists of these hot blue young stars (~100 million years old) that light up the reflection nebula around it.
This image is a composite of 92 one minute exposures.
Astrophotography in 2024
As this year comes to an end, I am going to review my astronomy photos. It seems like there were more cloudy and rainy nights than usual, so there were fewer deep-sky astrophotos. But the Sun put on a great show with the total eclipse in April and the spectacular auroras. Also, there was Comet Tsuchinshan-ATLAS that kinda lived up to the hype.
Let’s start in January-February 2024:
Heart nebula from Cassiopeia.
The Orion and Running man nebulae.
Flame and Horsehead nebulae.
My favorite constellation in the sky: Orion. Taken with a 40mm lens attached to Nikon Z6 camera through a diffuser filter. The filter brings out the colors of the stars.
In March, I was able to capture Comet 12P-Pons-Brooks. It didn’t get as bright as was expected.
One of the highlights of this year was the total solar eclipse on April 8th. After making and canceling and making new plans, we watched 3 and half minutes of totality from Plattsburgh, NY.
These 2 were my most favorite photos of the eclipse.
As the solar activity is around maximum of the current cycle, Auroras were seen from places 40N and lower. We were treated with a wonderful display in Connecticut on May 10th. Best birthday present anyone ever gave to me.
In June, during the firefly season, I tried capturing the star trails and fireflies in the same image. I like this idea and will try to get more photos like this in 2025.
Saw this nice 22 degree halo around the Sun in July.
Evenings in August are usually nice to catch the Milky Way stretching across the sky. The iPhone camera does an excellent job with long exposure photos to capture the Milky Way.
In August, there was another nice event to capture - the conjunction of Mars and Jupiter. These two bright objects were just half a degree apart from each other.
We visited Iceland in September and experienced Auroras on multiple nights. It was just mind blowing!
I was able to create a star trails image with Aurora on the horizon. Wish I had taken more photos like this.
The high solar activity continued in October and we saw more Auroras from Connecticut at 41N latitude.
Comet Tsuchinshan-ATLAS made a nice appearance first in the morning sky and then in the evening sky throughout October.
There were some clear skies in November and I could get back to deep-sky astrophotography again to capture some favorites like Andromeda galaxy, Perseus double cluster, Iris nebula and Eastern Veil nebula.
In December, captured North America and Pelican nebulae using newly acquired astronomy camera ASI2600MC-duo. Look forward to using this into the new year.
Went on a hike in the woods on this foggy and drizzly morning. Saw some pretty mosses and lichens. It was good to go out and breathe fresh cool air after staying indoors for the last couple of days.
Sun from Dec 27, 2024. So many Sunspots! Hazy clouds made it hard to get a crisp nicely focused photo.
Finished watching “Day of the Jackal”. It was good drama and action. The end kind of leaves the story hanging for season 2. I’ll keep it on the list to watch when it comes back.
Wanted to travel somewhere during the break but the kids shot down the idea. They want to stay at home after spending the whole semester away at college. When we went to Barcelona during last holiday break, it felt like we were dragging them to where they didn’t want to be.
After rowing 26 days to complete the Concept2 holiday challenge, it is now time to bike for 26 days.
Saw this hawk sitting on the side of the road. It probably got hit by a car. I stopped and tried calling animal control but no one answered. It flew up to this tree after a few minutes. Hope it was OK. Just shaken up and not badly injured.
