Mike McNerney (@mikemcnerney) — Bluesky Profile

2 months ago

If you need a good laugh, an emotional cry, or great music, head to your theater on Christmas Day to see "Song Sung Blue". As a member of the DGA and SAG-AFTRA, I've had the opportunity to see it 3 times and we're going again today. LOVE THIS FILM! #movie #music #songsungblue #christmasday #theater

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5 months ago

Beautiful integration! IC1805 was one of my first targets a few years ago. I should really revisit it now that I know what I'm doing. Nice work!!

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6 months ago

Milky Way diagonally from lower left to upper right is a greyish brushstroke of stars and pink nebula. Above the Milky Way is the bright star Vega and below the Milky Way is the galaxy Andromeda, which appear as a bright spot with light fading from the center to both the left and right.

Milky Way at zenith between Vega and Andromeda. Single untracked 18.5 second frame, 18mm f/2.8 taken with a full-spectrum modified Canon T4i from Wildcat Mountain State Park in Wisconsin.
#milkyway #nightphotography #darksky #astro #photography #canon #astronomy #night #wisconsin

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7 months ago

I'm going to be driving across country in a couple of weeks to go to a star party in Wisconsin. Looking forward to some dark skies along the way, as well. The smoke from wildfires across the west has made for rough seeing, though.

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7 months ago

YES!!!

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7 months ago

Beautiful capture! Narrowband's biggest challenge for me is the amount of time and data it takes. I have friends who can be out shooting every night, then process in their "super computers". I don't have those luxuries, so mostly do OSC these days.

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7 months ago

I took up the hobby during the pandemic lockdown. Gave me something to do that was more than 6 feet from other people. Turns out I wasn't alone with that idea. When I tried to buy astrophotography gear on line, nearly every dealer was sold out.

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8 months ago

Haven't posted in a while, so here's the Western Veil Nebula. 68 stacked images at 180 seconds each taken with ZWO ASI2600MC Pro camera, Optolong L-Ultimate filter, Orion 6" Ritchey-Chretien telescope on Sky-Watcher EQ6-R Pro mount, captured in ASIAIR Plus, processed in Pixinsight and GIMP.

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8 months ago

For the record, many companies - especially big corporations that are run by billionaires - hire large portions of their line-level workforce as less-than full time employees, specifically so they don't have to provide benefits like insurance.

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8 months ago

Since we're in Castaic, Ca, right off the 5 just south of the Grapevine, we keep a pretty close eye (and nose) out for fires.

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8 months ago

Guessing you have it, but the Watch Duty app covers fires all over the western US. The basic version is free, but they have a subscription version too if you want a few more functions.

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8 months ago

If it's not in the smoke (seems to be between fires with prevailing winds blowing it clear, maybe?) Upper Scorpion Campground near the Gila Cliff Dwellings is a good spot also. There are a few trees, but plenty of open sky depending on where you set up your rig.

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8 months ago

Sorry, got sidetracked with our AC going out. Not sure my other suggestions would help right now. Looks like a few fires in Western NM. Cosmic seems far enough west to be out of the smoke, but a lot of the places I would go in the Gila National Forest are likely smoked out...

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8 months ago

White Sands is cool for daytime film photography. Got some great contrasty dunes with Tri-X. For astrophotography, my favorite spot in Western NM is Cosmic Campground. My favorite spot in Northern NM is Wild Rivers. As for South-Central NM, it's always been too dusty when I've been there.

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8 months ago

Further reminder that many Nazi propagandists were tried after World War II during the Nuremberg Trials for crimes against humanity and war crimes.

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9 months ago

I loaded your coordinates and time/date into SkySafari Pro and pointed at zenith to get this screenshot. It may not be the correct orientation or focal length, but looking straight up, this is what would have been there.

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9 months ago

The dense stars and dust clouds of the Milky Way are visible, running vertically, in the top two thirds of the photo. At the bottom is the Earth, covered in clouds dimly lit by the pre-dawn sun. Running along the curve of the Earth is a hazy purple glow.

Wow! Just look at this photo of the Milky Way taken by astronaut Don Pettit on the ISS. Taken with a homemade tracker to counteract the orbital motion. It kind of looks like an aurora, but that's actually just clouds just before dawn. The purple colour comes from nitrogen scattering sunlight. 🧪🔭

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10 months ago

On the black background of outer space, a modeled pink nebulous cloud fills much of the center of the frame. Beginning about a quarter of the way from the left edge, a globular nebula with streamers of gaseous clouds is centered on the lower left "third" mark of the frame. To the right of that, expanding and extending upward to near the top of the frame and to the right to about a third of the way from the edge of frame, a more whispy, lighter nebulous cloud with darker pink edges and areas of very dark, making it look like a person with a headlamp on looking at the globular "jellyfish" nebula. The entire image is covered in white, yellow, red, and blue stars ranging in size from very small to medium. One larger medium star makes the "light" of the headlamp, and another larger medium star is just off the lower right of the jellyfish.

#pictureoftheday IC443 - The Jellyfish Nebula is a supernova remnant in the constellation Gemini, about 5,000 lightyears from Earth. 36 frames x 180 seconds plus calibration frames. Processed in Pixinsight. #photography #photo #astrophotography #night #sky #stars #pink #nebula #outerspace #space

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11 months ago

On the black background of outer space, medium and small white, yellow, and orange stars cover the entire canvas, with a galaxy viewed on edge running diagonally from upper left to lower right in the middle 1/3 of the frame. The galaxy is dimmer on both ends, brightening to the core in the middle, making the visible flat side of the galaxy appear to look like a needle. The galaxy is mostly light gold tone, with an orange and brown mottled band of dust and nebulosity running the entire length. The center core appears as a bright fuzzy near-circular ball.

#pictureoftheday NGC4565 - The Needle Galaxy (no, not the same as The Silver Needle Galaxy that I posted last week). #photography #photo #astrophotography #night #sky #nightsky #stars #galaxy #space #outerspace

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11 months ago

Family went there nearly 60 years ago when I was a kid. Glad to see it hasn't been spoiled by "progress". Beautiful picture!

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11 months ago

Tough to choose just one. I admire Cesar Chavez for worker's rights, Mother Theresa for calming a storm, and an actual revolutionary from the American Revolution, James Armistead Lafayette, an African American who gained his freedom by becoming a double agent working against the crown.

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11 months ago

Picture of the day. The Silver Needle Galaxy, about 13 mil ly away. Taken earlier this week from my backyard in California, this image stacks 116 subs x 180 seconds through a 6" Ritchey-Chretien telescope. #photography #photo #astrophotography, #astronomy #galaxy #space #nightsky #night #sky #stars

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11 months ago

Gorgeous captures!
I spent a lot of time at Jemez a couple of years ago while working on the show "Big Sky" (one of our main sets was at Hummingbird Music Camp). Beautiful area!

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11 months ago

A frog sits in a creek amongst some rocks that are similar in color to the frog, making him/her blend into the waterscape.

#pictureoftheday. Everyone needed to see a #frog today. Mission accomplished. #photography #photo #nature #water #rocks #california #green #camouflage #waterscape

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11 months ago

On a background of deeply out of focus (bokeh) greenery, a California quail poses. The quail is on the right half of the frame, with the dark brown plume protruding from the top of its head, from right where the maroon/brown feathers at the top meet the white feathers that make up its forehead. It's beak is shiny black, at the edge of which, where it meets the face, its dark eye accents his black face with a white sideburn and beard. The back of its neck is covered in alternating tiny brown and white feathers, his upper chest, from chin to breast area, is solid gray feathers, and below that, his chest and stomach is covered in fan shaped burnt orange feathers outlined in black, fading to white and gray feathers to the wings. In the foreground, an out of focus plant blocks his lower section.

Picture of the day. California quail in our backyard. #photography #photo #bird #quail #california #green #nature

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11 months ago

Green grass covered hill in the foreground, beginning at the middle left edge of the picture, extending to the bottom right corner. Behind that a yellow, green, and orange hill covered in poppies and other wildflowers - that hill extends from the upper third right edge of frame, down to meet and go behind the green hill near center left, about a quarter of the way down the green hill. Beyond that hill is the distant valley ranging in color from tan to blue, with the hazy blue sky above.

This is a square image, taken with a film camera, so it's a little grainy if you zoom in. The image is a field of yellow wild flowers with occasional patches of green weeds covering the lower two-thirds of the frame, with a dirt path extending from center left edge of frame to center upper third of frame and the end of the field of flowers. There is also an area in the near foreground at the bottom of the frame, where the flowers and weeds are less compacted and the sandy ground beneath is exposed. Walking along the dirt path away from camera is a woman in white sneakers, black pants, a white smock-type tops with large prints of flowers on it, and a black bucket-style hat. At the upper third of frame, where the flower field ends, is a narrow blueish-gray strip of lake running left to right across the entire frame. On the other side of the lake is an off-white sand and rock ridge running the length of the photo from left to right, with occasional yellow flower patches. This ridge is the San Andreas fault. Above the fault ridge is a row of darker green and yellow mountains, then a mostly cloudy sky with the clouds being higher level streaks rather than puffy ones. A small patch of blue sky emerges from the clouds just at the right edge, extending about a quarter of the way into the frame to the left.

In the foreground, a horizontal row of orange flowers runs across the entire bottom of the frame, extending about an eighth of the way up from the bottom. Above the orange flowers is a horizontal band of yellow wild flowers, followed by a band of green and gray weeds, followed by a rolling carpet of yellow flowers, occasionally broken by green weeds, all extending up to the center of the frame. Above that rises a green, yellow and tan mountain, with areas of white sand/rock ridges which identify where the San Andreas fault is. Above the mountain, at about the upper third frame line, are some grayish-white puffy clouds with blue sky above them.

A dirt road extends from near the center of the frame forward to the lower right corner of the frame, with a Jeep driving down the road toward us, leaving a dust haze in its wake. The dirt road runs through a field of orange and yellow wildflowers on a bed of green weeds, extending up from the center line into the rolling mountains which are mostly covered in the yellow flowers up to about the upper third of the frame, where the mountain becomes green up to the blue sky above. In the center, at about the lower third line, a man dressed in all white faces away from us and toward the flower field, with a tripod leg visible in front of him, although the camera is hidden by his body. The dust cloud from the Jeep is approaching him. Slightly farther up the road and on the other side, a car is parked facing away, with both doors open and a person standing in the driver's doorway taking a picture of the flowers. In the far distant portion of the road are two other vehicles traveling away.

#pictureoftheday. #spring! Throwback to the #california #superbloom. These were taken near Soda Lake and the Carrizo Plain #nationalmonument. In the image with my wife walking down the path, the white ridge is the San Andreas fault. #photography #photo #flowers #yellow #nature @altnps.bsky.social

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11 months ago

I haven't tried planetary imaging with a Barlow yet. I've only used them for visual. Maybe I'll give it a go.

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11 months ago

Nice capture! Did you use a Barlow of some sort? I'm guessing you're SCT has a native focal length of about 1500mm. With my 1400mm RC, I get about the size of an eraser tip.

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11 months ago

Done! Hopefully things will ease up soon for all of us.

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11 months ago

On a dark background of outer space, a mostly red nebula (cloud of gasses in space) stretches across almost the entire frame from left to right, with a cone shaped cloud protruding from left to right near the left edge, and a bluish white cloud from about center (left to right) to about 1/3 of the way from the right edge and from about 1/3 of the way from the bottom edge to about the center top to bottom, with a very bright star illuminating the bluish white cloud. Medium and small stars cover the entire image.

Picture of the day. The Christmas Tree Cluster and Cone Nebula - NGC2264. Taken 12/5/24 from my backyard. 102 x 180 seconds = 5 hours and 6 minutes of data (ZWO ASI2600MC Pro camera). #photography #photo #astrophotography #astronomy #science #stars #space #nightsky #night #sky #science #red #nebula

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