Astrophotography » Kelsey Wellons Photography

Northern Lights

2024-10-12T16:29:00Z

Northern Lights (NL) in Howard County, MD on October 10, 2024. Earlier in the day there was buzz on Capital Weather Gang that the NL would be visible even in light-polluted areas around the DC/Baltimore area. Around 7:30 PM, photos were coming in from DC of purple skies in the city. As I had a prior commitment until 9 PM, I considered going out at all. With Chris in tow, I took a couple lenses and tripod to the Howard County Conservancy (HCC) for an open spot looking away from the lights of Columbia and Baltimore. While expecting some cars, the NL brought out hundreds of people to the HCC. Rt. 99 had both sides of the road with cars as well as the entire lane up to the parking lot. Attempts were made with my 50mm but unsatisfied, I grabbed my wide angle from the car.

While there were spurts here and there between 7:30 and 10 PM, we had great timing as the NL were faintly visible with the naked eye while setting up. Long exposures are required to reduce noise and bring out more color than the eye can see. As with most NL images on the internet, this has been enhanced in post-processing to make the colors pop more. You will not see it this vibrant with your eyes.

I have rarely touched this wide angle in the 7 years I've owned it. The downside is this is a DX (crop-sensor) lens and can only be shot in DX mode on a full-frame camera, forcing it to shoot in 20 megapixels instead of the 45 on the Z8.

Lens - AF-P DX NIKKOR 10-20mm f/4.5-5.6G VR @ 10mm on Nikon Z8

June 2022 Strawberry Supermoon

2022-06-16T21:29:00Z

Strawberry Supermoon from the Huntley Meadows Park boardwalk on June 15, 2022. Many places online were discussing the full moon this month being a supermoon due to it being in its closest point to earth. Bringing up Stellarium to track the moon from dusk until dawn, I saw it was not going to be higher in the sky until around 1 AM. My intention was to also be up at 4 AM for a Huntley Meadows trip the following morning so my plans to photograph it were minimal. Upon going outside around 10 PM on June 14, the moon looked fantastic and had a yellowish glow. We had some cloud cover in the area so my shots were reasonable - not great, not terrible.

The moon was still large and bright when I left home at 4:40 AM. My camera was already packed for the drive in my backpack and unpacking seemed like a hassle, despite how great it looked. The hope was to get to Huntley in time to photograph it before the sun was too high to capture it. The moon was visible nearly the entire ride down 95 and 495. While crossing the Woodrow Wilson Bridge into Virginia, my thoughts were how interesting shots would look from the National Mall. Hitting red on nearly every light down rt. 1 made me irritable that the moon would either be below the horizon or have too much light on it by the time I arrived. Fortunately, I had plenty of time before the sun came over the tree line. It was less dramatic and rather dull once the sun came up - it was just another ordinary daytime moon at that point.

I'm not a large fan of photographing the moon when it's full. The non-full moon phases give more detail in the craters due to shadows and I'm of the opinion that alone makes for better moon photographs.

Lens - Tamron 150-600mm F/5-6.3 Di VC USD G2 @ 600mm on Nikon D500

Full Moon 01/30/2018

2018-01-31T21:41:00Z

Full moon evening before the lunar eclipse. I had attempted to photograph the lunar eclipse around 6:30 AM but a giant cloud had moved in front of the moon. I tried to focus the moon both manually and auto-focus but was not able to get any detail through the clouds. By the time the eclipse was starting (~ 6:47 AM), the clouds had not moved and the moon was already setting below the treeline.

I found out (via my own experience and research on the internet) that a full moon is not the best time to photograph the moon. In my prior moon photo, you can see all the details of craters in the area by the unlit part of the moon. You get very little detail with the sun reflecting on a full moon. I used post-processing to make the photo more realistic to what one sees with the naked eye. (The moon tends to come out bright even underexposed.)

Lens - Tamron 100-400mm f/4.5-6.3 Di VC USD @ 400mm on Nikon D5500

Moon 01/25/2018

2018-01-26T21:38:00Z

I just received my new Tamron telephoto lens this evening and wanted to do a quick test on autofocus and quality. The moon was bright and visible in the sky so I used that as an opportunity to get some samples.

With my older Nikon 55-200mm, I was not able to get much detail out of the moon. I had tried several times to get good shots with limited success. My first few shots with the Tamron were good but overexposed. Because the camera perceives the moon as being very bright, you need to underexpose your pictures to bring out enough detail in the moon. With this new knowledge in hand, I went back outside for a better image. I was thoroughly impressed with this lens after just a few more shots. I cropped down the image to just the moon and adjusted a few items in post-processing.

Lens - Tamron 100-400mm f/4.5-6.3 Di VC USD @ 400mm on Nikon D5500

Harvest Moon 10/04/2017

2017-10-07T23:38:00Z

Harvest Moon - October 4, 2017 at 10:07 PM. I attempted earlier in the evening to capture the Harvest Moon between an opening in the trees but it was too cloudy. I spent the next 2 hours in and out from our balcony waiting for the clouds to clear. When there was minor cloud coverage, I was able to get shots in but they were still bright. I had to set the exposure negative several steps to preserve the details of the moon. (This shot was -2.7 exposure - some of my others were at my camera's maximum negative at -5.) With night photography, a higher exposure is almost always needed to allow enough light in. The downside of this is that more noise is added to the image. By being able to shoot the moon at ISO100, there is 0 noise (an ISO of 100 is used for shooting in bright light).

Lens - AF-S DX NIKKOR 55-200mm f/4-5.6G VR II @ 200mm on Nikon D5500

International Space Station timelapse

2017-08-10T01:38:00Z

International Space Station had a several minute flyby at 9:38 PM on August 09, 2017. The flyby was set to be visible very high above the horizon. We set up in the field behind our apartment with a tripod and the camera set to take 21 pictures with 6 second intervals at 1.6 second exposure. We initially missed the bottom trail as it was hard to see the ISS. I stitched together 19 images (which was a task in itself) and changed the colors to make the sky stand out more. You can also see the star trails due to having the lens open longer. This was basically a shot in the dark hoping it would work and was pleased with how well it came out for a first try.

Lens - AF-P DX NIKKOR 10-20mm f/4.5-5.6G VR @ 15mm on Nikon D5500