View allAll Photos Tagged littledipper
I spent a couple days in northern Minnesota and was fortunate to see some northern lights.
I was kind of surprised I wasn't able to see the colors with my eye until I checked the display on my camera.
Per Wiki...Auroras are the result of disturbances in the magnetosphere caused by solar wind. These disturbances are sometimes strong enough to alter the trajectories of charged particles in both solar wind and magnetospheric plasma. These particles, mainly electrons and protons, precipitate into the upper atmosphere (thermosphere/exosphere).
The resulting ionization and excitation of atmospheric constituents emit light of varying color and complexity. The form of the aurora, occurring within bands around both polar regions, is also dependent on the amount of acceleration imparted to the precipitating particles. Precipitating protons generally produce optical emissions as incident hydrogen atoms after gaining electrons from the atmosphere. Proton auroras are usually observed at lower latitudes.
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My theme for this Roid Week is Space. I read an article recently about how NASA didn't intend to send up any cameras with the first astronauts, so John Glenn bought a cheap Argus plastic camera and had some NASA engineers retrofit it with controls he could use with his astronaut gloves on. The pictures he brought back proved to NASA the value of photography for their missions, and they worked with Hasselblad to create the cameras that we know they took to the moon.
But what if they'd also taken Polaroids?
Maybe they did. Maybe these are the Polaroids the astronauts took.
We start with humanity's first impression of space, the nighttime sky and the constellations we found there.
. . . Nothing like seeing the stars out so bright with no moon to interfere! This is my first try at star trails, and it looks like the cabin accidentally did some light painting of the maple trees and field in color, and I LIKE it! Why did I wait so long to try this??
Have a great weekend Facebook, Flickr, and 500px friends!
near Goldendale, WA. After many attempts at light painting the blades with flashlights and flashes decided to let the moon and some bright lights from a nearby power substation do the light painting for me. The shadows on the back of the blades and tower are from some of the substation equipment... 2min f4 ISO100 N07154
This was taken in the dark at about 9:00pm, if you look closely you can see the little dipper upside down above the tree in the center of the shot. Everything was lit up by the full moon and the streak in the sky was an airplane.
Luke Olsen light painting the Peter Iredale shipwreck. The S shape group of stars in the upper right corner of the photo (see note) is an Asterism called the Segment of Perseus. This fisheye image has been de-fished using the LR Lens Corrections profile for this lens. More images of the Peter Iredale from this and other times. Fort Stevens State Park, Warrenton, OR N06928
The full moon illuminated the north wall of Yosemite Valley on the night of 2023-07-03. Ribbon Falls is usually not flowing by this time of year, but with the record setting snowpack from last winter, it was still active. My aim was to make the granite walls look like how they did to my eyes that night. The sky is a stack of 4 images that were processed in PixInsight before being combined with the land in Photoshop. It makes the sky much more filled with stars than it appeared, but it was amazing to me how much more the camera picked up with 25 second exposures, even with such bright moonlight. The Milky Way is even faintly visible on the right edge of the picture. Polaris appears directly over Ribbon Falls, though it may be hard to pick out. The Big Dipper is at the left edge of the photo.
It was really difficult to deal with the strong gradients from the full moon, but I'm mostly satisfied with this result.
A mirrored edit of a photo taken off my back deck the other night, when my mother showed me the little dipper. A week prior, she had shown me the big dipper. The constellation isn't visible in this piece, but I thought the sky & the trees looked very mystical, so I went ahead & experimented with editing it, and was pleased when this diamond formation emerged. I still feel that there is some kind of mystical mathematical meaning to these mirored edits (which I also call Rorschachs), a meaning which still seems to be hovering right outside my grasp. But something I thought of recently is how these dimensions could perhaps exist in a prism, or in the eyes of an insect.
from Trillium Lake, Mt Hood National Forest, Oregon September 4 10PM PDT. See notes for names of constellations and some of the brighter objects in this photo. OM751
. . . Time to grade your own paper, here is the North Star circled! The way you find this is as follows: First find the Big Dipper, second, the two stars at the far end of the dipper point almost directly towards the North Star. The North Star is also the last star in the handle of the Little Dipper.
Have a great weekend Facebook, Flickr, and 500px friends!
Deep in the Ventana Wilderness a tree contemplates Jupiter rising. High in the Santa Lucia Range.
Little Dipper to the left, Jupiter rising to the right.
Visually the aurora appeared shades of gray, but the colors were easily visible on camera (and iPhone) displays. Big Dipper is in the center of photo with Little Dipper to the right. Portland, Oregon OM20130
The celestial poetry is enchanting enough to alleviate even despair, so stargazing is priceless as a remedy. This is a shot of the north-northwesternmost part of the sky above Varlaam abbey in Meteora, Greece, with both Ursae constellations: Ursa Major (its 7 brightest stars, aka Big Dipper, Great Bear or The Plough) and Ursa Minor (aka Little Dipper, including the Polaris, of course).
Meteora is the name of the group comprising many impressive and lofty rock formations: The height of the sandstone megaliths ranges between 1,000-2,067 ft (300-630 m). The rock masses which were formed 60 million years ago are geologically unique and listed in UNESCO world heritage sites. The Varlaam monastery (abbey) was built in 1517-1518 on a 1,808 ft high (551 m) rock.
Astronomical details about each and every star of these constellations in comments. There is another shot with the stars’ names labeled and another without any marking lines at all.
The celestial poetry is enchanting enough to alleviate even despair, so stargazing is priceless as a remedy. This is a shot of the north-northwesternmost part of the sky above Varlaam abbey in Meteora, Greece, with both Ursae constellations: Ursa Major (its 7 brightest stars, aka Big Dipper, Great Bear or The Plough) and Ursa Minor (aka Little Dipper, including the Polaris, of course).
Meteora is the name of the group comprising many impressive and lofty rock formations: The height of the sandstone megaliths ranges between 1,000-2,067 ft (300-630 m). The rock masses which were formed 60 million years ago are geologically unique and listed in UNESCO world heritage sites. The Varlaam monastery (abbey) was built in 1517-1518 on a 1,808 ft high (551 m) rock.
Can you spot the Ursae stars? Astronomical details about each and every star of these constellations in comments. There is another shot with any marking lines connecting each constellation’s stars and another with the stars’ names labeled.
The International Space Station (ISS) is crossing the big Dipper (also known as the Great Bear, Ursa major) and the little Dippler (little Bear, Ursa minor) over the Johannes-Kepler-Observatory in Linz, Austria.
Stack of six frames, each a 30 second exposure taken with a Canon EOS 550D at ISO 800, 11mm, f/4.0, Cokon P820 diffusor. Processed with Photoshop CS 5.1 and stacked with StarStaX.
A display of Northern Lights to the northeast, the first in many weeks for us in a Kp4 level display. The Big and Little Dippers are at left to the north. Capella is the bright star at right. Moonlight from the low gibbous Moon off frame to the southeast provides the illumination.
Taken from home, Sept 25-26, 2020. This is a stack of 4 exposures for the ground to smooth noise, and one for the sky, all 10 seconds at f/2 and ISO 1600 with the Sigma Art 14mm lens and Nikon D750.
I finally managed to photograph this hummingbird who hangs out in the front yard. I'm not sure what variety she is. We call her Little Dipper because she has a strange way of feeding when she is at our hummingbird feeders.
A quiescent arc of Northern Lights, or aurora borealis, across the northern horizon from home on February 1, 2021.
The W of Cassiopeia is at top left; the familiar Big Dipper is at top right. Polaris in the Little Dipper, or Ursa Minor, is above centre. Cassiopeia and the Big Dipper are nicely placed at this time on a February evening flanking Polaris at an equal altitude, in the northwest and in the northeast. The Milky Way runs down the left side of the frame
This is a single 30-second untracked exposure with the Sony a7III at ISO 1600, and with the Venus Optics Laowa 15mm lens wide open at f/2.
A portrait of the Big Dipper and Little Dipper high in the northern spring sky on a moonlit April night. Polaris is at lower left at the end of the handle of the Little Dipper.
This is a stack of 4 x 1-minute exposures at f/2.8 with the Sigma 24mm Art lens adapted to the Canon EOS Ra at ISO 400, blended with a single image taken through an Alyn Wallace/Kase StarGlow filter plus an exposure taken through a Tiffen 6-point Star filter for added effect. Filter layers blended in with Lighten mode and masked to just the stars to prevent them from affecting the background sky illumination and uniformity. Taken April 20, 2021 from Dinosaur Provincial Park with the camera on the Star Adventurer 2i tracker with the quarter Moon off frame at top.
The celestial poetry is enchanting enough to alleviate even despair, so stargazing is priceless as a remedy. This is a shot of the north-northwesternmost part of the sky above Varlaam abbey in Meteora, Greece, with both Ursae constellations: Ursa Major (its 7 brightest stars, aka Big Dipper, Great Bear or The Plough) and Ursa Minor (aka Little Dipper, including the Polaris, of course).
Meteora is the name of the group comprising many impressive and lofty rock formations: The height of the sandstone megaliths ranges between 1,000-2,067 ft (300-630 m). The rock masses which were formed 60 million years ago are geologically unique and listed in UNESCO world heritage sites. The Varlaam monastery (abbey) was built in 1517-1518 on a 1,808 ft high (551 m) rock.
Astronomical details about each and every star of these constellations in comments. There is another shot without the stars’ names labeled and another without any marking lines at all.
JMT DAY 13 - MILKY WAY OVER SALLIE KEYS LAKES
Milky Way over Sallie Keys Lakes
Once the moon was set over the ridge, the Milky Way was clearly visible although the sky near the horizon was still quite illuminated by the sunken moon. And Mars, still relatively close to Earth (closest to Earth was 44 million miles away a couple of months ago), looked brighter.
Or I was being tricked by my eyes.
The ridge backlit by the moon slowly got darkened as the illumination of the sky faded. More stars started coming out, and soon the heavenly body was strewn with thousands of them.
The wind was persistent throughout the night, but when it died down momentarily, it felt like as if everything stood still. The lake was so calm that I was able to make out almost every star scattered across the water.
Then my mind slowly drifted away.
Since we started, we had climbed over 4 passes, and now 5 more passes (Muir, Mather, Pinchot, Glen and Forester) to go before Trail Crest. Oh, and extra 2 more passes (Bishop and Kearsarge) to climb over to pick up resupplies.
But, what I didn’t know then was that, except for Glen Pass, which I had climbed before, the 4 of them (Island, Donohue, Silver and Selden) had been relatively easy, compared to what was ahead of us.
Visually the aurora appeared shades of gray, but the colors were easily visible on camera (and iPhone) displays. Big Dipper is in the upper right of photo with Little Dipper below, and Lyra in the lower left. Albert Kelly Park, Portland, Oregon OM20157
A priest’s life-size statue stands on a Meteora clifftop in Greece: The Reverend Thymios Vlachavas (1770–1809) was a leader of the revolt in Thessaly against Ottoman Turkish rule before the 1821 Independance War. In 1806 the hero started fighting both on land (Chassia Mountains) and at sea (he even managed to assemble flotillas in both Skiathos & Skopelos Islands). In 1809 he was captured at the statue’s site (next to an abbey dating back to 1367) and was martyred in Ioannina: The notorious local Ottoman bully ordered to bestially break the priest’s bones by hammering, then to barbarically dismember him alive.
The photo tells an imaginary story: the hero navigates by the stars, as the Big Dipper & Little Dipper constellations (aka Ursae: Major & Minor) along with the Polaris are clearly seen. So, he points towards where we should head to, he guides, directs and steers us towards Freedom through sacrifice.
There are no word to describe tonight's show. I shed a tear at its beauty. This is only one photo of a hundred.
Night panorama in the Sahara Desert near Merzouga, Morocco, photographed on April 7, 2026.
The scene captures desert dunes, a camel with its keeper, and a star-filled sky, with the Big Dipper and Little Dipper shining above the Sahara.
This image was created as a 3-photo panorama using a Canon EOS Ra with a Canon EF 16–35mm f/2.8L II USM lens at 16mm.
Exposure settings: f/2.8, ISO 12800, 15 seconds.
It was a beautiful Sahara night where the stillness of the desert and the bright northern stars came together in one frame.
A little bit of almost everything you can see in the Southern Alberta night when you get away from the big cities and towns - Milky Way, Aurora, and air glow over a grain elevator and train tracks.
313 exp, 13 sec, f/2.8, ISO 2500 | Nikon D4 + 16mm f/2.8D Fisheye
Badlands National Park, South Dakota, 18 July 2013
© 2013 José Francisco Salgado, PhD
Do not use without permission.
Straight out of camera!!! Looks like Disney’s “Goofy” to me! “Little Dipper” constellation visible at upper left of photo.
. . . A shot from last weekend while looking for the Northern Lights. The Big Dipper is bold front and on the right, but can you super sleuths find that North Star? Go ahead and make your choice now, and tomorrow I will post the answer!
Have a great weekend Facebook, Flickr, and 500px friends!
The Big Dipper, at left, and Little Dipper with Polaris, centre, over the Hoodoos on Highway 10 along the Red Deer River near Drumheller, Alberta, July 24, 2016. A faint purple aurora lights the sky at upper left, while clouds lit by farm and urban lights provide the unfortunate but in this case complementary coloured yellow sky glow. A nearby farm light illuminates the foreground hoodoo. The waning Moon was just coming up and beginning to light the sky blue as well.
This is a 2-panel panorama, vertically, to take in more of the sky and ground than possible with a single image, even with the 20mm lens used here. The sky is a 30-second exposure at f/2.2 while the ground is a stack of 3 x 2-minute exposures at f/4.5 for more depth of field. All with the Nikon D750 at ISO 3200. No tracking here.
A Kp5 level aurora seen October 24-25, 2019 from home across the north. The aurora always appeared as a diffuse glow and arc without much structure or motion this night, though the patchy clouds didn’t help! But it shows how a bright aurora can shine through the clouds. The Big Dipper is in the clouds, but the LIttle Dipper and Polaris are at top left.
This is a single image with the 15mm Venus Optics lens at f/2 and Sony a7III at ISO 1600 for 20 seconds each. Luminar Flex Soft Glow filter added for effect.
I decided to post this star trails that I did at Thomas Edison Lake.
JMT DAY 11 - STAR TRAILS AT THOMAS EDISON LAKE
Star trails at Thomas Edison Lake
Once done capturing the Milky Way over Thomas Edison Lake, I replanted my camera and pointed it at Polaris. By this time, the moon was hanging quite high, showering Earth with bright light. At least, this part of the planet anyway.
Above the tall pines, the only thing my eyes only see was the heavenly body strewn with countless stars.
While doing the star trails, I sat in the beach, letting myself get lost in solitude. But then the wind often snapped me out of it. Slightly trembling, it often surprised me that not a single soul was seen nor around. Just me, stars and the winds that never seemed to calm down.
Polaris, aka North Star, is 433 light years away. That’s really far, and yet, it is extremely bright. What many people are not aware of is that it is a multiple star, three of them to be exact, and that it will no longer be called North Star in about 12,000 years. The fact that Earth wobbles causes its axis to move slightly.
Vega in the constellation Lyra is expected to become our next North Star. But then, will us humans be around to witness that?
Comet C/2022 E3 (ZTF) here as a small green fuzzy star between the Big and Little Dippers on January 24, 2023. Polaris is in the top left corner. The comet was easy in binoculars but barely naked eye. And only the camera picks up its green colour. The short tail, just visible here, showed up visually in large 70mm binoculars
This is a single 15-second untracked exposure with the Canon RF28-70mm lens at 28mm and f/2 on the Canon Ra at ISO 3200. Noise reduction with Noise XTerminator. Taken from home in southern Alberta, latitude 51° N.
JMT DAY 9 - STAR TRAILS OVER SILVER PASS LAKE
Star trails over Silver Pass Lake
Once done with the shots of the Milky Way over Silver Pass Lake facing southwest, I repositioned and pointed my cameras in the direction of Silver Pass. As expected, Polaris, aka the North Star, was hung brightly along with the Little Dipper and Big Dipper above the pass.
The nonstop gale of winds continuously stirred the lake, while the howling echoed through this empty basin, that the reflection of the star trails was completely out of the question. What Mother Nature had in mind was certainly not a tranquil lake into the night.
While the sky remained clear, I soon realized that it was not just the winds that got me shivering, despite the layers of clothing. The dropping temperature made me wish that my sleeping bag was one of the items that I brought with me there.
Part of me kept wanting to call it a night and head back to camp since I knew it was a losing battle. No one wants to hypothermia to happen, and I certainly did not. It almost did once in the past, and I remembered how bad it was.
But, as is often the case, I stick around a bit longer. I really wanted to take as many shots as possible for star trails.
The 2016 Perseid meteor shower, in a view looking north to the Big Dipper and with the radiant point in Perseus at upper right, the point where the meteors appear to be streaking from. I shot this on the peak night of the shower, August 11/12 after moonset so the sky was dark and in fact filled with bright airglow, appearing here as bands of green and yellow, mixed with a low-level aurora to the north as well. While it looks like the sky has artificial light pollution, the glows here are natural, from aurora and airglow.
The Big Dipper is at bottom, pointing up to Polaris and the Little Dipper at upper centre. Perseus is at far upper right.
This was from the Dark Sky Preserve of Grasslands National Park in southern Saskatchewan, from the trailhead parking lot of the 70 Mile Butte Road.
This is a stack of 10 frames, shot over one hour from 1:38 a.m. to 2:37 a.m. CST. The camera was on the Star Adventurer tracker so all the sky frames aligned. The ground is from a stack of four frames, mean combined to smooth noise, and taken with the tracker motor off to minimize ground blurring, and taken at the start of the sequence.
All exposures 40 seconds at f/3.2 with the 16-35mm lens and Canon 6D at ISO 6400.
A 360° "all-sky" panorama of the northern spring sky, taken when the North Galactic Pole was almost due south high in the sky, so we are looking up out of the plane of our galaxy. The Milky Way is visible but only as an arc low across the north, and on this night (April 27, 2022) an arc of a dim green and magenta aurora nicely coincided with the location of the Milky Way. The North Galactic Pole is located just left of the Coma Berenices star cluster below centre.
Due south is at bottom; west toward the city is at right; east is at left.
The Big Dipper and Ursa Major are directly overhead at centre. Polaris and Ursa Minor/Little Dipper are above centre. Leo is below centre partly in a faint band of Zodiacal Light. The Handle of the Dipper arcs down to yellowish Arcturus, while buish Spica is at bottom low in the south. Vega is rising in the east at left. Capella, and the pair of Castor and Pollux in the winter sky are setting at right. Leo is flanked by the star clusters M44 the Beehive at right and the Coma Berenices Mel111 cluster at left below centre.
This is a stitch of 24 segments: 8 segments 45° apart horizontally in 3 tiers 30° apart vertically, for 40 seconds each, with the RF15-35mm lens at 24mm and f/2.8, and Canon EOS Ra at ISO 2000, on the Star Adventurer 2i tracker, using the Alyn Wallace V-plate to place the camera on a horizontal plane for panning around. I moved the camera manually between frames. Stitched with PTGui. Taken from home in southern Alberta at latitude 51° N.
The original is 16,500 by 16,500 pixels.
Comet C/2022 E3 (ZTF) on the night of January 28, 2023 with it between the two Dippers and near Polaris in the northern sky. It is here barely visible in moonlight as the first quarter Moon was lighting the sky a deep blue. The comet just stands out as a cyan glow. It was visible in binoculars as a grey patch with no sign of a tail.
This is a stack of 9 x 30-second exposures with the Canon RF 28-70mm lens at 33mm and f/2.8 on the Canon R5 at ISO 800. The camera was on the Star Adventurer tracker. A separate exposure through the Alyn Wallace/Kase StarGlow filter blended in added the photogenic star glows to make the constellation patterns stand out better. Taken from home on a chilly -20° C night. This version has labels; an unlabelled clean version is available.