The Skies and the Sea – Destinations for Unforgettable Skywatching

by JonathanNo Comments
This post contains a few of the summary slides from my presentation at the Luxury Travel Club meeting in Greensboro, NC on July 15, 2026. Stargazing tips: Try to avoid periods around the full moon. High latitudes (far north and far south) will not get dark skies during the local summertime. (You won't see stars in northern Norway in July.) The Southern Cross is briefly visible from Hawaii or Key West southward. The farther south you go, the longer it stays in the sky. It is above the horizon all night south of latitude 35°S (Adelaide, Santiago, Buenos Aires, Cape Town). Best evening viewing of the Southern Cross is from March through August.  The Milky Way galactic core is best seen from south of the equator. It is high in the southern evening sky from June to September. Eclipse chasing tips: For solar eclipses, you must travel to be inside the path of totality. Check a detailed map and try to get as close to the centerline as possible. Dedicated eclipse chasers plan years in...
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Astounding Alta Auroras

Astounding Alta Auroras

by JonathanNo Comments
Our northern lights display in Tromsø was just the appetizer for the main course in Alta on the evening of Friday, 13 October 2023! Multicolored pillars at 10:13 pm I wasn’t able to take an excursion out into the countryside this evening, so I scouted the container yard and airport perimeter near the ship to try to find a place with as few streetlights as possible. When I checked the forecast at 9:30 pm, I saw that an “interplanetary storm” was underway. Time to run out and get to work! I was in place by 10 pm. Curtain forming at 10:27 pm As soon as my eyes adapted to the dark, I saw auroras forming to the northeast. They quickly developed into a multi-colored curtain that shimmered and steadily grew in height and length. The pillars grow in height at 10:35 pm The curtain continued to dance, and the colors were more intense than any I’d seen before. https://youtu.be/Sh-54Ch2JG4 Animation of auroras between 10:34 and 10:36 pm 10:37 pm The...
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Glorious lights in Tromsø

Glorious lights in Tromsø

by JonathanNo Comments
Guests from the Silversea Silver Dawn were treated to a stunning display of northern lights from a husky camp on Kvaløya (Whale Island), west of Tromsø, on the evening of October 12, 2023. As always seems to happen with aurora-watching excursions, the forecast for the evening was not promising: overcast with snow developing, and the Glendale app predicted no chance of auroras developing. I almost left my camera and tripod on the ship, but changed my mind at the last minute. After we greeted the friendly huskies at the camp, we went inside a hut to warm up and feast on some delicious bacalao, an amazing cod stew. Our local guides, Eike and Carlo, were enthusiastic and optimistic that we would see something in the sky that evening. They huddled around the campfire outside while we ate dinner. I excused myself after wolfing down my bowl of stew and went outside to check the sky. It was 8:45 pm. I hadn't been...
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Photographing the Northern Lights

Photographing the Northern Lights

by JonathanNo Comments
Click here to check out my photos of a great Northern Lights display near Tromsø on October 12, 2023! Here's a quick summary of my suggestions and tips for taking photos of auroras on a cruise. What apps will tell me if auroras are visible? There are many out there, most pull info from the same sources. "Live Aurora Network" is not free, but it provides real-time sighting information and sky images from multiple locations, and it will send you alerts when there is auroral activity. SpaceWeatherLive and the Glendale App use more scientific data that some people might find difficult to interpret. What's the best way to take photos of auroras? The two most critical things are finding ways to steady your camera and to take manual control of settings if possible. You'll need to take exposures of several seconds in the dark, and the autofocus on cameras can easily get confused by auroras. It's helpful if you have a tripod or...
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Telescopes

Telescopes

by JonathanNo Comments
The question I'm asked most frequently on cruises is, "What kind of telescope should I buy?" There's no single right answer for that question. It's the Golden Age of Telescope Gadgetry, and there's practically no limit of ways to spend your money in this hobby. The type of telescope to get will depend on many factors: Your budget What you want to see (Moon, planets, deep sky, double stars, etc.) Portability and "footprint" How familiar you are with finding your way around the sky Your expectations That being said, here are some possibilities to consider. Incidentally, I am not compensated by any telescope or gear manufacturers. And I am not necessarily recommending specific brands, although some have some unique features. "Telescope of the Year" designation is from High Point Scientific, Inc. (https://highpointscientific.com), who are a reputable and popular retailer in the US. Too Long; Didn't Read -- a Quick Suggestion If there is an astronomy club in your area, see if they have any scheduled public observing sessions. It's...
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Fluffy and Pointy

Fluffy and Pointy

by JonathanNo Comments
Spring can be a dull season for casual, naked-eye stargazing in the Northern Hemisphere. Broad stretches of the sky are devoid of bright stars. Dim constellations completely disappear for an observer within or near a city. For the astrophotographer, though, it’s Galaxy Season. The Virgo and Coma superclusters of galaxies, completely invisible to the naked-eye, make for rich hunting in the telescope. It’s a rare treat for a North Carolina astrophotographer to have two clear, moonless nights in the same April week. I tried to make the most of the opportunity by imaging two contrasting galaxies. First up is galaxy NGC 2403, in the constellation Camelopardalis (the Giraffe). NGC 2403 is a “flocculent” – fluffy – spiral galaxy. Its arms are alive with bright clumps, which are sites of active star formation. NGC 2403 is about 57 million light years from Earth. On the evening of April 12, I imaged the “Needle Galaxy,” NGC 4565. The Needle was the cover story for the...
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The Hidden Galaxy, IC 342

by JonathanNo Comments
You need a strong tolerance for chaos to survive serious astrophotography. I lost nearly two years while troubleshooting an issue, which I thought was with my telescope, but turned out to be a power supply. Suddenly, there was a six-month period where things seemed relatively stable. And then, Windows decided to explode on my laptop, requiring a complete reinstall -- none of the backups worked! I had to reinstall and reconfigure all of my apps and get them talking to the finicky hardware again. Four hours under the sky one night verified that everything was more or less functional again. Then I had to wait for the next clear, moonless night for my chosen target -- the Hidden Galaxy, IC 342. Located in the constellation Camelopardalis, IC 342 lies right along the Milky Way's equator. That means we are looking out through the disk of the Milky Way at this galaxy -- our galaxy would appear edge-on to them. Lying along the...
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The “Seagull Nebula”

by JonathanNo Comments
IC 2177, popularly known as the "Seagull Nebula," is a region of dust clouds, emission nebulas, reflection nebulas, and star clusters that lies along the border between the constellations Canis Major and Monoceros. It appears to have formed as the result of at least three separate supernova explosions over the past six million years. The shock waves from the explosions are pushing interstellar gas and dust together, triggering star formation. An interesting feature is bow shock wave around the star at far right. Data from the GAIA space mission shows that this is a runaway star, traveling at high speed. It was likely ejected from an open cluster by a nearby supernova explosion one million years ago. The shock wave results from it slamming into the nebulous region at high speed. Imaged on the evening of 13 February 2023 from Summerfield, NC (Bortle 4/5), using Explore Scientific 127mm FCD-100 APO refractor with field flattener/reducer, EQ6-R Pro mount, cooled ZWO ASI1600MM camera and...
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Chasing the Northern Lights

by JonathanNo Comments
Our February/March 2020 cruise on the Viking Star was a fantastic trip. In addition to meeting some great people and enjoying the stunning scenery, we also achieved our primary goal, which was to experience the Northern Lights. Of course, we returned to a world changed by the COVID-19 lockdown, but I didn't let that prevent me from sharing our experiences with the Greensboro Astronomy Club via Zoom on Friday, April 20. I recorded the presentation and am happy to provide the link to the video below. My talk opens with a brief discussion of the Northern Lights in history and our attempts to understand what causes them. The primary purpose, though, was to answer the question that I took with me to Norway: What does it really look like to be under the Northern Lights? Hopefully, this presentation will answer that question, as it includes more than 100 images that I captured with my iPhone in Night Mode over several night's worth...
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Tromsø – March 3/4, 2020

Tromsø – March 3/4, 2020

by JonathanNo Comments
We docked at Tromsø on Tuesday morning. The main part of the city sits on a small island, one that is relatively densely populated for this part of the world. The city and its environs have about 130,000 inhabitants and is the world’s third largest city north of the Arctic Circle. They call it “The Paris of the North” because it is relatively cosmopolitan. Foreigners make up 10% of the population, and it’s a major hub of Arctic scientific research. It was from here that Roald Amundsen and Fridtjof Nansen set off on their polar expeditions in the late 1800s and early 1900s. We learned about their voyages in a visit to the Polar Museum. It’s almost impossible to imagine the hardships suffered by these explorers and others who tried to make their living in the Arctic back in those days. Marking a quite different era in Tromsø’s cultural history is the Arctic Cathedral, which opened in 1965. It’s a soaring aluminum...
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