Lunar Halo, Jupiter, and Airplane Trail over Sierra Skies Observatory on Pearl Harbor Day!

D40x Image

It was December 7, 2011 - Pearl Harbor Day. Flying home to Sacramento from a business trip, I could see high cirrus-stratus clouds over El Dorado Hills. I gave up on imaging, but upon returning home went into the backyard to look at the sky condition anyways. For the next hour, I photographed the surreal scene above our backyard observatory, which was lit by a Celestron Powertank. The 22-degree lunar halo is seen, due to refraction in the ice crystals of the high clouds. To the upper right, just inside the halo is Jupiter, 18.5° from the Moon, which was 94.7% illuminated. The line from the Moon to the upper left may be a portion of a Moondog (although there is no corresponding portion 180° away); this was seen in a series of frames, but not in earlier or later frames. To the lower left just above the trees is the trail of an airliner flying Southeast from Sacramento. Taken with a Nikon D40x at ISO1600 using a Nikkor 10-24mm DX zoom lens, set to 10 mm (15mm for 35mm equivalent). The entire affair was an impromptu event, and I handheld the vertical shots with the camera balanced on top of the tripod. This shot was made with a 3.0 second exposure time. I finally "returned home" from my trip an hour after driving into my driveway.