Kevin Palmer

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  • The two brightest objects in the night sky appear side by side in front of the milky way in a rare alignment. Venus is the blue object, and the yellow object is the moon. Even though the moon was only an 8% crescent, it was brighter than Venus. The band of yellow along the horizon is from the last colors of twilight before it was completely dark. This incredible sky is framed over the Colorado River in Utah. The 2000 foot deep canyon is part of Canyonlands National Park. But this view was actually shot from the edge of a cliff at Dead Horse Point State Park.<br />
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Date Taken: 11/5/2013
    Canyon Alignment
  • I've been wanting to get an image like this for a long time. But it's been several years since we've had a comet this bright. This comet named 46P/Wirtanen was discovered in 1948 and will make it's closest approach to Earth next week. I had my doubts that this picture would happen. The comet would only be positioned above this snowy mountain for 3 nights at most. Even rarer than a clear night in December, I needed a night with no wind. But at 2AM on December 7th, everything came together. The temperature hovered around 0°F; it was a frosty nostril kind of night. When I first arrived in the Bighorn Mountains the comet was just visible to the naked eye, but the best view was through binoculars. In my pictures, it's about 2-3X the angular size of the moon. To make this image I captured a series of 6 shots using a star tracking mount. I had to be careful to align everything as accurately as possible while processing.
    Comet and Mountain
  • As my alarm dinged at 4AM I didn't know what I'd see when I peeked outside my tent. The chances were about 50/50 whether it would be too cloudy to see the lunar eclipse. But to my delight the sky was clear. Right on schedule, the moon was entering Earth's shadow - called the umbra. The left half was dark while the right half was still brightly lit. As the moon sunk lower, the shadow deepened and took on the characteristic reddish color. While the middle of the US never got to see the moon in totality before setting, it was close enough. <br />
Chimney Rock is perhaps the most well-known landmark in Nebraska and on the Oregon Trail. The towering rock spire was seen by half a million migrants who passed by with wagon trains in the 1800's. It was visible from up to 30 miles away , which is a 2 day's journey. Back then it may have been up to 10% taller than it is today.
    Chimney Rock Moon
  • Every clear night between December and April, Orion has a close encounter with Devils Tower just before it sets. It was a shot I've had in mind for awhile, but I waited until March to pay a visit so I could capture it at a more reasonable time and temperature. Beneath the 3 belt stars is found Orion's Sword. It also goes by the name Messier 42, NGC1976, or simply the Orion Nebula. As the brightest nebula in northern hemisphere skies, it is easily seen with the naked eye away from light pollution. Larger in angular size than the moon, it looks spectacular in even a small telescope. If you zoom in to the belt star of Alnitak (pierced by a satellite trail), the Flame Nebula is on the left, with the Horsehead located below. Between finding the right overlook, aligning the star tracking mount, shooting dozens of long exposures, and hours of editing, “deepscape” photos like this are always more complex than any other type I create. But I love showing a commonly photographed landmark in an uncommon way. When thin clouds started to roll in I almost stopped shooting, but I ended up liking the halo effect.
    Orion Close Encounter
  • As I came back into Sundance, the sun came out and this rainbow appeared, perfectly aligned over Sundance Mountain.
    Sundance Mountain Rainbow
  • Last week this spectacular sunrise filled the eastern sky as seen from an overlook in the Bighorn Mountains. Even before the sun made it over the horizon, a pillar of light was shining above the sun, appearing like a flame. While sun pillars aren't that uncommon, it is rare for them to be as tall as this one. This optical phenomenon is caused by the collective glint of millions of flat hexagonal ice crystals slowly falling through the air. When they are aligned just right at sunrise or sunset, it forms a light pillar. Pillars can form above other bright light sources as well such as the moon and even streetlights when the air is cold enough.
    Sun Pillar Dawn
  • This was my favorite image of the corona during the solar eclipse. The effects of the magnetic field can be clearly seen, with the coronal streamers aligned to the north and south poles of the sun. The star Regulus is also visible on the lower left.
    Solar Corona
  • At the end of July I had the chance to shoot the most detailed milky way nightscape photo I've ever taken. Ever since making a similar photo in Utah, I've wanted to repeat it, but finding the right location, the right weather, at the right time isn't easy. After a stunning sunset over Bighorn Canyon National Recreation Area, the clouds cleared out and the conditions began to come together. This image is a combination of 3 separate pictures, totaling nearly 1 hour of exposure time. First I placed my tripod on the edge of the canyon, then aligned my star tracking mount on Polaris (the north star), and then shot two 18-minute exposures of the milky way. Then I turned the tracking mount off, and shot a similar exposure of just the canyon, and later stitched the 3 shots together. Without a tracking mount, I'm normally limited to 30-second exposures before the stars start to blur. In addition to the milky way, the planets Saturn and Mars, and traces of green airglow are also visible. The light pollution along the horizon is from the towns of Lovell and Powell. While I was shooting this, bats kept fluttering around my head, eating all the gnats gathered around the puddles after a recent rain.
    Celestial River
  • As I came back into Sundance, the sun came out and this rainbow appeared, perfectly aligned over Sundance Mountain.
    Under the Rainbow