Kevin Palmer

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  • After taking the chairlift to the Aurora Sky Station in Swedish Lapland the aurora was unfortunately very weak. But it was a crystal clear night and the stars were still beautiful.
    Andromeda and Faint Aurora
  • After a 35-minute ride on a chairlift in the dark, I arrived at the Aurora Sky Station, 1000 meters above sea level near the top of the mountain Nuolja. Below stretched out a panoramic view of the lake Torneträsk, the lights from Abisko village, and other peaks of the Scandinavian Mountains. The weather was ideal. Even though temperatures were at the lower limit in which the lift is allowed to operate, the skies were clear and the wind was calm. Unfortunately the aurora was calm as well. The northern lights danced a little on the ride up, then faded to a weak glow barely perceptible for the rest of the night. But I tried to make the most of my time up here by shooting this startrail image. I processed it in a way to fade the trails into the background while bringing out the colors of the faint green aurora band. Even though my camera was pointed due north, it was not possible to include the North Star in the shot, at least not without shooting vertically. In Arctic latitudes the North Celestial Pole is too high up in the sky.
    Nuolja Star Trails
  • Early on this morning the aurora once again returned to the skies of Wyoming. I went out stargazing with low expectations of seeing it. Statistically March is the most geomagnetically active month of the year. Magnetic field lines from the sun have an easier time connecting with Earth in the weeks surrounding the equinoxes. It only takes a slight uptick in the solar wind or a brief southern tilt of the magnetic field for the northern lights to brighten up. That's what happened at 10PM, and again after 1AM. Most of the time it was a "deep-sky aurora," which means it was too dim to see with my eyes, but it showed up on camera with a long-exposure. Although it did barely cross the threshold of naked eye visibility when I watched pillars rise up and dance around for a few minutes. After melting during the day, the sound of new ice shifting and crackling echoed across Lake DeSmet on this frosty night.
    Aurora and Ice
  • The Rosette Nebula is a target I've been wanting to photograph for awhile. But my last few tries have been unsuccessful because of the wind. The bright red nebula is found in the constellation Monoceros. On the lower left is the Christmas Tree cluster surrounded by faint nebulosity. The blue nebula doesn't even have a name other than NGC 2247.
    A Nebula Named Rosette
  • The time was after 11PM, yet still the light of sunset lingered in the northwestern sky. It gets dark quite late here in Montana in the middle of summer. This peak has been on my radar to climb for quite awhile. Like a spine, the long and narrow Bridger Range is situated in the middle of the state. The 9,665’ Sacagawea Peak, named after the famed guide of the Lewis and Clark Expedition, is the apex of the mountain range. Views stretched far and wide in every direction and were some of the best of any peak I’ve stood on. After sundown the lights of Bozeman and smaller towns came on. Then Comet NEOWISE slowly appeared through the deep blue twilight sky. Just a few minutes makes a big difference in visibility because while the coma is bright, the tail of the comet is faint even though it’s huge. After this more clouds moved in along with a couple flashes of lightning. It was time to leave, but I was thankful for the short window of opportunity I had. Descending the steep trail by headlamp was no small task. I made note of the tricky parts on my way up and was extra careful in the dark, trying not to butt heads with any mountain goats.
    Sacagawea Comet
  • The strongest geomagnetic storm (G3) of 2018 brought the aurora down to lower latitudes. I wasn't expecting much with hazy skies and a full moon working against me. But I had to try shooting it, since opportunities to see the aurora have been exceedingly rare as the sun heads deeper into solar minimum. And to my surprise a faint green band of light was visible to my eyes, which ended my 9-month streak since I last saw the northern lights. There are several north-facing locations nearby that I keep in the back of my mind, waiting for nights like this one. This two-track road is just over the stateline in Montana. Strange noises filled the night air including crickets chirping, sandhill cranes calling, and coyotes howling. Even though the moonlight drowned out much of the aurora, it did help with lighting up the landscape for photos.
    Smoky Pillars
  • While the world may be chaotic and unpredictable, there's something reassuring about being out under the stars. When I look up I'm gazing at the same constellations that humans have marveled at for thousands of years. Their steady motion brings a sense of order, knowing exactly which stars will be where each night. In a 24 hour period, a star's position in Earth's sky will change by 4 minutes (known as a sidereal day). It makes planning shots like this over the Bighorn Mountains easy. No constellation is more widely visible around the world than Orion. And it's much more than just a belt and shield. A long exposure reveals faint details and colors that the naked eye could never see. Nebulas like Barnard's Loop, the Flame, Horsehead, Seagull, and Rosette are all hiding in plain sight, in wavelengths of light beyond human vision. All these wonders of space were never known until someone invented cameras sensitive enough to see them.
    Orion Beyond the Bighorns
  • Every March at approximately 10PM, Andromeda has a close encounter with the iconic Devils Tower. When you look up at the stars, everything you can see with your eyes is contained within the Milky Way galaxy. But Andromeda is the exception. At 2.5 million light years away, it represents the farthest object visible to the naked eye. When you count the faint spiral arms, it is the same angular size in our sky as 6 full moons. Andromeda is thought to have about the same mass as our own galaxy. And just like the Milky Way, it is orbited by 2 satellite galaxies. Andromeda is actually best viewed in the fall, because that is when it’s  highest in the sky. To get this picture I used a star tracking mount to capture greater detail, combined with an untracked image of the tower.
    Andromeda Close Encounter
  • The twilight sky was beautiful early this morning. A very thin crescent moon was rising over Spring Lake. In the middle is the bright planet Venus. The faint zodiacal light can be seen extending diagonally between the two.
    Zodiac Twilight
  • This was taken in Rock Cut State Park near Rockford. It was a couple days after an ice storm and a 6" snowfall. Since the temperature was in the single digits, ice remained on all the trees. To the left of the sun is a faint sundog. It was constantly changing as ice crystals moved through the air.<br />
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Date Taken: 12/23/13
    Rock Cut Winter
  • It was 2AM in the boreal forest outside of Fairbanks, Alaska. I had spent the last 6 hours waiting, driving around and dodging clouds. A faint green glow was visible in the far northern sky, but there was no movement. Still tired from my red eye flight, I was almost ready to call it a night. But patience pays off when aurora hunting. Finally the anticipated solar wind stream arrived. In a matter of minutes the aurora rapidly brightened as charged particles from the sun interacted with Earth’s magnetic field. It doesn’t matter how many times I’ve seen it, there’s nothing else like watching an active display of the northern lights. The pulsing, flickering motion was similar to a campfire, filling the entire sky. It came from every direction, lighting up the ground enough to see. At times the speed exceeded my ability to capture it. Even a 1/2 second shutter speed blurred the fine details. After taking thousands of pictures that night, eventually I had to put my camera down and just stare upward in awe.
    Twists of Green
  • I went back and had another go at processing my solar eclipse pictures. Here I combined several shots and tried to show every feature of the eclipse that I was able to capture. There is such a huge range of light that it's impossible to capture it all in one image. The glow around the sun is called the corona. Shaped by complex magnetic fields, it consists of super-heated plasma up to 450X hotter than the solar surface. The sun's north pole is located at 10 o'clock where the magnetic field lines are shorter. The red fringes on the right are fiery solar prominences, several times the size of Earth. Also shown is the diamond ring effect, when the first bright sliver of sunlight reappears from behind the moon. Details on the lunar surface can be seen because of an effect called earthshine (not to be confused with moonshine). Sunlight is reflected off of the Earth and faintly illuminates the dark side of the moon. Regulus is the star visible on the lower left.
    Eclipse All In One