Kevin Palmer

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  • The stars of the milky way galaxy glow above Blacktooth Mountain at 1AM on a July night. From most places, clouds are easily visible at night because they are lit up by light pollution underneath. But under a sky this dark, you can't see the clouds. You only notice the absence of stars as a cloud passes by. These thin clouds gave halos to the brighter stars and planets. The bright red object on the right is Mars. To the left in the constellation Scorpius is the red supergiant star Antares. The name in Greek means "like-Mars" since it's a similar color, and often the same brightness as the red planet. Just above that is Saturn, the 2nd brightest object in the picture.
    Jewels of the Night
  • The stars Aldebaran, Rigel, Orion, and Procyon along with Jupiter formed a pentagon in the sky. In the middle is the star Betelgeuse with Orion's belt and nebula to the right. Thin clouds were causing halos to form around the brightest points of light. This view was seen looking up from my campsite in the Mojave National Preserve, which has some of the darkest skies in Southern California.<br />
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Date Taken: 1/30/14
    Winter Pentagon
  • Soon after the aurora intensified, fog settled in to the frozen Fremont Lake. It felt like I was in a dream as halos surrounded Venus and the moon to the west while intense pinks and reds glowed to the north.
    In a Dream
  • This halo stayed in the sky for most of the evening over the Icelandic village of Arnarstapi. The pyramid-shaped mountain is Stapafell, which is a lower peak of the glacier-capped Snæfellsjökull volcano behind it.
    The Halo of Arnarstapi
  • As soon as I stepped outside this vivid halo commanded my attention. I have never seen one this vivid. The colors at the bottom were very obvious although I didn't see the color in the corona until looking at the picture afterwards. It didn't last long as low-lying clouds came in and obscured the icy cirrus clouds higher up. A full moon on Christmas is somewhat rare. But even more rare is the fact that it was in the mid-60's late at night in Maryland when I took this.
    Christmas Eve Halo
  • While cross country skiing in the Bighorn Mountains, this vivid halo appeared around the sun. I was able to get a few pictures above this meadow before it faded away.
    Halo and Shadow
  • As I was packing up my tent this halo appeared around the sun. This is near the top of Sheep Mountain, Wyoming.
    Sheep Mountain Halo
  • This bright and obvious halo appeared around the nearly full moon in San Diego. The lights at the bottom are from the Coronado Bridge.
    Halo and Goodnight
  • At the end of February I went camping at Mammoth Hot Springs, the only campground in Yellowstone that stays open for the winter. With constant snow coming down, it was hard to get out of my tent in the morning. But as the sun started to climb over Mount Everts, I knew something special was about to happen. I climbed the hill across from the campground to watch this 22 degree halo appear. The sun was too bright to include in the photo so I used this tree to block it out.
    Mammoth Halo
  • 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
  • Thin clouds caused a large halo to appear around the planet Jupiter. It reminded me of the movie, "Close Encounters of the Third Kind," which was filmed at Devil's Tower.
    Close Encounter
  • The milky way was shining brilliantly on the morning of summer solstice, the shortest night of the year. Thin clouds were making haloes around the brighter stars and the planet Saturn. A long exposure revealed colors invisible to the human eye, including green airglow and purple nebulae. There wasn't a meteor shower going on, but I captured this bright random meteor in one of the time lapse frames. On any given night there are an average of 6 sporadic meteors per hour visible under a dark sky. The skies here were very dark, with amazing views of the Bighorn Mountains in every direction. This was taken from a fire lookout tower on the 9,500' summit of Black Mountain.
    Solstice Meteor
  • 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
  • The solar eclipse was absolutely incredible. There's no way to capture it in 1 picture or 1,000 pictures and there's nothing really to compare it to. During the minutes surrounding totality the light changed so fast and there was so much to observe and photograph that it was overwhelming. It felt like time stood still and yet it was all over in an instant. I listened to the dozens of people around me who also climbed the 10,276' Laramie Peak to observe this eclipse. Cheering and exclamations of "WOW" were an almost involuntary reaction.<br />
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This is a composite showing 3 partial phases of the eclipse with a solar filter, as well as 3 of the features that are visible during totality. A group of sunspots was visible before being hidden by the moon. The red fringes on the left are solar prominences. Bigger than any planet, prominences are made up of dynamic loops of hot plasma and will often explode. This outer atmosphere of the sun is sculpted by it's magnetic field. The temperature of the corona is up to 450 times hotter than the surface of the sun and no one knows why. At the top right is an effect known as the "diamond ring." It is the moment the first bit of sun emerges from behind the moon. I was surprised by just how suddenly it popped out, with all the brightness of the sun concentrated into a single point.
    Multifaceted Eclipse
  • In December the constellation Orion rises in the east immediately after sunset. While camping in Joshua Tree National Park, I picked a campsite that faced a boulder formation in that direction. When clouds moved in, I wasn’t sure I would get any pictures. But then a small gap appeared, leaving halos around the brighter stars. The red supergiant star Betelgeuse is visible in the center. It is one of the largest stars in the Milky Way, 1400 times the size of the sun. It's also a variable star, which means the brightness changes regularly. But in recent days it has been attracting attention because it’s currently dimmer than ever recorded before. Betelgeuse is at the end of its stellar life cycle and when it goes supernova its brightness in Earth's sky will rival that of the full moon. Since the star is 640 light years away, it may have already exploded centuries ago. But the likelihood of seeing a supernova anytime soon is still very small and they remain unpredictable.
    Boulders of Orion
  • The Geminid Meteor Shower was very active in 2018. In this image I stacked a total of 90 meteors which my camera captured while pointed west. In about 5 hours and using 2 cameras, I captured a total of 350 shooting stars. It was a very active meteor shower this year. Near the top of the frame are the twin stars of Gemini, named Castor and Pollux. If you trace back the tails of the meteors this is where they appear to radiate from. The source of these streaks of light are small pieces of debris left behind by an asteroid, which burn up when they enter Earth's atmosphere at 22 miles per second. Thin clouds were making halos around the brighter stars. Overall the weather was perfect with the thicker clouds clearing out just as activity started to pick up after midnight.
    Early Morning Meteors
  • Up until the lunar eclipse started, I still wasn't sure I would be able to see it. In between an overcast day and an incoming snowstorm, weather models were showing a brief clearing. The clouds parted not a moment too soon. Compared to the last recent eclipse, the moon was a lot higher in the sky at 50°, which made it more challenging to shoot with a foreground. I needed to find something tall, where I could set up my camera underneath and point it southeast. The Needle's Eye is a natural arch that stands at the entrance to Tongue River Canyon in the Bighorn Mountains. I knew I wouldn't be able to fit the moon inside the arch, but just above it. The scattered clouds which remained made a red halo around the eclipsed moon. Closer to the arch is a cluster of stars known as The Beehive.
    Threading the Needle