We’re approaching the end of 2019 and I thought I’d take stock of my year in astronomy. It was a great year, I was blessed with good weather, good space station passes, and some beautiful summer planets. I learned some new techniques and I even bought a webcam and modified it for my telescope, it was a fun year.

Last year I made a single image to summarize my 2018 imaging efforts, and I’m amazed with how far I’ve come even in a single year!

2018:

I’m still proud of these images, but I’m surprised how flat Saturn and the Moon look. Jupiter isn’t as sharp as I’d like, and I didn’t get much practice on Mars due to a planet wide dust storm. That space station picture will always be a trophy for me though, I’m not sure I can ever top that one with my current setup.

Now on to the best of 2019:

Iridium-58 Flare:

This streak is the sun glinting off the Iridium-58 satellite. Not long after this the entire Iridium satellite fleet was replaced with new satellites that don’t create this distinctive flare. This was the last Iridium flare I ever saw, and I’m happy I grabbed such a cool picture of it!

Lunar Eclipse:

Last winter amazed us with a stunning lunar eclipse. I was lucky enough to have stunning clear skies for the event, though it was bitterly cold. I think it was 12F outside when I took this image! It’s been a long time since I’ve seen a lunar eclipse, and I’m so pleased that these images came out as well as I hoped they would.

Lunar Eclipse to See the Earth’s Shadow

During the lunar eclipse I took pictures every few minutes to watch the Earth’s shadow cross the moon. If you line up the pictures just right you can visualize the size of the Earth’s shadow. I love this photo, and it’s the first one I’ve ever had printed. This one sits at my desk at work.

Jupiter:

This year Jupiter was up for almost the entire summer, making for some very pleasant evening viewing. With my new webcam I was able to get sharper images of Jupiter than ever before, and was even able to get some animations of it rotating.

Saturn:

Saturn is always stunning, but it’s a surprisingly difficult subject to photograph. There isn’t much detail other than the rings, so you really need to get what you can in those rings. The main feature is the gap in the rings, and I’m happy how visible it is in this image. I think this was a big improvement over my 2018 attempt.

SiriusXM Geostationary Satellites:

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I love taking pictures of man-made space objects, mostly the international space station, but geostationary satellites are fun too. I’ve taken pictures of these satellites before, but I really wanted to take a long exposure so get the streaks of background stars zipping by. I would have liked more background stars (this was only 1 hour of exposure) but I’m pleased with how colorful the background stars ended up being.

International Space Station:

I try to take pictures of the ISS a lot, but this was the best one of the year. I had good weather, and an 89 degree overhead pass. I’m not sure it beats the 2018 ISS image, but I’m still very happy with this one!

Weather Balloon:

I’m not sure I’d qualify this image as “best”, but definitely the most interesting and surprising. This year we had some friends come over for a telescope and astronomy night. As the sun set I saw a light in the west near where Jupiter should be, but as I swung the telescope over I didn’t see Jupiter, but instead this weather balloon! I took the best picture I could in the limited time I had, but it’s always fun to realize no matter how long you do this you can always be pleasantly surprised.

Moon:

The moon is always a fun target, and this was one of my favorites of the year. It’s a photo stitch where each image was sharpened as much as possible without making it look cartoon-ish. I think the effect worked well.

Apollo 11th Landing Site:

I’ve photographed the Apollo 11 landing site multiple times, but I had never been able to see the craters named after the 3 Apollo 11 astronauts. In July, a few days before the Apollo 11 50th anniversary I finally saw hints of the 3 craters. And to add some humblebrag to the mix I tweeted this image to Michael Collins who liked it, so you can probably say we’re best friends now.