Casitas de Gila, mid March, 2007

I chose to place these recent photos in my terrestrial section on account of the foreground subjects, despite the prominent celestial backgrounds. All were taken the same night (March 16, I recall) in 2007 at the Casitas de Gila in New Mexico. The first few showcase the ranch style sign one encounters when driving towards the casitas (little houses) and feature Orion in the first two and Canis Major's star trails in the third. The 4th and 5th are short and long exposures of their windmill silhouette against the northern pole stars, with the upside down Big Dipper obvious at the top.

Man at Telescope

I decided to put this photo in my tiny terrestrial collection because of the foreground subject. He happens to be Aronne Merrelli, someone who was at New Mexico Skies when I was this past March of 2007. He was using their 25" Dob and looking, I think, at M101 (and standing very still!) - unfortunately the camera was out of focus and I only took one shot, so I did my best to sharpen it up.