December 18, 2019
Male Ladder-backed Woodpecker working on a mesquite.
Male American Kestrel on an apparently regularly used perch.
The big excitement here lately, a Blue-headed Vireo that showed up at the golf course.
There are only a few records for Arizona (only four prior records in Ebird) and
none that are well documented with photos. I found it on the Ajo CBC too, a first for the
count. Lots of birders from around Arizona have been coming here to look for it, some
have had good luck while others have not been able to relocate it.
Le Conte's Thrasher in the northwest corner of Organ Pipe Cactus National Monument.
Galaxy NGC 1300, about 61 million light years away in the constellation
Eridanus. It is about the same size as our Milky Way Galaxy.
Tighter crop of NGC 1300, my stars are not quite round
here, apparently from either poor tracking or turbulence.
The Great Nebula in Orion, couldn't resist. I like that the core is not overexposed
(this is an HDR image with 60, 30 and 5 second exposures combined).
One can actually see the Trapezium and color in the core.
The Sculptor Galaxy, a large galaxy the rises in the south during the winter here.
Lower right is the galaxy M77, also known as Cetus A, in the constellation Cetus.
Above and to the left is NGC 1055. There are more galaxies here too, some
too small to be seen at this resolution. It is hard to comprehend, but
the two galaxies are over 400,000 light years apart from each other.