Stargazing Interrupted: Wildfire Smoke — Loran Hughes Astrophotography

Wildfire smoke is dominating our summer skies and has completely shut down the Westwood Driveway Observatory since July 7th. We're mostly staying indoors to avoid the smoke, but we do get an occasional break when the wind shifts.

A smoky filter applied to an otherwise glorious sunset.

Parting of the Red Sea of Smoke. Clear skies are short-lived.

Since I like to know what's going on around me, I built an air quality detector using a SDS011 PM2.5 sensor, a Raspberry Pi and a plastic bowl. A Python script wakes the sensor every 15 minutes to take a reading.

It might be a little on the ugly side, but it works!

While I was at it, the Raspberry Pi is pulling double duty as a remote for a software-defined RTL-SDR radio receiver.

I could mention my summer-long fight with a certain sprinkler system, but it really doesn't count because I hired a gun-slinger to pistol whip it into submission.

Anyway, back to the skies. The smoke parted last evening, giving us some clean air - but not clean enough for astrophotography. Needing to do something, I created a time lapse under a near-full moon. You'll get to see more smoke than stars in this presentation.

I'm really looking forward to fall and hopefully some clear skies. I've got some catching up to do!