June 13, 2026 · 23:11

Normally I LOVE To Hear Aircraft Overhead

(Very limited photos available, although I shot 109 excellent images – all 10,000% overexposed because the camera was accidentally left set up for the Jupiter & Venus conjunction. I am become Moron, destroyer of photos.)

This afternoon I started having the Watch Duty app on my phone going off like a pinball machine. It gives alerts and updates for brush fires all over SoCal and it’s been doing that pretty steadily for the last week or two. (It’s going to be a really long summer…) I really wasn’t paying attention to the details.

I was in my office and heard the heavy thrumming of a big multi-engine aircraft going over, something like a military C-130. Cool. About two minutes later I heard another one. Cool. And again. And again.

Not cool.

That’s not a series of aircraft that just happen to be going overhead. That’s one aircraft that’s circling. And with no airports or airshows nearby, there’s only one reason for a big aircraft to be circling overhead.

I’ve seen this dance. And there are four other aircraft out there. Ten months here, I’ve NEVER seen five separate aircraft near or overhead at once. Are they…?

Yep, all of them orbiting, all of them with the government.

Ladies & gents, we have a brush fire and it’s close. Down in the Cajon Pass, over the edge of The Mesa, by the train tracks, probably less than a mile away.

Now, I’m not worried. They’ve got a lot of resorces working this one quickly. A quick trip outside shows no smoke visible. The wind is at our back, so even if it spreads, it’s spreading out into the (mostly) empty lands in the Cajon Pass. And even if it does somehow come up over the edge of The Mesa and move this way, our particular tract of homes is surrounded by a LOT of empty dirt lots that will make a GREAT fire break in an emergency.

But we’re getting private airshow!

An air boss, a couple of smaller spotter planes, the big water bomber, all doing passes over our house at about a thousand feet. I’m loving it. Off in the distance where the fire had been, on the far side of those huge water tanks you see over our back wall, a Sikorsky Sky Crane and a couple of smaller Bell Rangers are making smaller water drops on hot spots.

As I said, it’s going to be a long, hot, dry summer. Buckle up and stand by. Now that we’re more or less fully settled here, it might be a good to find time to review the 5-minute, 15-minute, 30-minute, and 60-minute bug out checklists.

Just because.

 

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Filed under Disasters, Flying, Forever Home, Photography

June 12, 2026 · 23:02

Lonely Little Cloud

Bringing the trash cans up from the street this morning, there was a thin line of clouds filling in the Cajon pass, their tops just below the rim of The Mesa (I think you can just catch a glimpse of them along the the lower left edge), but everything else in sight just a crystal clear, blue dome – except for this one, tiny, little cloud.

No clue what might be down that way to trigger a bit of air pressure differential of a plume of dust for the clouds to use as nucleates. Nothing off in that direction other than the high school, the Palmdale Bypass railroad tracks, and the freeway.

Mysteries, man!

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Filed under Photography, Weather

June 11, 2026 · 23:32

Proof Of Life – June 11th

Once I was here, one of the best trips ever and one of my favorite places to visit. (Prague!)

Now I’m not. Now I’m doing audits and bank reconciliations and monthly reports and dealing with malfunctioning software and broken computers and annoying medical systems.

I prefer Prague. How do I do more THIS and less of THAT?

Seriously!

In a rut? I leanred all the way back in high school (back when dirt was young and we had just discovered fire) that, “A rut is just a grave with the ends knocked out.” Still true.

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Filed under Photography, Travel

June 10, 2026 · 23:24

Sunset Conjunction 2026 Max – The Video

From last night, when Venus and Jupiter were at their closest and Merury was still above the horizon.

As long as my iPhone was on the tripod and ready to go after I shot my still photos, let’s see what a timelapse of the planetary trio setting looks like!

That’s the full-sized file – if you need something smaller with compression built in (unfortunately!), here’s the same video from YouTube:

At the very beginning you can see Mercury, just above the peak of the neighbor’s house. It sets quickly, but Venus and Jupiter start out way up in the sky and take their time to crawl below the horizon.

And all of those bright white dots streaking from the lower middle up toward the middle left? Commercial airlines. Guess which way LAX is?

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Filed under Astronomy, Photography, Sunsets, Video

June 9, 2026 · 23:22

Sunset Conjunction 2026 Max – June 09th

This is as close as Jupiter and Venus will get (from our viewpoint) for this year’s conjunction. Not quite as spectacular as it was a few years ago (there are pictures in the archives here) but better than it will be for several more years.

Jupiter and Venus in the upper left (Venus is the brighter one to the upper right of Jupiter), Mercury just above that lone tree near the bottom, just to the right of center.

From here they start to separate in our field of view. Jupiter is headed toward a passage behind the Sun from our point of view, off to the morning dawn in July, and gone from the evening sunset by the end of June. Venus will hang around for weeks. Mercury will get a little higher, then follow Jupiter toward the dawn. And in about 8-10 days, the crescent Moon will be up here in the mix.

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Filed under Astronomy, Photography, Sunsets

June 8, 2026 · 23:33

Sunset Conjunction 2026 – June 08th

It was overcast for much of the day, and at 18:00 I peeked and figured we might see Venus and Jupiter as blobs through medium-thin layers of clouds. Maybe.

At 20:45 I went out and was delighted to see color below, a spectacular pair of planets above!

As stated previously, Jupiter on the left, Venus on the right. They’ll be moving around a tiny bit from night to night, and after tomorrow they’ll be pulling apart (from our viewpoint), but they’ll both be visible after sunset for most of June.

Wow, that was pretty!

Tomorrow night is the closest approach for Jupiter and Venus for this conjunction – the next one this close won’t be for years.

If your sunset sky is clear, go take a look tomorrow. It’s all a naked eye event, no optical or photographic equipment needed. (You might want to bring a comfy lawn chair and a beverage. Your call!)

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Filed under Astronomy, Photography, Sunsets

June 7, 2026 · 22:25

Sunset Conjunction 2026 – June 07th

They’re getting closer. The closest point of this conjunction will be Tuesday night, June 9th.

After that, their apparent positions will appear to separate and drift apart. They’ll be visible and bright through most of June, but then Jupiter will pass behind the Sun from our viewpoint and a couple of weeks later it will pop up in the pre-dawn morning sky.

I won’t be getting up early for that.

The clouds right down near the horizon were pink and pretty, but they were also blocking our view of Mercury tonight. Don’t worry, it’s still there.

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Filed under Astronomy, Photography

June 6, 2026 · 23:48

Old Stories, New Updates – June 06th

Jupiter & Venus (upper left) have gotten a bit closer together (closest next  Tuesday, but “close” and spectacular looking for another two weeks or so) but Mercury’s still there just above the roof.

I was hoping to see a SpaceX Falcon 9 launch out of Vandenberg about 45 minutes after these pictures, but never saw a thing. The launch did NOT scrub and went off the pad just fine, it just wasn’t visible here, a hundred miles away, for whatever reason.

But many of the new neighbors got to see me standing out on the sidewalk with multiple tripods and cameras, staring at the sky, so there’s that!

 

On another ongoing front, I went and got my hair gooped up again, blue on port, purple on starboard, starting the third chapter of this wacky adventure.

The bottles said “Strawberry Leopard Teal” and “Arctic Fox Violet Dream” – I don’t know if those are brand names, product names, or both.

Let’s see how long it takes before the inevitable gray takes over again.

 

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Filed under Astronomy, Paul, Photography

June 5, 2026 · 23:06

Sunset Conjunction 2026 – June 05th

If you’ve had clear skies and you’ve looked to the west at sunset in the last couple of weeks, you’ve no doubt noted the two really bright objects hanging up there like jewels in the dusk. “Dusky jewels,” as it were.

If you’ve hung out here over the years, you would probably have (correctly) guessed that that’s Jupiter and Venus. They do this with some regularity every couple of years.

So, introductions. Just to the right of the tree is Jupiter. Just below and to the right of that is Venus. Slightly above the two planets are two bright stars, Pollux and Castor, in the constellation Gemini. (They’re “the twins.”) And, click on the photo to blow it up nice and large and look just above the roof of the neighbor’s house, just to the right of that tree sticking up from their back yard – that’s Mercury.

As you get a little bit later it will get darker and Mercury will stand out more, but it will also be setting first, so don’t wait too long after sunset to look. (These pictures were taken at about 20:50 tonight from SoCal.) Venus and Jupiter will be up for an hour or more after sunset, so you’ve got plenty of time to grab your binoculars and look for the Galilean moons near Jupiter.

Jupiter and Venus will appear to move closer together over the next four nights, with their tightest conjunction occuring next Tuesday, June 9th. From there they’ll start to appear to drift apart, but on Tuesday, June 16th the one-day old Moon will join the party and should look spectacular with the planets.

I’ll probably take more pictures… (It’s sort of my thing.)

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Filed under Astronomy, Photography

June 4, 2026 · 22:44

Yet Another Of Life’s Little Disappointments

I had such high hopes!

Is it not reasonable to assume that the filling would be green? I could let them get away with it not actually glowing, a little artistic license and marketing is allowed. But it’s not green at all, it’s brown.

It tastes pretty much the same as always, but it’s boring and brown.

A month or so ago we had some kind of superhero themed Oreos with blue filling – it made our tongues blue, moved through the intestinal tract, and made things more colorful coming out of the other end. It was FUN!

I was looking for glowing green poop out of this one, but no such luck.

Back to the double stuffed Oreos. If they’re going to be boring and plain, I at least want extra sugar!

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Filed under Paul, Photography