Both questions answered quickly as the timing was perfect, about twenty minutes after moonrise.
No windswept moors or hounds, just dusty desert and coyotes.
And owls. There were a couple hooting back and forth out there, very cool.
Category Archives: Astronomy
Sunrise Over The Pergola
In about three hours there will be starting the totality phase of the only lunar eclipse of the year, and the last one in North America for about three years. It may or may not be clear enough to see it here, we’ve been getting on and off clouds all day. It doesn’t matter to me – I won’t be up at that time of the morning to see it. That’s a game for the young.
However, I was up just before 05:00 this AM (another fate caused by age) and saw the most amazing and bright red and orange sunrise. That will have to do for today.
Filed under Astronomy, Forever Home, Photography, Sunsets
Simple Quarter Moon
It’s “simple” because it’s just one of my Canon DSLR cameras with a 75-300mm telephoto lens on a tripod. Not a dedicated astrophotography camera, not on my telescope, not a 600mm or 800mm lens, not on an equitorial mount. It’s recognizeable, but there’s a LOT of room for improvement.
As always, focus is an issue, in part because the Moon’s high enough so that pointing the camera almost straight up requires almost an Olympic gymnast’s contortion abilities to be able to see through the eyepiece, and also because I had an eye exam today and my eyes are still dilated so my vision isn’t hitting on all cylinders to begin with.
It was a test to see what came out. I give it a “C,” maybe a “C-.”
I got up this morning, started going through my social media, and had a WTF moment. Or, more precisely, a “that doesn’t look right, did *I* do that?” moment. Yes, yes I did. My thanks to everyone for completely ignoring the fact that I can’s spell “deuce” to save my life, and in fact can blissfully misspell it twice, once in the title and once in bold, italic, fluorescent pink CAPS.
Filed under Astronomy, Photography
Above Average Sunset & Crescent Moon
It might not have been one of those mind blowing sunsets that you get in the tropics almost every day and you get here every few years, but it was definitely signficantly above average. Lots of nice color.
A few contrails lit up in nice shades of pink and purplish-orange.
And rising even further away from the Sun, but still close enough to get into the picture with the proper iPhone camera settings, the Moon is now four days past new and 23% illuminated.
All together, it doesn’t suck. Most days that’s about the best you can ask for.
Filed under Astronomy, Photography, Sunsets
Crescent Moon
Not bad for a handheld photo on an iPhone in freezing cold (literally) and 30 knot winds.
Even the 8x telephoto is reasonably crisp.
You’ve probably seen a lot of these types of photos in the last couple of days on social media. Two days ago the Moon was right next to Mercury, and tonight it was near Saturn. A lot of folks have been noticing.
Filed under Astronomy, Photography, Sunsets
Pergola By Moonlight
Not tonight, the lunar cycle has moved on by about a quarter, but at this point it was high and bright.
There’s something awesome and mysterious and magical about the bright moonlight, the world turned blue and silver.
The cold helps the mood. So do the train horns off a mile or so in the distance.
Filed under Astronomy, Forever Home, Photography
iPhone 17 Moonrise
Among all of the multiple overlapping crises of the last couple of weeks, my ancient iPhone 13 died. Something broke in the connecting/charging port so that I couldn’t plug it in to charge. Which was inconvenient at first, then critical when I realized that all of the 2FA codes I need to access accounts at work (like, payroll) go to that phone. I got a short term solution to survive the next day (and get payroll entered and paid) but the long term solution was to upgrade my phone to an iPhone 17.
I sort of wanted to do that for a couple of reasons, one of which was the much-improved cameras on the iPhone 17. You might notice that I tend to take a lot of pictures.
Tonight The Long-Suffering Wife called me to look out to the back yard, where the 99% full Moon was rising.
Okay, that’s pretty, a normal picture. What about wide angle views?
Again, very nice, similar to the iPhone 13. But I hear that the telephoto capabilities are where it really shines. The iPhone 13 went to 3x zoom and was a bit on the grainy and pixelated side when blown up that big. The iPhone 17 goes to 10x zoom and it’s supposed to be pretty good quality.
Oh, my, that’s spectacular. A little bit of color swimming up through the haze near the horizon. But when it rises just a bit to get above that?
Very nice, and I even caught a plane, what is probably a cargo jet just taking off from KVCV, SoCal Logistics over in Victorville.
I’m impressed!
Filed under Astronomy, Photography
iOS Phone Night Mode Upgrade
Apparently in Apple’s iOS 26 upgrade there’s some new capabilities for a “Night Mode,” even on an older iPhone 13 like mine. I stumbled on it when I was out looking for non-existant aurora the other night.
There were a few clouds, but this isn’t bad at all for an older iPhone being held by hand. Jupiter’s the bright spot in the mid-upper left, with Orion in the upper right, and Sirius being the bright star in the mid-lower right.
The big change when you find and use “Night Mode” is apparently the 10 second exposure. In normal mode, the maximum exposure is 3 seconds.
This even works with the telephoto lens in use, as seen here by a closeup of Orion. You can even see a fair bit of the luminosity around the Orion Nebula, the “middle star” in the “sword.”
It’s not a razor-sharp image, but it’s not bad! As they say, the best camera is the one you have with you, so even with a telescope and some high-powered DSLRs in the house, being able to take these with the iPhone in your pocket is pretty cool.
Filed under Astronomy, Photography
No Aurora For SoCal, Again
And again, that’s probably for the best.
I did go out to check (temps in the mid 40’s, a few thin clouds) but the view to the north was lacking in color.
Check out social media for a ton of incredible images from Europe, Scandanavia, Canada, and the northern tier of US states. I saw some images from Northern California, Oregon, northern Nevada, the Virginia/North Carolina border, and northern Arizona, but nothing any further south. We’re probably at least 400 to 500 miles too far south.
That’s okay. As noted in the past, as uber cool as it would be to see to see aurora from SoCal, doing so probably involves an event at least as powerful as the 1859 Carrington Event, which would have massive side effects that would be catastrophic to our society and infrastructure. Being without an electric grid, the Internet, airline travel, and all of the related distruptions to our economic structure, food supplies, and trade would not be my idea of a good time. It was highly disruptive in 1859 – it would be a nightmare today.
So, no aurora for SoCal, again.
As it should be!
Filed under Astronomy, Photography, Space
2005 Was Like Sirius
To be clear, 2005 for me was like Sirius the star, the astronomical object, not Sirius the satellite music service.
Sirius (the star) is the brightest star (other than the Sun) as seen from Earth, over twice as bright as the second brightest (Canopus). It’s been known for thousands and thousands of years since it’s so prominent. It’s the “Dog Star” and when it appears as the morning star it’s the beginning of summer and the “dog days.” Lots of interesting facts about Sirius and it’s history.
Despite being known and prominent for centuries, it wasn’t until 1844 that astronomers noted that it’s part of a binary star system. The huge, bright star we see is now known as “Sirius A” – there’s a much smaller, much dimmer white dwarf which can only be seen with a good sized telescope that’s known now as “Sirius B.”
This is where I make the comparison to 2025.
“Sirius A” = all of the pain and bullshit that was the world (Russia vs Ukraine, etm…) and US politics (the rigged and stolen Presidential election that no one seems to care about, the Mango Manchurian Candidate and all of his disgusting actions and idiotic, psychotic rantings and misinformation, the billionaires who bought Congress and the Supreme Court, the Epstein files, the National Guard in our cities, ICE, Brain-Worm Bobby and his [literally] insane health policies, and on and on and on and one, etm…)
“Sirius B” = our Forever Home, finding it after years of searching, getting the purchase done, getting the move (more or less) done, and still being amazed on a daily basis that we own and live in such a COOL place!
Given the enormous difference in magnitude between the two, it almost seems inappropriate or embarrassing to be so pleased about the house, given the enormity of the suffering and death around the world and in our country. Yet, on an individual level, it really shouldn’t be ignored or lost in the chaos. Yes, big picture, it’s a tiny thing compared to the potential end of US democracy or the start of the Second US Civil War, but it’s a HUGE freakin’ thing in our personal lives.
So, it reminded me of Sirius.
What about 2026? Well, as I might have hinted at, I think Trump should be in jail for the rest of his life, or tried and executed for high treason, and then we need to find a way to sweep the GOP and our illegitimate Supreme Court out of power and change the rules so this can never happen again. I suspect there might be more than enough bribery, perjury, embezzlement, and other crimes in there to put a LOT of the GOP into cells next to Trump’s. Time to clean house and take our country back. (I wish I knew how to do that, but that’s above my pay grade. I’m open to suggestions.)
That’s the biggest day in, day out, universal objective for the new year, but there’s the usual on a personal level as well. There are always things that I can and want to do better, and since I’ll be hitting one of those “red-letter” birthdays in March, as always I need to do a better job of taking care of myself physically.
We’ll see. The intentions are good. The spirit is strong, but the body is weak.
Stupid body. (And holy guacamole, Batman! That’s a metric shit ton of grey hair. 🤯🤯🤯🤯🤯🤯)
I hope all y’all get through the New Years’ celebrations safely and in one piece. I’m sure you all have your own list of things to be aware of and improve on where possible – best of luck to you all and may the odds be ever in your favor.
If nothing else, “Project Hail Mary” hits theaters in March. How bad can a year be with that coming out to look forward to? (He asks innocently, fully understanding that he’s probably tempting the Fates with such a statement.)
I’ll see all y’all on the other side.
Filed under Astronomy, Forever Home, Paul, Photography, Politics
We Love The Stars Too Fondly 