Floating there just like another planet in our sky.
A small telescope or even a pair of binoculars are all you need to start exploring and finding craters, mountain ranges, and other prominent features. It’s BRIGHT at Full Moon, but everything looks flat then because there aren’t any shadows. Look before or after full so that you get some nice shadows and lots of detail popping out along the terminator (the dividing line between dark and illuminated).
Filed under Astronomy, Photography
First the celestial. After dark right now, the 14% illuminated waxing crescent Moon is just a bright sliver up there next to really bright Jupiter to its upper left and really, REALLY bright Venus to its lower right.
The two sorta bright stars side-by-side above the moon are Castor and Pollux in the constellation Gemini.
An hour earlier, right at sunset, SpaceX launched out of Vandenberg and I wasn’t sure if it would be dark enough to see the rocket or not. It was close, but I was able to follow the exhaust plume for a couple of minutes.
It was pretty easy to follow with binoculars, but the iPhone camera didn’t pick up as much detail because the contrast between the plume and the background sunset sky was very low.
But for the briefest of moments, I was able to capture both the rocket plume (just to the left of center and just above the tree) and the crescent Moon (upper right corner). Not too shabby!
Filed under Astronomy, Photography, Space, Sunsets
Clear and a gazillion yesterday, about a quarter moon, right next to Jupiter.
An interesting level of quality available in a handheld iPhone image. Zoom in on the therminator (the line between night and day) on the moon to see the jagged edge caused by craters and mountain ranges.
And you can also pick out the brighter stars of Orion over on the left-hand side.
Calm.
Beautiful.
Filed under Astronomy, Photography, Sunsets
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.
Filed under Astronomy, Photography, Weather
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
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
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
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
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
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
We Love The Stars Too Fondly 