Category Archives: Photography

February 3, 2023 · 22:59

Skyscapes – February 03rd

Pay attention.

Even if you’re just bringing in the trash barrels.

You might be awestruck by the incredibly delicate clouds above your head.

Like looking at bubbles of spun cotton candy, bubbles the size of houses and spread from horizon to horizon.

While you there you may hear the red-tailed hawks calling, a pair of them right by the sun.

You look, but they’re up in the sun, like fighter planes in a war. Hunting.

You may suddenly see one of them, diving, right over your head, maybe 25-30 feet up. Wings tucked back, the wind screaming through their feathers.

As it sails across the houses on the other side of the street and disappears down into the canyon there, be grateful that you’re not the rabbit or squirrel or mourning dove that doesn’t see it coming.

Watch as the sheets of clouds above you start to shred and tear, like enormous spiderwebs torn by a bird flying through them.

Pay attention. Take your time.

3 Comments

Filed under Photography, Weather

February 2, 2023 · 23:26

Double Rings Around The Moon

I’ve seen & shared photos of a 22º ring or halo around the moon, but I don’t think I’ve ever seen a double ring.

The outer ring is the 22º ring, and I can’t find any reference at all anywhere to a double ring around the moon, so this might just be an artifact of some kind.

The moon is almost full (95% illuminated) and was nearly overhead, if that has anything to do with it.

Now I’m curious. Does it look like an actual inner ring to anyone else? Or is it just a circular area of glare from the bright moon off of the clouds, where the ring is like a rainbow, with the moonlight being refracted off of ice crystals to give the 22º arc?

I guess I should have taken that upper division physics class on optics!

 

 

 

2 Comments

Filed under Astronomy, Photography, Space

February 1, 2023 · 23:24

Two Planets (OK, Well, Three)

From the backyard tonight, a bit of sunset, two bright planets high in the western sky.

Jupiter up high, just under the gap in the tree branches, Venus down low, just above the chimney.

A little better look.

From over the garage as it got darker.

Of course, from where we live, if you wait long enough, you’ll get an Identified Flying Object.

(Image from FlightRadar24)

In this case, identified as FedEx flight 1623 on final approach to Burbank Runway 8 from Portland.

Leave a comment

Filed under Astronomy, Photography, Sunsets

January 31, 2023 · 23:48

Paul’s Septuple Slit Experiment

If you’ve studied physics, or even have a casual layperson’s interet, you’ve probably heard of Young’s double-slit experiment. It’s an early exploration into the nature of light and demonstrates some effects of quantum mechanics.

Now in my backyard I seem to be accidentally creating a far more macro-scale experiment of my own.  Soon after it started to drizzle and rain lightly, I noticed that underneath this lawn chair it was still dry. Shouldn’t SOME of the rain drops get through the slits in the chair’s webbing, leaving wet strips instead of one big dry spot underneath?

There are seven openings in the webbing, so instead of a double slit experiment it’s a septuple slit experiment.

Underneath the far side (better seen in the first picture), between the front and back right-hand legs, there are seven spots or holes, spaced about right for the seven slits. I’m guessing that’s from the heavy rain recently, where water is accumulating and dripping down into the dirt from the seven straps?

I’m also guessing that I’m easily amused. But that shouldn’t be a surprise to anyone reading this site for very long, now, should it?

 

1 Comment

Filed under Curiosities, Paul, Photography

January 30, 2023 · 22:49

First Rose Of 2023

The roses have suffered through the drought and restricted watering schedule as well as the lawn. I frankly wasn’t sure that they hadn’t all died in the hot summer months with just two short watering sessions per week.

Out of the blue with little or no warning I found this full bloom yellow rose with some pink highlights out there yesterday morning.

The other thing this picture brought out for me is the dark green of the leaves. WOW!

You can see that the ground is still a little hardpacked and cracked, even after all of the rain we’ve gotten in the last month. I’m sure that helped. Let’s hope the rest of them start popping open their huge bundles of petals as well!

1 Comment

Filed under Flowers, Photography

January 28, 2023 · 23:32

Fixed That Flag

First thing this morning.

That’s mucha more better!

The Christmas tree also got taken down and the last of the interior Christmas decorations put away today. See you again in ten months!

Of course, all of the interior Chiefs decorations stayed up. Priorities, man! Priorities!

Leave a comment

Filed under KC Chiefs, Photography

January 27, 2023 · 22:52

Penultimate Red Friday – January 2023

A Chiefs Kingdom tradition is Red Friday. Before every game, the town lights up in red, everyone wears red, and so on. It’s a Chiefs thing.

Here that also means putting up one of this years’ “Chiefs Kingdom” flags on the flagpole. Yes, the neighbors know where my passions lie.

For several days it’s been pretty much straight out with the gale force winds. Even then it looked odd but I couldn’t quite put my finger on how or why. Now I see that it’s simply upside down.

Something to fix tomorrow. The game’s Sunday. Win and we go to the Super Bowl, lose and go home one step short for the second year in a row.

If the NFL is one of your things, enjoy the games on Sunday. GO CHIEFS!

2 Comments

Filed under KC Chiefs, Photography, Sports

January 26, 2023 · 23:29

Fine Feathered Friends – January 26th

Comets and other celestial objects aside, we had another visitor this week.

It was breakfast time, the birds had been fed, and the entire yard was covered with mourning doves, black-eyed juncos, and house wrens. The hummingbirds were at their feeder. And over by the tree was…something new.

It was bigger by about 50% than the mourning doves, a bit smaller than the ravens and crows that are constantly up in the trees.

It started out pecking at the roots of the tree, and when it picked up its head and I saw that short, sharp beak, my first thought was that it was some sort of woodpecker.

The markings on the body were quite distinctive, the black crescent on its chest with the black & white spots across its body.

Not caught in any of the pictures, but when it fluttered its wings there were red markings on the underside of its wings.

It took the Cornell Merlin bird app about half a second to ID this one. It’s a Northern Flicker, the “red-shafted” variety which is found in the western United States. And yes, it is a member of the woodpecker family.

I’ve never seen one before, most certainly not here, but I hope that it liked the bugs it was finding in the tree roots and will hand around! A gorgeous bird!

Leave a comment

Filed under Birds, Critters, Photography

January 25, 2023 · 23:57

Comet C/2022 E3 (ZTF) – FOUND!

It’s really late, I’m really short on time, but the short version is that being stubborn paid off tonight. The maps and information from TheSkyLive.com helped a ton.

Shooting blind, bracketing the framing, I finally identified that I was aiming too high on the first two sets of photos, so I went back out for a third. Do you see the fuzzy, faint, green dot? That’s the comet.

Here’s a portion of the map from TheSkyLive.com that matches what you’re seeing.

If I shoot short pictures (5 seconds) I don’t get as much washed out sky from the light pollution. But the comet is really faint and diffuse.

If I shoot longer pictures (13 seconds) I get a ton of light pollution washing everything out – but you can almost sort of start to see some of the tail. Maybe.

Here’s the frame from TheSkyLive.com that matches those two photos.

The other problem, as seen from this final frame from TheSkyLive.com, is that we’re close to the horizon, so even if the sky were clear of haze (it’s not) and/or light pollution (it’s really, REALLY not!) we would still be looking through a lot of air. So, three strikes.

But I FOUND IT ANYWAY!

Leave a comment

Filed under Astronomy, Photography, Space

January 23, 2023 · 22:25

Saturn & Venus & Moon

One more night. The moon’s passing Venus and Saturn by and the two planets are also splitting. They’re pretty, but they’re not spectacular, while Saturn’s fading fast. (“Fast” = over the next couple of weeks, but still a lot dimmer than it was even a week or two ago.)

Not so much color in tonight’s sunset, but at least the wind’s gone. Mid-sunset you can barely see Saturn.

The moon is now three days old, something like 16% illuminated. Saturn is now well below Venus, much different than just two days ago. You can only wonder what the ancients thought of that, the “stars” moving around in what HAD to be a permanently fixed heaven.

Close up with a longer exposure you can still see the color difference. But Saturn’s apparent color will fade as it gets dimmer, mainly because it will only be visible against a much brighter sunset sky.

As always, the moon’s crescent is so much brighter than it seems when shooting photos. There’s a little bit of detail to be seen there.

But overexpose the illuminated crescent and the Earthshine-lit face of the moon is clearly visible.

Pulling out the iPhone for the wide angle picture, Saturn fades away completely, but now we’ve got Jupiter visible at the top.

Tonight I also had one of the local barred owls in a tree right above me, hooting like a fool, right up until I switched the iPhone to video. Then, dead silence. My video is several minutes long and it didn’t make a peep. I do wonder if turning on the camera turned on some sort of infrared illuminated focusing mechanism and that flashing IR signal was visible to the owl.

I wonder how much of this scene, moon and planets, can be seen by the owl. And what it thinks of it, if anything.

Maybe that’s just us.

Maybe not!

 

Leave a comment

Filed under Astronomy, Photography, Space, Sunsets