Category Archives: Photography

March 17, 2025 · 23:47

Orion With A Tripod Assist

It was clear but windy tonight, Orion and its surroundings were bright, and out in the back yard I had the tripod I have with the mount for my cell phone. Normally it’s in the front yard (for rocket launches or ISS passes) or the garage, but with the flooding and nonsense going on in the garage, it ended up in the back yard, right there for me to use.

Wide angle.

Normal.

3x zoom.

Nothing fancy, just point it in that direction (-ish) and use the three basic settings for photos on the iPhone 13.

These photos picked up a fair amount of nebulosity in the Orion Nebula (the middle “star” in the “sword”), and the wider angle shots also pick up Mars, Castor & Pollux in Gemini, and the Pleiades on the lower right.

The background sky is still way too blue, reflecing all of the lights from the city off of a touch of haze.

What I wouldn’t give for a deep, dark sky.

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Filed under Astronomy, Photography

March 16, 2025 · 23:55

Proof Of Life – March 16th

You know those memes you see on Sunday afternoon/evening pointing out that you can’t enjoy the latter half of Sunday quite as much as you should because you know that Monday is looming just over the horizon? Insert ALL of those memes *HERE*.

 

And have I mentiond lately how much I hate earthquake aftershocks?

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Filed under Paul, Photography

March 15, 2025 · 23:00

Unintended Consequences

The gophers are back. (It’s not like they ever really, REALLY left!) We’ve had a “gopher guy” showing up about once a month, but it’s had little effect.

 

Almost every day there’s another mound of debris and a new hole.

I suspect they’re ALL interconnected. If we hooked up a smoke machine and started pumping the output down this hole, the whole yard would soon have smoke drifting up from a hundred holes, looking a lot like a battlefield from no-man’s land in WWI.

Two weeks ago they started showing up in the back yard as well, eating the roots and killing the remaining decent landscaping.

I don’t want to start dropping poison down the holes, since the hawks and owls would end up eating the tainted meat and I won’t do anything to harm my raptor friends. But I don’t know what else to do.

I did find some solar powered vibrating spikes that you can drive into the ground in or around their digging sites. They power up during the day, then spend all night tricking the gophers into thinking that something big is stomping around or digging nearby.

Cool! But what do I do when these “thumpers” start attracting sand worms? I don’t have any idea how to ride one, even if I learned it’s going to be a bitch to find a parking space for one, and I would imagine that they’ll do more damage to the lawn than the gophers.

Perhaps this plan needs more thought…

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Filed under Castle Willett, Farce, Photography

March 13, 2025 · 23:23

We’re Eclipsing!

The lunar eclipse is underweigh as we speak!

This was about an hour ago, and you can see that it was clear then – now we’re starting to get some clouds, just as totality starts.

Totality will last an hour or so, so I might still get some pictures. If you’re seeing this in the next few minutes and on this side of the planet, go outside and look!

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Filed under Astronomy, Photography

March 12, 2025 · 22:52

At The Bottom Looking Up

There was a clear spot in today’s rain and clouds, and looking straight up it was just a bit like being in the eye of a hurricane.

There were at least four, maybe five or six distinct layers of clouds visible, each being blown by the winds in a different direction.

They also had very distinct structures in each layer, and the lighting made the higher altitude layers brilliantly bright white, while the lowest layers were grey and threatening.

It looked lovely. Then those low, grey ones on the edges moved back over and the rain returned.

I ran. At least, hustled a little bit.

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Filed under Photography, Weather

March 10, 2025 · 23:27

New Neighbor

No, we didn’t get a dog. (I wish!)

The house next to ours got sold and the new owners are doing some work before moving in. Almost every weekend day, Blanc is out in the yard, and I took the liberty of introducing myself.

As soon as she (I think it’s a “she”…) sees me out in my yard, she runs over to a spot in the fence where she can get through the bushes to the fince, and she hops up to get petted and chin scrinches. She’s a sweetheart and very friendly.

The new human neighbors freaked out at first, thinking that she was jumping the fence, but we’ve all gotten to know each other a bit more so it’s not an issue now.

Even though she’s not the breed that would be our first choice when we can get a dog again (the Long-Suffering Wife looooooves Great Danes and I like black labs and golden retrievers), it’s great to have a big, loveable dog that we can borrow for 30 seconds every now and then.

Makes me want to get The Forever Home even more so that we can get our own pack started.

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Filed under Dogs, Forever Home, Photography

March 9, 2025 · 23:28

Night View

A lot of the houses we’ve looked at in the high desert (Hesperia, Apple Valley area) are a bit elevated or up in the foothills, so I’m hoping to find one with a great view. Not an absolute requirement, but if House A is on the valley floor and has a view of the neighborhood roofs and power lines while House B has a view of the valley spread out and mountains nearby and all other factors are equal, we’re almost certainly going to go with House B.

I’m going to miss this view at night out of our back yard.

I won’t miss the money that gets paid to the landlord every month. No equity, no tax breaks, just take a stack of bills, get some lighter fluid, and burn it. Every. Single. Month.

Nor will I miss the house being too small, dealing with issues like plumbing and gophers and sticky doors that NEVER get resolved. I understand that they’ll be my problem to fix when we own our own house again, but at least things WILL get fixed.

With luck, I won’t be losing these views. I’ll be gaining better ones, with many additional benefits.

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Filed under Forever Home, Photography

March 8, 2025 · 23:12

Altered Perspective

With a series of larger storms moving in on Tuesday and lasting on and off for the better part of a week, today’s nice weather meant it was time to clean out the gutters. (ICK!!) During the smaller storm we had last week I noticed that they were all clogged and overflowing, so preemptive action was called for. During the process, I noticed that it was also an opportunity to look at the mundane and routine (i.e., the roof) from a different viewpoint.

It was also remarkable how HOT that surface got, even though the air temperature was only about 74°F.

Bring on the rains! I’m ready!

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Filed under Photography

March 7, 2025 · 22:49

Moonlight

I think I liked this picture the best from tonight, something about the composition and positioning of the tree trunk.

That said, I like this one because you can clearly see Orion over on the left, Jupiter shining through the branches just to the right of center, and the Pleiades cluster in the lower right. That’s not a bad amount of detail for a handheld iPhone picture.

Overall tonight, the moonlit landscape and clear (and cold) sky was just amazing. If the back yard wasn’t a landscaping nightmare right now between the droughts and gopher holes all making it look like no-man’s land, I would have loved to have gotten a blanket or two and just laid out there looking for a while.

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Filed under Astronomy, Photography

March 6, 2025 · 22:01

Red Sky At Night

That moment when you’re walking from the back bedrooms to the kitchen and as you come out of the hallway you see the translucent glass in the front door glowing pinkish-orange like neon and you immediately do a hard right turn to go out and see the sunset, because you just know…

It might not be the absolute best I’ve seen from this location in the almost seven years we’ve lived here, but it’s on the short list, probably a Top Ten choice! And it was so spread out from side to side, even if there wasn’t so much color up away from the horizon.

(Click on that one to blow it up to full screen, it’s tasty!)

Off the top of my head, the best ever from here was probably this one from about six months after we moved in. (It was incredibly vivid, the pictures don’t do it justice.)

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Filed under Panorama, Photography, Sunsets