Category Archives: Photography

April 9, 2024 · 22:37

Eclipse Plus One Day

Back to the “real world,” which lives somewhere on the far side of about 20 hours of driving, which means about 28 hours of traveling. Out in three days to make sure I arrived relatively rested and had a lot of slack in the schedule should anything go sideways. Back in two days – because it can be done, I need to get it done, and there’s plenty of time to sleep when I’m dead! 😵

There was weather! Small hail, BIIIIIIG thunder & lightning, moderate deluges here and there.

So tonight is my last on this toad trip. I should be back home about dinner time tomorrow. That’s a good thing.

While it was important for me to prove to myself that I can still pull off this kind of trip, I would be big time lying if I said it was as easy as it was 20 years ago.

Tonight I have managed to find the most bizarre, trendy, artsy fartsy, fru-fru, potentially horrible little Marriott spinoff hotel in the world! I have eaten “yucca fries,” whatever they are.

It’s another adventure! An unexpected side quest!

It will be excellent!

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April 8, 2024 · 19:45

The Dark Side Of The Moon – Literally

What a roller coaster ride!

When I got up this morning it was mostly cloudy, with low clouds and fog, but the Sun occasionally popping out for a second or two.

We stuck with our plan and stayed in Kerrville, going down to the local park where there was a huge eclipse program planned, open for free to the public. The skies continued to improve.

Up until about thirty minutes before totality, well over halfway through the partial phases, it was plenty clear enough to see the Sun.

Excitement levels were high. We got a talk by NASA astronaut Reid Wiseman, who is the commander of the Artemis II mission to the Moon.

At about T-0:30, a band of low level, thick clouds moved in. We couldn’t see squat. Excitement had turned into despair.

Less than thirty seconds before totality, a brilliant sliver of sunlight appeared almost directly overhead, a crescent 🌙 of light that announced the end of the partial phase.

The crescent shrank over the next 30 seconds, then vanished as the “diamond ring” effect was visible. Our surroundings became completely dark, the temperature had dropped 10°F or more,

The corona appeared in all of its glory. The crowd went berserk.

It was spectacular!

We had 4:32 of totality, but the fortuitous hole in the clouds closed up tight. We saw nothing more of totality. Our surroundings stayed dark, the frogs started croaking, the ducks flew back home, and we could watch “sunrise” rush at us at Mach Two from the south.

After totality ended, it continued to be cloudy and cool. We stayed and enjoyed the festival for another couple of hours before walking the two miles back to my hotel.

We needed a break and got it.

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Filed under Astronomy, Photography, Travel

April 7, 2024 · 21:27

Eclipse Minus Twelve Hours

Look at this gorgeous sunset from San Antonio tonight!

It’s not quite “clear and a million,” but it would do for tomorrow.

Totality in Kerrville starts at 13:32 CDT. There’s mow a 77% chance of “clouds” then, but that could mean something like this (which would be FINE) to heavy, thick, low rain clouds (which would NOT be).

It will be what it will be. But if any of the gods are listening and could deign to cut us some slack, we’ll take it.

“Some days it’s better to be lucky than good!” I’ve been good – now I’ll graciously accept some good luck.

Clear skies, eclipse buckaroos!!

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Filed under Astronomy, Photography, Space, Sunsets, Travel, Weather

April 6, 2024 · 19:57

Eclipse Minus One Day

Our forty-hour forecast is for an 82% chance of clouds. (It was 84% two hours ago, so… yeah?) But they don’t say if that means heavy, low, thick clouds or high, thin clouds.

It will be what it will be. We had discussed alternative plans if anything “nearby” looked promising. At this point, everything from Mexico to Ohio looks lousy. So we will sit tight and hope for the best.

Today however, was a different adventure. Four hours south of San Antonio, on the coast…

Here there be rockets!!! 🚀

Boca Chica, where SpaceX Starships and Superheavy boosters launch.

They’re setting up now for their third full test flight.

The “rocket garden” with three old Starship rockets, including the booster that was the first to fly and land successfully.

We may or may not get clouded out on Monday, but this was a spectacular way to spend the day!

It’s an adventure! It’s fantastic!

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April 5, 2024 · 23:23

Eclipse Minus Two Days

As the prophecy foretold…

A) Here come the clouds.

The more detailed and precise cloud cover forecasts start on Saturday, but the short version as of now is we may be SOL all the way from the Mexican border to Ohio. We shall see.

B) This may be the night the site publishing streak ends. It’s almost 01:30 here in Texas, but still only 23:30 at my home in California. Which clock is the WordPress computer looking at when it decides to hand out Brownie points? I can hope, but I’m pretty sure I know.

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April 4, 2024 · 21:28

Eclipse Minus Three Days

Today was a second long day of driving. And two time zone changes, so suddenly I’ve lost two hours.

There are many, many pictures of really neat things that will require longer posts later. Then there was the legendary experience of trying to get dinner at 21:30 on a Thursday night in Fort Stockton, Texas…

Tomorrow I’ll be in Kerrville, I’ll meet up with my son, and we’ll start plotting the weekend and doomscrolling about cloud cover and weather forecasts.

It’s an amazing adventure!!

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April 3, 2024 · 22:14

Eclipse Minus Four Days

First off, as a side note, I’m currently on a consecutive days posting streak here of 786 days.

I give that streak a 50/50 chance at best of making it to 800 days at the end of next week. What will kill it, accidentally, will be A) a horribly long day of driving and adventuring at which point I get back to the hotel and crash and burn and sleep for 12 hours, B) not knowing what time zone I’m in to begin with and having midnight click by when I think it’s still 22:00 or 23:00, or C) both.

Eleven hours on the road today to do 8.5 hours of driving. That leaves a little less than 11 hours of driving remaining to get to Kerrville, TX on Friday.

Arizona rest stops have issues.

Are scorpions actually classified as insects? Who knew?

I did not see any, but there are a lot of tall cacti on those hills. I did not get any closer because, well, jeeze Louise, SEE ABOVE!

I did see this guy (and a small flock of his family & friends) who were sounding off just before sunset at the rest stop.

The Cornell Labs ID’d it as a great-tailed grackle. (I think I messed up the title on the Youtube upload. My bad!) That’s a new one for me!

Tonight I’m back in Benson, AZ for the night. (Cue all of the appropriate “Dark Star” 🚀👽🛸 jokes.) Tomorrow it’s on to Texas (4 hours, 271 miles to El Paso) and we’ll see where I end up for the night.

It’s an adventure! It’s awesome!!😎

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Filed under Birds, Critters, Photography, Travel

April 2, 2024 · 22:53

Eclipse Minus Five Days

Ready or not…

Tomorrow, the road to Texas awaits. Get to the I-10 and turn left – if you hit Houston you’ve gone too far.

The good news is that the five-day forecast for clouds is improving a bit for Central Texas. It’s not good, mind you, but it’s better. I don’t necessarily need “clear and a million” (although I would of course take it) but I would certainly like something better than what I had seven years ago. Like, a lot better.

We will see. It will be what it will be.

Am I ready? Probably more ready than I was afraid I would be, but never as ready as I would like. It’s like that line about novels or other projects, they’re never “done,” they just get to the point where they’re “abandoned.”

It’s gonna be an adventure! It’s gonna be spectacular!

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April 1, 2024 · 22:38

Welcome April

And the sprint is on!

Okay, it started days ago, but we’re now less than seven days out from the eclipse and las than thirty-six hours from when I’m supposed to hit the road, so I guess it’s more accurate to say, “The panic is on!”

Which is not to say that a few minutes couldn’t be spared to watch tonight’s sunset launch out of Vandenberg of a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket.

Look closely and you can see a bright dot that’s Jupiter, just to the left of the palm tree tops. This exhaust plume was drifting in the high altitude, sunset skies as I was waiting to hear the sonic boom about nine minutes after launch, a couple minutes after the second stage had disappeared over the southern horizon. That sonic boom was very noticeable – not like it was going to shatter windows, but it was a pretty good “thump.”

You might be able to hear it just a few seconds before the end of this video, just before I said, “There it is!”

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Filed under Photography, Space, Sunsets

March 31, 2024 · 23:30

Eclipse Minus Seven Days

Doomscrolling through the weather sites…

Too many of the predictions are pointing toward something that looks a lot like our front yard in SoCal this evening. For example,

(Plot by Tomer Burg, arctic.som.ou.edu)

This is the “GEFS Downward Shortwave Radiation” prediction. I won’t pretend to really understand what all of that means, except grey means bad and blue means good, and where I’m headed is the second darkest shade of grey. And there are dozens and dozens of different models, different agencies, different colors, different data sets – they’re all pointing the same way.

This prediction was generated ten days out from the event, so it’s going to change, possibly by a significant amount, but likely not by a ton. The details will get more refined for all of those exact locations, but in broad strokes, it’s looking a lot like there are going to be significant clouds along 90% of the eclipse path, all the way from Mexico to the Great Lakes.

We knew this was a possibility. I am very surprised to see so much of the eclipse path covered in clouds. Normally I would expect a couple of storms possible, which means maybe driving toward the Mexican border or up toward Arkansas. But needing to drive all the way to eastern Ohio???!!!

It will be what it will be. You’ll hear me saying that a lot in the next ten days. Barring some disaster I’ll be in Texas next Friday, spend the weekend there watching the forecast and going over options, then taking our best shot on Monday. I have no control over the weather.

Say goodbye to March, friends! It could have been worse, but it sure could have been better as well. Let’s hope that April finally cuts us some slack, especially with the cloud cover on the afternoon of April 8th!

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