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
Another of those “Set SCE to AUX” days, after a whole string of them, busting my ass and running on empty trying to hit deadlines.
I checked mid-afternoon to see if it would be clear enough to see tonight’s scheduled SpaceX launch. It didn’t look hopeful.
However, the sunset was promising, about the same time that Artemis II was splashing down off of San Diego, 200 miles to my southwest.
In the end I never saw a launch and don’t even know if they actually DID launch, or if they scrubbed and will reschedule.
In the end, I got MY work done for the deadlines, somehow. And I saw a very pretty sunset, then refilled the birdseed feeders.
I’m “go” to switch SCE back to NORM.
Filed under Photography, Space, Sunsets
It’s handy as all get out to have a pocket computer with a better than average phone built in that I can always have with me with which to take pictures. And I realize that this “secondary function” on my phone is probably at least two orders of magnitude better than my first “real” digital camera from twenty-plus years ago.
Nonetheless, one thing that the default iPhone photos don’t convey is the vividness of the sunset colors. To the eye, this was glowing, fluroscent, bright pink and orange.
And these illuminated contrails were like day-glo pink rips in the fabric of spacetime, dividing the sky in half. In these pictures, they’re pretty enough, but…
As they say, the best camera is the one you have with you!
Filed under Photography, Sunsets
At Stonehenge in England the Sun rises on the Spring Equinox so that it can be seen between a certain set of stones – that’s how they know that it’s some sort of ancient astronomical observatory. In Manhattan, with streets laid out east-west, there are two times a year when the setting Sun shines straight down the street and illuminates the steel and concrete canyons of the skyscrapers. They refer to that as “ManhattanHenge.”
Which brings us to what I’m going to refer to as “ForeverHomeHenge.” Last August 29th I posted about how the setting Sun had lined up to shine directly through the security peephole in the front door, like a laser beam. Seeing as how the Sun moves in a predictable way, I figured there would come a second day about now when it happened again. I got a glimpse of something going on about three days ago when I just happened to open the front door at the exact correct moment, and then the last couple of days have been cloudy around sunset.
Today was perfect.
Like a laser! And when you open the front door, facing due west, with a long hallway leading past my office, the library, the dining room, and into the kitchen and living room and out toward the back yard:
Perfect alignment. But wait, there’s more! Directly above my head from this point is a large, crystal chandelier in the foyer. Now, outside the Sun is setting and will go down behind the roof of the neighbor’s house across the street. As that happens and the Sun sinks toward the horizon, that top line of direct sunlight (seen on the wall next to the closet) is climbing. Will the direct rays of sunlight get to the chandelier before the neighbor’s roof or my front doorway frame start blocking them?
Why, yes! Yes they will!
The sunlight only hit the bottom handful of crystals – I can only imagine what it would look like if the chandelier were two feet lower and the entire thing got lit up.
Nice spectrums! Not enough definition or detail to see spectra, but the colors were INTENSE!
There were rainbows all the way down the hallway – and then the Sun set behind the neighbor’s roof and the display was gone.
It might work again tomorrow or maybe even a couple days, and then I’ll be waiting again for the next window of opportunity, in late August.
So cool!
Filed under Forever Home, Photography, Sunsets
I’m not a fan of being awake at 6:21 AM, but if you happen to be awake then, this isn’t a bad reward.
I checked but there were no sailors nearby to warn, so I went back to sleep.
Filed under Forever Home, Photography, Sunsets
Pretty much just what it says. Click on them to blow them up, I’m giving you the full sized files.
Cotton candy skies.
Especially the one below, the panorama!
Filed under Photography, Sunsets
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
This whole “stress dreams on top of nightmares combined with having to get up to pee every 90 minutes” thing just isn’t as much fun as it sounds like. My watch says I got two hours of sleep last night. I’m glad that one of us thinks that’s true.
There’s a meme going around that says, “What’s something you’ve never tried in the bedroom bur really want to? ME: Sleeping a full eight hours and waking up actually refreshed with a will to live.” Yep.
At least there was a very pretty sunset tonight!
Just enough clouds to create a canvas for the colors to soak into, not enough to make it gray and gloomy.
Where the Sun had just vanished we got some great yellows, reds, pinks, and oranges.
And off to the north (and a little bit to the south), some deep purples, which were glorious to see in person.
That’s a big “Yes!” checkmark on the plus side ledger for today. Little victories – take ’em and celebrate ’em when you can!!
Filed under Photography, Sunsets, Weather
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
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We Love The Stars Too Fondly 