Showing posts with label Sky. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Sky. Show all posts

Monday, December 04, 2023

Sunset, December 3, 2023




 

Wednesday, October 18, 2023

The ISS



That tiny little blip of light in these photos is the International Space Station. My camera is good enough that I should be able to get the thing in detail, but I have trouble finding it in the lens to do that.

This last time when I looked for it, it was supposed to be about 10 degrees above the horizon, but it was almost directly overhead so it took me a minute to find it, and losing that time cost me my ability to focus the camera. 

At least, that's my story and I'm sticking to it.

Tuesday, September 19, 2023

Sunset


 

Tuesday, June 06, 2023

Smoke From Distant Fires

For the last month, we've had smoke from fires from Canada, and now we're getting smoke from fires in the upper eastern part of the United States. 

They make for interesting sunsets. Last night it looked like I was living on a different planet as I watched an incredibly red sunset.





Monday, April 17, 2023

Not the Moon

I shot these photos on April 9, 2023, when I saw this interesting light low on the horizon as we were readying for bed. I thought at first it was a helicopter or something coming towards us, but when I looked through the lens of the camera, I saw that it was a planet.

Skyview Light on my cellphone said it was Jupiter.

My camera is not made for taking pictures of planets, except maybe the moon, so I'm surprised these came out as well as they did.




Jupiter, named after the Roman god of the sky and the king of the gods (like the more familiar Greek god Zeus), is a fascinating planet that has many features and facts. 


Here are some of them based on web search results:




Bing AI assisted with the information. I left the footnotes, because, why not?

Friday, February 24, 2023

Jupiter/Moon Conjunction

We had clouds passing overhead as Jupiter and the Moon made its "conjunction" in what looks like Jupiter colliding with the moon, at least to the naked eye.

Of course, they did not collide. But they were quite close together when I managed to get an opening in the clouds for a few photos.

I took these shots Wednesday night. That's Venus down toward the bottom of the photo.





Wednesday, February 01, 2023

Hunting the Green Comet

The green comet, formerly known as comet C/2022 E3 (ZTF), comes closest to Earth today, moving in to 26 million miles of this ol' round ball we call home.

A comet is a celestial object consisting of a nucleus of ice and dust and, when near the sun, a “tail” of gas and dust particles pointing away from the sun. Halley's comet is probably the most famous one, as it makes a tour of our solar system every 75 years or so. It was last here in 1986, and I honestly don't remember seeing it although I'm sure I made an effort to do so. The one I remember best was Comet Hale-Bopp in 1997. It comes around about every 3,000 years.

The green comet last came through about 50,000 years ago. 

The comet is thought to look green because of the type of gases coming off of it, along with radiation from the Sun.
 
It if was as dim as it is today, I doubt the humanoids who were around 50,000 years ago even noticed. If one of them did, he or she had spectacular eyesight.

I have been trying to see this green comet on the few clear nights we've had but have been unsuccessful in finding it. Mostly, that is because we've only had two clear nights, and we have cloud cover today that is supposed to last all night.

I took this star trail photo whilst trying to find it. I actually left the camera outside and went inside; at some point, the tripod moved. Maybe a gust of wind? At any rate, the wiggle is visible.

But the comet isn't.






Friday, September 30, 2022

A Sunset

 


The interesting weather we've had most of the summer has given us amazing sunsets. The sunrises have been glorious, too, but we have trees in the backyard, and I get better shots of the sunsets.

Today is simply overcast with a breeze, as we await the remanants of Ian, the hurricane that devastated Ft. Myers and other parts of Florida.


Monday, September 26, 2022

Jupiter

If you look closely in the last two pictures, you can see little dots that are moons of Jupiter. I don't have the equipment to get a better photo, although I could see them fairly clearly through the digital enhancement in the camera.





Tuesday, August 02, 2022

A Rainbow!


This morning, my happiness came early when we had a shower and then sun - followed by a long (though not bright) rainbow.



It is hard to have a bad morning with a rainbow outside, no matter how dim it may be.

I am also happy because my husband is out on the tractor mowing hay. He's recovered from his hip surgery and eager to get back to work on the farm. I have asked him to call me every so often to be assure me that he is ok, but he seems to be happily ensconced on his farm tractor and having no issues.

My worries are for naught, it would appear.



Wednesday, July 13, 2022

Sky of Fire

After a storm late in the evening, I glanced at the sky's reflection in the back door. It looked like the mountain was on fire.



Monday, July 11, 2022

Purple Haze


 

Tuesday, May 31, 2022

Tau Herculids Bust

Last night there was supposedly a great meteor shower, with a peak time at 1 a.m. The astronomy folks were calling it the Herculids, and it was visible near the Big Dipper.

The reason for the shower was a broken comet, SW3. The comet fell apart in 1995 and the debris from it was supposed to be visible. Or so they hoped.

I set an alarm for 12:50 a.m. and took my camera outside. I aimed it at the Big Dipper. I got excited when I counted eight meteor streaks in a few minutes, although they seemed to be outside of the camera's eye.

It's nice outside at night, though the air was a big soupy. I wondered if there was enough haze to keep me from seeing the sky looking like it was falling to earth. That's what I was hoping for, a great show.

And I saw and heard a great show - Mother Nature at her finest hour. The trees around me danced with fireflies, each one apparently dazzling itself with its green light. Fairies flirting about the trees, I thought. The peepers at the neighbor's pond were croaking mightily, too. The air smelled of sweet drying grass from where my husband cut the hayfield yesterday, and something else I couldn't identify. Pollen?

In my peripheral vision, I watched the fairies dance to the froggies croak while I searched the sky for a heavenly display of fireworks.

By the time I came inside, I'd seen a total of 14 meteor streaks.

None of them came out on the camera.

The fireflies did, though.


The green streaks may be meteors, but I'm fairly sure they're fireflies, especially that big fat one at the top.

This is not one of my better star trail photos, either. It looks like I shook the camera at some point, since the lines are a little shaky. I've lightened the picture in effort to see everything the camera captured.

It was a disappointing photo shoot, and not the "sky falling" event I was hoping for, but something a little different.

Everyone should take the time to look at the night sky once in a while.


Friday, April 01, 2022

A Cold Front Sunrise

We had severe storms and rain yesterday, with a cold front moving through today with high winds.

It brought a great sunrise, though, as that ol' big yellow ball peeked through the clouds and turned the mountain tops pink. What could I do but grab my camera and go stand out in the wind and cold in my robe and shoot a few photos?

Pink mountain tops. The camera didn't quite do the site justice.

It was an exquisite site, really, to watch the light change.

The light turned quite red as the sunlight moved from the mountains towards me. The bird just in the middle of the shot was also glimmering in the light, but I could not catch a decent photo of it.

It hit the tree tops.

And then it made a broader swath.

Finally, it reached my yard, highlighting this tree.

And it hit the forsythia bushes to the side. This again doesn't do the sight justice.


Friday, January 21, 2022

A Snowy Sunset

Sunset, January 20, 2022

 

Tuesday, January 04, 2022

Call It What You Will

 



This is an "inversion" of the pollution spewing from the cement plant to the west of me. I've seen this before. 

The photos were taken this morning (January 4, 2022) around 10 a.m.

This company likes to pretend it isn't one of the largest sources of air pollution in the area, but those of us who live around here and pay attention know better.

I have posted about this polluter before: photos are here, here, and here, though there are probably more that didn't come up in a search since I've couched my language about it for years.


Tuesday, December 28, 2021

Sunday Sunset


 

Friday, September 10, 2021

Evening Sky, September 1

 




Friday, September 03, 2021

Night Moves

Last night was a beautiful, crisp, clear night. I went out to shoot photos in the darkness, because that is something I'm still learning how to do.

The Milky Way was visible above me - it has been a long time since I've seen the Milky Way. Venus was shining brightly low on the western horizon. My camera isn't strong enough to capture it looking light a planet, but I can view it and see that it is a planet through the camera lens. The Big Dipper was holding water above a tree.

The still was broken by the sound of an occasional low of a cow, a branch breaking as some unknown critter wandered nearby. The night smelled fresh and new because we'd had rain up until yesterday, so the pollen count was down. 

It was a lovely time to be outside.

Venus above the tree line.

No idea how I ended up with these straight lines, but they're pretty cool.

A 15-minute star trail capture, aimed at the Milky Way.

The Big Dipper

Me playing around with lighting. If you look closely you will see the Big Dipper above the green
space. I was shining a flashlight on a tree just to see what would happen. I think it's neat.


Wednesday, December 23, 2020

The Conjunction Minus One Day

I missed the "great conjunction" of Saturn and Jupiter on December 21, as we had cloud cover.

So I tried again last night. We had clear skies but the two planets had already begun to drift apart.

To my astonishment, through the telephoto lens on my camera, I could see four of Jupiter's moons. I could not get the camera to photograph them, but I could see them. I wondered what it was like to be the first person to ever look through a zoom lens and see that a star was actually a planet, and that it had moons. Can you imagine how amazing that must have been? And how scary? It didn't scare me because I knew it was Jupiter and that it had moons - but that first view. Wow.

Anyway, I made a stab at photos and they came out poorly. I will share nevertheless.

While we waited for twilight to pass, I caught this image of an airplane and the moon.

This image was the best of the bunch. The planets are oblong a bit, but those two little dogs around the bigger white dot are two of Jupiter's moons. The smaller planet is Saturn. As you can see, they had moved apart.

This is how they looked, more or less, to the naked eye.

This has a little more definition of Jupiter as a planet. I never saw Saturn's rings, but I was happy enough with Jupiter's moons.

I took these with a Nikon Coolpix B700. This camera came out in 2016 and that is the year I received it for Christmas. It is four years old and I am having problems with it. Last night it became stuck in open position and nothing worked, so I had to go inside and remove the battery to reset it. I would like to learn more about using this camera but since I am sensing I may need another in the near future, I probably won't. I still turn to my Nikon P500 Coolpix, which is at least 10 years old, as my go-to camera, or my Canon Sure Shot, which is even older, for everyday photos. They just don't do the job with night photos (or birds) that this one does. (I did not ask for a new camera for Christmas; things are just too wonky right now. But maybe my birthday in June?)