Cursing and learning: A photo essay

Al DenelsbeckLeave a comment

I sat down this morning, literally, and tackled (not literally) a project that has been on my list for years, that even just laying the groundwork for has taken far too long, and I don’t consider it ‘completed’ yet, nor may I ever. But I certainly didn’t come close to it today, though I made progress and got some successes.

I’m referring to doing some natural photos of hummingbirds, specifically the ruby-throated hummingbirds (Archilochus colubris) that are the only species I’ve seen in person. “Natural’ means, “not at a feeder or other contrivance,” and of course, to accomplish this, you need flowers that hummingbirds like to feed upon. We’ve had butterfly bushes for years, but these don’t seem to attract much if any attention. We’ve planted (several times) cardinal flowers, which never germinated at all. And we’ve had some potted salvia, which started off nicely but then faded. Finally, late last summer we got two varieties of salvia, a blue and a purple, which settled in nicely and then exploded with activity this spring. This has finally worked as intended, and the hummers have been visiting them routinely – I just haven’t set up the camera nearby to photograph the activity, until now.

[To satisfy my habit of providing proper names, I will say that both salvias appear to be varieties of Salvia guaranitica – the blue was still tagged as such, while the purple appears closest to this hybrid, also a variety. That’s what I’m going with, anyway.]

adult male ruby-throated hummingbird Archilochus colubris feeding semi-obscured on purple salvia Salvia guaranitica blossomsIt was relatively early in the day when the sun was still on the other side of the house as well as partially-clouded, so the light was low, and my first attempts didn’t have a fast enough shutter speed to halt their movements well enough. This male, the ‘owner’ of the purple plant, was quite hyperactive and difficult enough to track even with autofocus, typically visiting a blossom for literally a fraction of a second, enough time for a tiny sip, before moving to another.

A note about hummers. They’re neurotic, or what we would consider to be so from their actions, though we can’t vouch for their actual mental state; they are fiercely territorial over their chosen feeding spots, often staking them out to keep watch and chase off any intruders the moment they’re spotted, which leads to frequent chases and occasional aerial battles, and they easily appear to spend far more time trying to fend off intruders than actually feeding – it’s hard to believe they get enough calories to function. The purple salvia was guarded by a male, while the blue was owned by a female, while at least two others made frequent attempts with varying success. There are also three feeders that we maintain, one within meters of the purple plant, so there’s more than enough food to go around, but it’s just not in their nature to share.

autofocus completely missing the subject and locking onto the background
The salvia plants themselves are thick and deep, but the background is also cluttered, in this case with a camellia bush, so between this and trying to keep up with a twitchy subject, autofocus frequently just buggered off to the background or occasionally nothing at all. I tried switching it off and going manual, but that wasn’t any better, far too slow with the movements of the hummingbirds. I also tried staking out particular blossoms, locking focus thereon and waiting, but this didn’t work either, and I could tell that I was missing activity just outside of the field of view. The best process seemed to be, autofocus, watch the activity over top of the camera, and then attempt to snag it when the hummer was in an ideal position. Note that, “best,” doesn’t mean, “good,” and the hummers would often move on to another location in the moments while I was raising and aiming the camera.

adult female ruby-throated hummingbird Archilochus colubris dodging focus on blue salvia Salvia guaranitica blossom
Or simply move off even as I had focus locked and framed nicely. But there’s something nicely ominous about how her eyes rendered here.

This is the female that ‘owns’ the blue salvia, and I will note that I tweaked the blue registers here to hew closer to the actual color of the blossoms, since the camera isn’t actually capable of capturing it.

adult female ruby-throated hummingbird Archilochus colubris feeding from foreground blue salvia Salvia guaranitica blossom while background blossom was in focus
Another miss, but the background blossom was sharp, so let’s claim that was the intention. Just so you know, the linear separation of these two blooms might have been as high as 20 cm, but likely less – depth of field at this magnification just isn’t there. When I try again, I may sit back further to see if I can improve on this a little, at least to have autofocus not have to twitch as much.

adult female ruby-throated hummingbird Archilochus colubris perched on stem of blue salvia Salvia guaranitica showing red spot on throat
The female, at least, was cooperative several times over, in that she’d perch right on or near her claimed plant to guard it, as well as keep an eye on what I was doing. But it meant I could actually get some sharp photos, including of her bare patch of red feathers on the throat, in proper light too. The male almost never managed a light angle to show off the red iridescence, and his throat virtually always appeared dull brown.

Also, I’d boosted ISO to 800 here, and changed to my preset for low-contrast conditions, which boosts contrast and saturation a bit – visibly different here.

sharp profile of perched adult female ruby-throated hummingbird Archilochus colubris
Nice profile. Can’t complain.

adult female ruby-throated hummingbird Archilochus colubris showing flared neck feathers
A curious effect here. You can see she’s stretched her neck longer, but the neck feathers looked splayed backwards – this is possibly a territorial display directed at an interloper, since she vanished from the frame immediately after this. I know I’ve seen them spread their tail feathers for the same reason, usually when facing off in flight.

By the way, sitting in a lawn chair with a view of both plants, I was treated to the frequent chittering that they make when chasing one another off, as well as being buzzed several times – when in pursuit, they don’t pay a lot of attention to trivial concerns like nature photographers. It was this very chittering that redirected my attention to particular birds, since my attention was being routinely split between the two bushes.

adult female ruby-throated hummingbird Archilochus colubris feeding from rose
The blue salvia sits in front of a massive spread of roses that was here when we moved in, but this was the first I’d seen a hummingbird actually drinking from one.

adult female ruby-throated hummingbird Archilochus colubris perched still flapping on rose
And a pause, since it sat the highest in the immediate vicinity and afforded a good view to protect her territory, though most often she sat lower and more camouflaged against the greenery.

adult male ruby-throated hummingbird Archilochus colubris feeding from purple salvia Salvia guaranitica. partially obscured by own wings
This is the clearest shot I managed of the male that owned the purple salvia, unfortunately partially obscured by its own wing. The shutter speed was only 1/160 second, nowhere near fast enough to freeze the wings. I’ve had them blurred at 1/800 second – the wingbeat of hummingbirds is astounding.

But yes, the goal is to not only get sharp photos of the male, who’s more hyperactive than the female, but also to get that red iridescence of the throat, which will take better light. I didn’t get a chance to get back out this afternoon when the sun had crossed the house, though I will eventually – the heat during the day is still horrendous, and dangerous even when just sitting on one’s ass, so you’d best appreciate it when it happens.

adult male ruby-throated hummingbird Archilochus colubris sneaking in quick meal on purple salvia Salvia guaranitica claimed as territory by another male
Now, another male was sneaking in to partake of the purple, and had learned that the ‘owner’ took a particular perch in an oak tree nearby, so this guy would slip in on the blind side of the bush, practically underneath, and get a few drinks in down there before being discovered. The average time this lasted seemed to be in the range of 2-8 seconds – hummers have good eyes.

focus not quite on adult male ruby-throated hummingbird Archilochus colubris feeding from purple salvia Salvia guaranitica
One last one of the possessive male – this would have been a better shot with focus on properly, and much better with the iridescence. But at least the plants are convenient and the hummers are visiting them routinely, so the opportunity is there to do better. I have about a month or so before they split and head south for the winter. Hopefully, more will follow soon.

F for “F-ort”

Al DenelsbeckLeave a comment

night sky exposure of Milky Way and Cassiopeia showing no meteors
So I did go out last night and early this morning in the pursuit of Perseids, starting off just in the backyard but then deciding to go down to a small boat launch area not too far away, which I’ve used once before. The scattered thin clouds visible during the day (see previous post) had all vanished, and things were pretty clear, as you might be able to tell from this stretch of the Milky Way seen looking northeast. Cassiopeia can be picked out in the milky band, a little below mid-frame, which means that the radiant of the Perseids shower was a little below that. Look in the band closer to the top of the frame, though, and you’ll see two brighter stars flanking a darker patch, what I call the ‘gateway stars’ since both the stars and the gap in the Milky Way are visible on a clear night. These are Deneb and Sadr, and sat at roughly a 75° altitude, so this frame largely captures half of the sky vertically – this is the Tamron 10-24mm super-wide, which has its pros and cons.

night exposure of branch of inlet near boat dock showing lights of nearby cities
The benefit, of course, is that it can capture the most sky area, or indeed any other kind of landscape, of any lens I own, without introducing too much distortion – when viewed as a whole frame. The horizon glow you see here comes from not only the town we live within, but also likely the next city beyond too, both lying in about the same line from here.

inset of previous frame showing anastigmatic distortion of stars at edges of frame during night exposure.
An inset from the previous frame near the edge, this shows one of the two major drawbacks of the lens: the attempt to correct the wide-angle distortion inherent in shooting at such a wide angle still produces strange artifacts, not the best for trying to do starfields, certainly. The other major drawback is that it still distorts, meaning straight lines near the edges of the frame still lean, sometimes at odd angles. While it can increase the chance of capturing a meteor in any given frame because it covers more sky, it also reduces the size of said meteor, and of course, other elements in the frame may look warped. I’ll probably stick with the 18-135 at 18mm from now on.

But, how was the meteor activity, you ask? Actually, there were more visible than most ‘shower’ nights I’ve been out, including two bright and distinct trail meteors, though no real fireballs that I saw – naturally, the two bright ones occurred outside of the camera’s field of view, one of which cutting right across that inlet view above, just, not while I was aimed there. But how about where I was aiming?

full-frame night exposure showing Milky Way and apparent Perseids meteor
This is full-frame, and I was delighted to see that streak to lower left when unloading, since I didn’t recall one being visible in that location, and given the display here, it should have been bright. We’ll go in closer on that same frame.

parallel tracks of two moving bright objects during long night exposure, not likely meteors
A double, one with a very distinct change in brightness! Not terribly long, but a valid capture at least. Right?

Looking at the next frame, wrong.

continued tracks during long night exposure, revealing parallel satellites
Meteors are far too brief to continue into the next frame, especially with a few seconds in between – these are satellites. The curious thing about them is, this was at about 1:15 AM, looking almost due north, so this should have been the least likely time and place to see satellites since they need to catch the sun to be visible. Polar orbit, certainly, and I’m guessing higher. These both were about 60-second exposures. I checked Stellarium but this showed no satellites at all in the vicinity, though I probably need to update my database. Given the parallel tracks so close together in timing, I’m going to take a stab and say these may have been Starlink satellites, the only ones I know running so close together in this manner. Figures.

I witnessed a few that certainly fell within the field of view of the camera while I was exposing, including two that crossed directly over Cassiopeia in opposite directions within two seconds of each other, but all of these were momentary ‘shooting stars’ and none appear to have registered at my settings – I was even firing off frames of just a couple of seconds immediately after seeing a visible meteor, just to mark the preceding frame as one to examine closely, but no sign of anything, certainly not anything to show off.

Most of my exposures were done at ISO 1600, but as the meteor activity seemed to be increasing and I wanted to try and capture these brief streaks better, I switched to ISO 3200, and this was the biggest mistake. I shortened the exposure times down to about 30 seconds, thinking I’d have the same exposure but better chance of catching the brief dim streaks, but the resulting images were far worse.

night exposure of same patches of sky showing failure of ISO 3200
This is almost the same exact field-of-view as the first image above – if you look closely, you can just make out Cassiopeia in the center of the frame, and those gateway stars towards the upper left, having rotated counter-clockwise a little as the night wore on. But this is so bad I thought I’d inadvertently changed other settings, or perhaps even bumped focus. However, everything is in line, and I even have a distinct dotted line from an aircraft passing through, so this is just the camera not handling ISO 3200 worth a shit.

This was a thing with film, and it even had a term: reciprocity failure. ‘Reciprocity’ is the thing where camera settings are all based on f-stops or exposure values (same thing): you can increase shutter speed by a stop, but open the aperture by a stop, and produce the same exposure. With film, the idea was, you could increase ISO by a stop, and then reduce by a stop in aperture or shutter speed, allowing higher depth-of-field or a faster shutter speed. However, the response of the emulsion compounds during long exposures meant that the sensitivity would drop off over time (a few seconds to a few minutes,) so you could no longer dependably calculate this trade-off, hence ‘reciprocity failure.’ Not having this was one of the benefits of digital, but I suspect (off the top of my head) that ISO 3200 on the Canon 7D is an ‘expanded’ ISO setting, where the software is supposed to compensate, much like what I might do in GIMP to try and coax a better light response, but the sensor really didn’t capture enough of the light necessary to enhance. Regardless, 1600 is now considered the upper limit as far as I’m concerned.

[This is true of many cameras, and I always cautioned my students that the upper two or three settings in ISO should be ignored, since they rarely produced any useful results, the images typically looking like they came from a much shittier camera.]

Now, the other thing from the session, which at present I have nothing to show for. While out there on a marvelously quiet night, the barest of breezes but an excellent temperature, both great horned owls and eastern screech owls were calling routinely – I’d never heard the calls of screech owls and had to check it with my BirdNet app, but they sound fantastic. I tried for some recordings just on my smutphone, but it couldn’t handle the minimal volume, and I’ll have to return with more dedicated recording equipment. Seeing either, of course, much less photographing them, is going to be a lot harder, but I’m game at least. Another goal, of which I have no lack.

Just a taste

Al DenelsbeckLeave a comment

My friend texted me this morning asking me when the solar eclipse was, and I was about to answer, “It’s not,” since the path of totality passed across northern Europe. But then I thought to check and see if there was any portion visible from the US, and indeed there was. The irony of this being, I could see the smallest fragment from where I was, but not from where he was, just two hours south. Still, this prompted me to go out at the right time.

I didn’t have specific details for where I was, but in the nearest big city, the eclipse was supposed to peak at 0.33% – yes, one-third of one percent. Here, it might have reached 0.35. I suppose I could have checked Stellarium, and indeed, still can – according to that, it peaked at 0.40% for this location – righteous! This is what it looked like through the solar filter, roughly 13 minutes before that time:

minimal partial solar eclipse roughly 13 minutes before peak, through solar filter
When using the filter, I always set to under-expose by a certain amount, since the exposure meter on the camera copes with the darkness surrounding the disk and tends to render the sun too bright – in this case, it’s one full stop ‘underexposed.’ You can also see a hint of two sunspots in there, though focus was slightly off.

[I was aiming too close to vertical for this, since it was about 2 PM locally, and so using the swingout LCD on the Canon 70D as a viewfinder, since I couldn’t raise the tripod with the long lens that high above my head and my neck doesn’t otherwise bend that way – for stability, I set the tripod fairly low and sat on the ground to do this. Sharp focus, however, is achieved by firing off test frames and then examining them at high magnification, which works fine at night but less so in the glaring sunlight, so the above frame was off a tad.]

This is the stunning amount that it reached just past peak:

peak minimal partial solar eclipse from North Carolina, August 12 2026, through a solar filter
According to Stellarium, this really is at 0.35% here, this time 1 1/3 stops underexposed. This was the sharpest of the frames, but you’ll notice the greater glow around it; thin clouds were passing in front of the sun. I did, in fact, do video, which just barely shows the movement – ah, what the hell.

This partial lasted just 30 minutes, and in between frames I had my shirt draped over the camera and lens to keep it from getting too hot, since it’s still brutal out there. During the frames, the shirt was draped over me and the viewfinder so I could see, and not broil too badly.

One last frame as the eclipse was ending.

tiny fragment of partial solar eclipse remaining, through solar filter
I left this at full resolution, but again, thin clouds were affecting things so it could have been sharper; this time, I knew the focus was as good as it was going to get.

I think we have largely the same conditions tonight as the Perseids are peaking, so we’ll see if I snag anything. Meanwhile, a partial lunar eclipse will be taking place in just two weeks – funny how that works. Should I get the counterparts to these, we’ll have a nice matched set for August- perfect decor for the baby’s bedroom! I’m taking advance orders…

Leetle ones

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A small (heh!) collection of diminutive critters from the environs, the past several days.

Checking out the diamond spire gardenias one night as they had started blooming again, I saw a little knot around one leaf cluster, almost but not quite appearing as fallen leaves.

brown snake Storeria dekayi wrapped around cluster of leaves on diamond spire gardenia Gardenia hybrid 'Leefive' PPIP at night
Yes, this is a reasonable illustration of scale – gardenia leaves and flowers aren’t that big, the leaves usually 25-35mm across. I was just a little surprised to find this guy sleeping off of the ground like this, rather than tucked into a burrow or cluster of dead leaves as I would have thought.

brown snake Storeria dekayi wrapped around cluster of leaves on diamond spire gardenia Gardenia hybrid 'Leefive' PPIP at night
Trying to get a decent view was challenging, since other ‘trunks’ of the gardenia were in the way and I was trying not to disturb the plant too much to avoid spooking my subject off. The size, the spots along the sides, and the rough, keeled scales identify this as a brown snake (Storeria dekayi.)

brown snake Storeria dekayi peeking out from cluster of leaves on diamond spire gardenia Gardenia hybrid 'Leefive' PPIP at night
I finally got down to have a view of the head, shooting in between the ‘trunks.’ Smaller than a pencil in diameter, this is about average size for the species, maybe a wee bit smaller. Overall length perhaps around 200mm, but that’s just guessing.

On the same plant, over a week later, we had a different guest spending the night.

head of newborn Carolina anole Anolis carolinensis peeking out from under leaves of diamond spire gardenia Gardenia hybrid 'Leefive' PPIP
This was undoubtedly a newborn Carolina anole (Anolis carolinensis,) except I’ve never seen one emerge from an egg yet and don’t know if they immediately start running around on plants or spend some period of time hiding within leaf litter; it was the smallest I think I’ve seen, anyway, and I endeavored to illustrate this.

newborn Carolina anole Anolis carolinensis on leaves of diamond spire gardenia Gardenia hybrid 'Leefive&#03 with millimeter scale slipped in
It started getting a little bit antsy as I was sliding the millimeter scale into the frame, and there was only so close I could get it, but I think this effectively illustrates that the head is 4mm wide or less.

When it shifted position, I also shifted the scale, slightly more illustrative.

newborn Carolina anole Anolis carolinensis on leaves of diamond spire gardenia Gardenia hybrid 'Leefive&#03 with millimeter scale alongside
The scale is propped between leaves, underneath the anole but closer to us, so it actually appears slightly larger than it would had it been lined up alongside. While doing all this, I managed to peg an overall length of 50mm, but with anoles, half of that (or better) is tail alone, this one tapering down to a tiny thread. It could easily have stretched along my middle finger, and been completely hidden when I turned my hand over.

newborn Carolina anole Anolis carolinensis looking anxious on leaves of diamond spire gardenia Gardenia hybrid 'Leefive&#03
Despite the closed eyes in the previous pic, the anole was still antsy – they do this a lot, and I don’t understand it, but even when alerted to potential danger, in only moments they’ll close their eyes and appear to drop into a catnap; I’m beginning to wonder if this isn’t a camouflage reflex, hiding the dark contrast of their eyes from predators. You’d think they would evolve eye color more in line with their bodies, if that were the case…

Anyway, this one was still slinking carefully around on the leaves, unsure if it should flee – this is all by night and illuminated by the headlamp (or the camera flash during the pics,) so it probably couldn’t see that well, though the millimeter scale certainly slid into the same light and was likely in view. We’ll go in closer on this frame for the detail – anoles have great scales.

inset closeup of newborn Carolina anole Anolis carolinensis looking anxious on leaves of diamond spire gardenia Gardenia hybrid 'Leefive&#03
Length (not width) of the head here, perhaps 7mm – that’s the width of a pencil. I would have liked to have coaxed it onto my hand for better scale, but it was clear the anole wouldn’t have taken well to this and I probably would have achieved nothing, especially since the camera with the 180mm and flash/softbox is heavy, not easily handled in one hand. I need an assistant more often. Though I did have one for the next.

juvenile green treefrog Dryophytes cinereus perched on fence slat at night
Not newborn, per se, but newly emerged from the water and its tadpole stage, this green treefrog (Dryophytes cinereus) was also quite small. I later went out and measured the fence slat that it’s on, which is 20mm in width. This time, though, The Girlfriend was handy, and she didn’t mind holding the frog for a different scale shot, even though she was worried that it’d leap away. The frog was more cooperative than anticipated, though.

diminutive juvenile green treefrog Dryophytes cinereus in palm of The Girlfriend, for scale
There’s always a certain level of amusement to such sessions, since she’s always urging me to hurry up, “It’s going to jump away!”, like I’m not already aware of this. What, they jump? This one, however, settled in nicely and actually had to be coaxed back out of her hand. Would that all my subjects be this willing…

[Look, I know that’s acceptable sentence structure, and has been used countless times before in great literary works and all that, but it really doesn’t make sense by any rules of English, does it? This may be the last I’ll ever use such a thing.]

Polyunsaturated

Al DenelsbeckLeave a comment

monchromatic sunset on Pamlico River waterfront
Went down to the waterfront the other evening around sunset, the first time in a while because we’re usually getting dinner about that time, and there was a hint of promise with scattered clouds of different types, which are good when you’re looking for colors. Instead, the sun dipped below a distant cloudbank and only the barest hint of color was produced – so it goes. A little later on, some of the higher clouds got a momentary dappling of yellow, and that was it. Better luck next time.

Still, there’s just enough color to keep it from being completely monochrome, and some decent contrast, not just in brightness, but in textures as well. I’ll keep it.

Tip Jar 32: Layer masks

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Been meaning to get to this one for a while, just never set aside the time to do it. Finally started this past week with a few days to spare, which was good, because I ended up having to re-record it after finding the screen capture software wasn’t capturing, like, the screen, instead cropping off the sides a little. So let’s take a look at using layer masks, because they’re brilliant, and this is something that you would have a hard time accomplishing in an old style, wet darkroom with an enlarger – definitely one of the benefits of digital.

By the way, not throwing any shade at Adam Zubek-Nizol’s image used therein, because it’s excellent, and I’m in no way implying that it needs improvement. Instead, it was an image showing the traits you might want to reduce for a commissioned portrait – I have a couple of examples of my own, back from the wedding stringer days, but not the subjects’ permission to use them and I respect privacy herein, thus the royalty-free image.

You can also see that the deep black of the shadows from the wrinkles and creases actually rendered the skin tones a little more grey when the Gaussian Blur filter was applied, which should then have been color-corrected or the deep black de-selected before the Blur was applied – again, this was a quick-and-dirty demo, but editing for serious results should take such extra efforts into consideration.

Still fighting the background noise issue, even though the effect is notably trivial – I can hear it, so I want it gone. This comes from Walkabout Studios being too close to the AC units, and the ridiculous heat causing them to kick on even if I try to time recording between such. It’s getting to be an elaborate set of audio edits to try and remove these, and I did them in the wrong order, and wasn’t going to record everything a third time. Had I waited until the minimal cooling that nightfall brings to stretch out the periods between AC cycles, I would instead be dealing with frog noises. Some better windows are on the list of things to tackle for Deep 13 here – not because of recording, but because they really do need to be replaced – and we’ll see how much they may correct the issues.

As I said, play around with the technique, because it’s remarkably useful – I was shown this decades ago and have made good use of it ever since.

You may also find these posts on digital editing useful:

Tip Jar 8: Curves, part 1

Tip Jar 9: Curves, part 2

Tip Jar 12: Greyscale

Tip Jar 24: Dodging and burning

Tip Jar 25: Using the Clone or Rubber Stamp tool

Tip Jar 26: Perspective tool

Just because, part 58

Al DenelsbeckLeave a comment

mist drops collected on hind foot of Carolina anole Anolis carolinensis at night
This is from the same night as this shot, and probably should have been posted then (or even as the month-end abstract,) but it wasn’t, so here it is because I’m not going to do much else with it. I like how confusing it is solely because the mist drops obscure the necessary details, but if you look closely, you may figure it out.

Or not. You’re looking at the tail and the hind leg of another Carolina anole (Anolis carolinensis) stretched out behind it as it sleeps on a very misty night – you can see the little claws curling upward over the larger drop, as if it was a dragon clutching the favorite bit of its hoard.

By the way, I’ve long thought that Gandalf and company missed a royal opportunity when they got ahold of the Palantir. We know Sauron could see everything through it, right? That’s an outright invitation to put it in view of the most gross or depraved things you can think of. Or even just some of the sitcoms that somehow got approved for production. Could he hear through it too? Because I can name a few bands that should be in that rotation. Gimme a week, I could make Sauron give himself up…

Estate Find 64

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This is courtesy of The Girlfriend, who asked me to come out onto the deck to see something, which turned out to be in her overstuffed herb planter (that’s not a euphemism, shut up.) We were a little late to the game, and won’t be having any fresh parsley.

cluster of eastern black swallowtail Papilio polyxenes asterius larvae consuming parsley plants in herb garden
Those are the larvae of the eastern black swallowtail butterfly (Papilio polyxenes asterius,) and this was actually the intention – we don’t give a rat’s ass about parsley, considering it a tasteless herb or garnish, but this species of swallowtail adores it. The Girlfriend actually planted it just to attract them, and once they get big enough, they’ll produce chrysalides (chrysalises) to pupate into adult form. She used to do this each spring, but it’s been a while now – a few times the parsley just never took. Quite frankly, she should have planted much more, because it’s disappearing rapidly.

larva of eastern black swallowtail Papilio polyxenes asterius nibbling at end of parsley stem
The good news is, they’ll eat fresh parsley from the grocery store, which is all they’ve been getting for the past two days, since they decimated what had been planted. The species also likes celery, carrots, and dill, though we have none of those in the herb garden, so if we want to keep them around for the full cycle, we need to keep them fed. Parsley’s cheap, and whether it harbors cyclospora or not probably doesn’t make any difference to the larvae, who cycle things through so quickly the parasite would probably be killed by friction burns. Yes, that’s caterpillar feces in the pic – it’s kind of hard to avoid it.

newly-hatched larva of eastern black swallowtail Papilio polyxenes asterius
The appearance of the newborns is a little different, which is typical in my experience; at this age, they don’t have the defenses and must convince predators they’re a dead leaf. But as they get more of the age of the other pics here, they develop a little defense that is hinted at by their bright, contrasty coloration, that ol’ aposematic, ‘keepaway’ thing. When disturbed, they extrude their osmeteria, and I’m sure you know what that means.

eastern black swallowtail Papilio polyxenes asterius larva showing defensive response of extended osmeteria under provocation of author
That’s them, the bright orange ‘horns,’ and these emit a pungent aroma [that’s too good a word for it] stank that repels birds and other predators, but only makes nature photographers have to wash their hands at least twice. This was uncalled for, since all I did was pinch a little of its chub. Don’t these guys have grandmas?

But that’s what the bright colors indicate, and this is true for many such adorned species. The defenses, whatever they may be, function quite well, and the distinct coloration makes them memorable so predators learn and never try again.

larva of eastern black swallowtail Papilio polyxenes asterius knocking back that parsley
If you look very closely, you can see the three eyes at the edge of the dark spot about, well, about where you’d expect to find eyes. They really don’t need them for much at this stage, but I’ve remarked before on how drastically the eyes change between larva and adult for the lepidoptera. Thing is, everything changes drastically, a complete floor-to-ceiling remodeling more reminiscent of a mad scientist producing some bane of mankind from a petri dish of goo in a science-fiction cartoon; seriously, they pretty much dissolve into sludge in the chrysalis and rebuild a butterfly body, MacGyver-style. Well, without paperclips and hairspray…

Should said chrysalides be forthcoming, you’ll get further pics, and hopefully some of the emergence, too, so look closely to see if you recognize any of these later on. Meanwhile, I leave you with an ancient slide scan back from the last time The Girlfriend was successful, and raised several to adulthood. This is from probably about 16 years ago, and the emerging butterfly had injured itself in the process, resulting in a blob of green hemolymph on one wing. I had to dig this one out – the lengths I go to for all you readers…

adult eastern black swallowtail Papilio polyxenes asterius soon after emerging from chrysalis, showing green hemolymph from injury sustained in the process

Them odds

Al DenelsbeckLeave a comment

The rules* say they gotta fall in my/our** favor eventually, right? Because it’s getting to be about time to do so…***

The Perseids meteor shower is predicted to peak the night of August 12th and morning of the 13th, precise time about 03:00 UTC on the 13th, which places it as 11 PM on the 12th for those of us on the east coast of the US. ‘Peak’ is often a very broad term in meteorology, uh, meteoronomy, shootingstaragy, whatever – activity may be very strong or barely any noticeable difference during such showers, and may last from a half hour to a few days, and may not even be all that close to that time. On average, more meteors are visible at peak times – usually, often enough, though it only takes a couple of more meteors to skew an average in this manner. Math isn’t going to help us out much here.

What may help us out significantly is that there will be no moon in the sky at all during the night – in fact, it will be eclipsing the sun over in Europe not long before. Also, this peak time (for EDT timezone anyway) falls right before meteors tend to become more visible, which is after midnight. S’okay, the Earth rotates, right? And it also trundles in a big circle around the Sun, in a plane that largely coincides with the rotation. This means that, every day, any point on Earth is either facing into the wind of its orbit, turning against the orbital motion, or falling behind and thus moving in accordance with this motion. Since meteor showers come from passing through a trail of debris left behind by comets as they orbited the sun in their own manner, ‘facing into the wind’ means the path of the Earth and the rotation double up to increase the speed of intersecting dust, making meteors brighter and more frequent, but shorter. At any local midnight, the point on Earth where we stand starts ‘facing into the wind,’ so meteors increase, though we may not be in the thickest part of the debris trail just then. Conversely, before that time, meteors may be much fewer, but also last longer since their speed is slower relative to the Earth.

The debris trail is large enough that the shower may last several days, so whatever clear night you have surrounding that date, go for it. At least this one is during the summer for the northern hemisphere, so you shouldn’t have to bundle up, unlike far too many of the other showers.

Where to look? Seriously, any place the sky is dark enough – it’s a debris trail, it’s scattered and messy, so meteors might appear anywhere in the sky, but your better bet is someplace where other light is minimal and thus you can see more of the dimmer ones.

Now, the radiant is between the constellations Perseus and Camelopardis, just south of Cassiopeia, which at peak time will be medium low to the northeast for mid-latitudes US – lower for southerners, higher for northerners. But the radiant is another average thingy – it means that, if you traced all the trails of the meteors you see during a shower, they would favor lines that point towards the radiant – indeed, that’s about where the bulk of the debris trail lies. That doesn’t mean you’ll necessarily see more if you look there, only that most of the paths converge there – you might see them anywhere (well, in the sky at least,) and the slower ones more away from that point, so again, wherever you have the best visibility.

How to photograph them? Well, you’re asking the wrong guy, because my luck has been abysmal in this regard – up until this storm, right? Anyway, camera on tripod, focus on infinity (I often use the lights on radio towers to focus on when they’re available, since they’re bright enough and far enough away.) Turn autofocus off so it doesn’t keep trying to focus on those dark skies every time you trip the shutter. A remote release is recommended, and an intervalometer can help automate the shutter releases so you don’t have to do it manually. Shutter speed and aperture are going to be guided by the light in the sky, so test exposures are in order. The longer the shutter is open, the more chance you have of capturing a meteor, but also, the more residual light is admitted, brightening the sky, and the longer the star trails will become, making meteors harder to see. So start with ISO 400 or 800 (too high produces noise, especially in long exposures,) f5.6 to f8, 20 seconds shutter speed. Take a look at the resulting exposure – you should have plenty of stars visible but the background should not be very bright. Note, too, the closer you aim towards the North Star/Polaris, the shorter your star trails will be, and the longer your exposure before they get too streaky. Adjust as needed.

The more sky you can see, the better, but bear in mind, the shorter the focal length (the wider the view,) the shorter and less-noticeable the meteor trails become. I’d suggest 18-50mm (or equivalent.) Having a foreground interest makes for much better images, so pick a lake, find that dark old house or tree, that mountain peak – try for what would be scenic in daytime. You have a few days to think about this or scout locations, especially to see how dark it gets at night. Also, aiming away from commercial airline paths is much better, but these taper off seriously after 10-11 PM locally, in most locations (we sit directly under a major N/S route here, so I’m always ending exposures before aircraft enter the frame – red and white lines add absolutely nothing to the image.)

Don’t chase them. You may see a meteor or two in a particular direction, which is not where you’d aimed or the darkest sky. This doesn’t mean this is the spot to see them – they occur everywhere. Just be consistent, since the more time you’re adjusting the camera, the more time you’re not photographing. Believe me, you’re fairly likely to see one blaze outside the field of view of the camera, because the field of view is fairly small no matter what. This is the primary frustration of meteor storms: if you see nothing, well, bad night, but if you miss one, you’re more annoyed. It can happen easily, and there’s no good way to combat it except having a lot more cameras running simultaneously – which isn’t a bad idea, but it means more attending to them and less sky-watching. Better to at least witness that spectacular meteor.

Also, I’ve done a page explaining how to edit out the sensor noise from long exposures, those persistent pixels that occur because of small imperfections of the camera. This doesn’t remove all noise, but it gets those bright annoying pixels out of there.

So, good luck with it, should you decide to try your hand. As always, my brilliant successes will be available here.

* There are no ‘rules’ of averages, just statistics.
** You may have been having far better luck than I.
*** See asterisk one – there is no ‘due.’ Also, witnessing over 300 the night of the 2001 Leonids may have completely fucked my own personal averages, and I’m not due for any more…

A good one for today

Al DenelsbeckLeave a comment

There Will Come Soft Rains, by Ray Bradbury. It’s a quick read, and you’ll know why I chose it for today, even if you think it should have been yesterday.

I first read this in middle school I believe, and I’m almost certain it was a truncated version, ending when the poem does – which I think actually makes it better. It was written in 1950 and distinctly reflects the views at the time, though they carried into the 70s and early 80s pretty well – now, it might seem both overreaching and paranoid in its predictions for today, but that’s what science fiction is like. Still, very poignant.

Also, the poem of the same name, quoted in the story, was written during both World War I and the Spanish Flu epidemic

And here I add in another post that I’d started not too long ago, because it fits:

Every once in a while, you come across some online article that rehashes various predictions from times past, mostly to guffaw about how wrong they were, but occasionally to highlight some prescient tidbit. Science-fiction writers have an especially hard time of it when they’re trying to depict some future civilization and have to guess what kind of things may have changed – occasionally while missing the ones they didn’t think would. I’d re-read Fuzzy Sapiens by H. Beam Piper recently, and this one passage neatly illustrates what I’m referring to:

Of course, it was ending in a cocktail party. Wherever Terran humans went, they planted tobacco and coffee, to have coffee and cigarettes for breakfast, and wherever they went they found or introduced something that would ferment to produce C2H5OH, and around 17:30-ish each day, they had Cocktail Hour. The natives on planets like Loki and Gimli and Thor and even Shesha and Uller thought it was a religious observance.

Note that this is set five hundred years into the future, when we have colonized numerous other planets and have contragravity floating cars and so on. And yet, this passage by itself betrays the narrow timeframe that it was written within. Do you want to take a stab at it?

Elsewhere in the book, someone shoots a few movies of some particular subject, and has to go in to develop the film and make copies of it…

So, if you know just a little history, you know ‘cocktail hour,’ especially the event that took place before dinner, sprang up sometime after WWI, but by the late seventies had practically died out. Throughout the seventies and eighties, the dangers of smoking became well-known and the emphasis on smoking all the fucking time was disappearing rapidly, though it wasn’t until airline and restaurant bans (late 90’s and early 2000’s) that it began to, not really die out, but lose the majority of its social acceptance, going from that near-religious ritual to a bad habit that wasn’t publicly tolerated. And film became a fringe hobby by the 2010’s. This was following a growing popularity of cameras in general, in the boomer years following WWII, with movie/cine film starting to become popular in the 60’s as 8mm became more available to consumers.

So yes, the book was published in 1964, right around the peak of all of these, the author unaware that all three would vanish from prominence within a few decades. Coffee’s still going strong, however.

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