Oh, you weather!

Al DenelsbeckLeave a comment

Let’s start with, did I get out myself and photograph or video the occultation of Venus by the moon yesterday that I was alerting you of?

No. I mean, I did get out, and the day had been all nice and clear, but by the time of the occultation, the sky had produced thick yet wildly variable clouds that couldn’t make up their minds whether they wanted to be assholes or not. They apparently decided on, “Sure, why not?”

clouds in the immediate region of the occultation of Venus by the moon
The moon and Venus are back there somewhere – this is the clearest view that I got in the appropriate direction, and lasted only a couple minutes. The clouds were boiling away up there, but hiding much more than they were revealing, and I never even got a glimpse of the moon.

The same could be said for 87 minutes later, when Venus was due to be re-emerging into view. The sky was slightly less obscured then, but I still never got a peek at the moon. Just to rub it in, that evening as we walked back up from distributing corn, both were showing super-distinctly in the evening sky, with some earthshine as well, but of course Venus was by then about four moon lengths (or widths, or heights – not sure really) away.

While out there for both attempts though, I did snag a few frames of the sunbeams playing around the edges of nearby clouds, showing just how high the humidity was.

crepuscular rays around rumpled clouds in late afternoon
Seeing this, I begin to suspect why I never located the moon, even when the breaking clouds seemed like they should have revealed it. The crescent would have been fairly dim against the sky, but the intervening haze would also have been catching the sun, possibly making the difference in contrast so low that I may only have seen it if I was looking in exactly the right spot and concentrating. While Stellarium gave me precise alt/azimuth positions, I have no way of aligning the camera to those and have to estimate and then search.

Still, while out there, I captured a couple of different subjects, like the Air Tractor that’s been buzzing us for the past couple of weeks, which I’ve never timed right until now.

Air Tractor AT-802, registered to NC Geological Survey, passing overhead
According to my Flight Tracker app, this is registered to NC Geological Survey, which the “GS” in the registration number seems to confirm even when the online record shows differently. Looking a lot like a kit plane, this Air Tractor is purpose-built towards crop dusting, with a single-seat cockpit, high-lift wings, and a powerful turboprop engine (a jet turbine rather than a piston engine, though still driving a propeller.) This gives it a distinctive sound, easy to differentiate from the typical aviation four-bangers that pass close by, not to mention a much better turn of speed, necessary for the additional weight and maneuverability that the job calls for. Near as I can determine, this one’s been doing touch-and-goes (practice approaches and climb-outs) at the local airport, possibly for training. If you like my pic, you can get a model of this very aircraft.

Also up there was something I’d suspected, given last year’s activity, but hadn’t yet seen until yesterday.

Mississippi kite Ictinia mississippiensis wheeling overhead in late afternoon
A Mississippi kite (Ictinia mississippiensis) was wheeling overhead, and they definitely seem to like later afternoon to do this, meaning they’re virtually always silhouetted against the sky and completely shadowed underneath, like here. I chose this one for the little wisps of clouds breaking up the background, and the faint color of the sun shining through its feathers. Plus the fact that autofocus had locked on pretty well, something that’s not as dependable as it should be – this may be somewhat my fault too, since my ability to keep the bird centered over the autofocus region is sadly lacking. Still, I got a better frame on top of that.

Mississippi kite Ictinia mississippiensis catching a hint of sidelighting for a moment.
Yay! Sidelighting! This happens all-too-briefly, only when the bird banks away from the sun while also being opposite the sun from my position, but it gives a much better indication of their pale grey color with dark eye band and flight feathers. No indication that this one had a brood this year, but I haven’t ruled it out yet either.

I’ve been slightly more active with photos than I have been, so we’ll keep going here. The previous evening, I was out checking on things by the headlamp and came across a telltale sign, going back in to get the camera – at the time, it was raining ever-so-gently, not enough to stop me, but that’s what we call ‘foreshadowing.’ Any macro photographer knows that, with the purchase of a macro lens, you also gain the ability to summon light to strong breezes just when you’re trying to focus upon a subject on a branch or plant that will be swayed by said breezes. This might also be said for braving a light rain with the equipment, since on more than one occasion I’ve summoned downpours with the very thought, and this was one of those occasions. I was actually turning the flash unit on when the rain started in earnest, and it soon turned into a fierce downpour as soon as I abandoned this quest and returned to the house. I couldn’t tackle the subject until nearly an hour later, after I was sure all this had passed, but this also had the effect of changing my subject slightly.

This is roughly what I’d seen initially, though:

unidentified butterfly holding too motionless on butterfly bush Buddleja davidii cluster
Butterflies on a butterfly bush (Buddleja davidii) are not uncommon, hard as that may be to believe, but this one was holding a little too motionless, especially since it kept this pose through the downpour. If you’re looking close, you’ll see why, but there wasn’t an angle I could achieve that showed things any better.

unidentified butterfly captured by crab spider Mecaphesa on butterfly bush Buddleja davidii blossoms
See it? Yeah, there’s just a little white blob, above and to the right of the butterfly, that had been a little more visible before the rain hammered down. We’ll go in closer.

full resolution inset of previous image showing abdomen of crab spider Mecaphesa within butterfly bush Buddleja davidii blossoms
I’ve been watching this butterfly bush for signs exactly like this, because the crab spiders adore using them as hunting grounds, and that’s what you’re seeing here: the abdomen of a crab spider (likely Mecaphesa, but further ID not happening, as surprising as that might be.) However, this is also probably evidence of my tampering with the natural order, since one night about a week before this, I discovered a white crab spider dangling from a web strand from my arm, courtesy of my nighttime perambulations, and carried it over to this specific bush, where I’d seen it hunting at least twice since then. So call this, “staged,” call this a “safari park photo,” call this a “habituated species,” if you like. Whatever makes you happy – it’s important that you be happy…

solitary leg from crab spider Mecaphesa peeking out from behind blossoms of butterfly bush Buddleja davidii
One last clue – again, couldn’t get a view of much else – with a leg that’s even paler than mine. Which is weird, because I’ve been in shorts for two months now and won’t be back out of them until November, with a pretty good amount of outdoor activity, and yet, my legs still look Irish. Ah well.

I’ll be nice, and close with a not-bug – in fact, something cute. I know – you didn’t think I could.

young adult eastern cottontail Sylvilagus floridanus in yard
We never could determine why, but for the first 18 months or so of our living here, we’d never see an eastern cottontail (Sylvilagus floridanus) in the yard. Right next door in the neighbor’s yards, from time to time, and elsewhere in the neighborhood, but they seemed to avoid our yard. This year, we’ve finally started seeing them as visitors, so I snagged a shot the other day while I could. Nothing else to say about it, just, “Here is a rabbit,” but you can’t complain about lizards and toads this time.

Too cool, part 54

Al DenelsbeckLeave a comment

Wow, it’s been better than two years since the last ‘Too Cool’ post – at least, the last with that in the title, though as a category, there’s definitely been a few since then. This one comes courtesy of Astronomy Picture of the Day, though I’m a little lax, since this was yesterday’s.

SpaceX Falcon 9 passing in front of sun at launch, from Astronomy Picture of the Day, image credit John Winkopp, WAI Media
SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket passing in front of the sun at launch, image credit: John winkopp, WAI Media

Taken by John Winkopp for WAI Media, this shows the SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket passing in front of the sun during launch, shot through a solar filter – going to that APOD link and clicking on the image will give you a higher resolution version. Excellent positioning here, since lining this up is a lot harder than you might imagine. The multiple shock waves coming off of the rocket are plainly visible, as well as the distortion of the propellant gases, and some sunspots for seasoning.

There are multiple shock waves from the rocket because each increase in width/cross section forms a compression zone in the air, which at these speeds creates an expanding interference cone that we typically register as a ‘sonic boom,’ though they’re only tangentially related. More, this is closer to being an example of Schlieren imaging, a method of visualizing air compression, often used in evaluating aerodynamics. Curiously, there appears to be another on the opposite side of the sun, curving away from the exhaust turbulence, though this doesn’t make immediate sense to me.

Another curious detail: the exhaust right near the rocket, which would be a pillar of flame in normal viewing conditions, is just a silhouette here – it can’t hold a candle (ah ha ha) to the light of the sun.

initial experiment of Schlieren imaging with candle flameI toyed with Schlieren imaging over twenty years ago, and actually achieved a trivial result with it using the heat distortion from a candle flame, seen at right, but have never tackled it since. This guide will give you the details you need to know to try it yourself, which really isn’t all that hard – the key part is a smaller parabolic mirror like that from a telescope (and then, lot’s of fiddling.) I may have to try this again someday…

Tip Jar 24: Dodging and burning

Al DenelsbeckLeave a comment

Another post on digital editing, this one for (as it says,) dodging and burning, which is lightening or darkening selected portions of an image. This used to be a common darkroom technique, though it’s probably a bit less-so now, but it’s still handy to know how to accomplish. This is definitely one where practice and experimentation will improve the results. So herewith, a quick video tutorial on doing this in GIMP.

Chances are, the default settings from when you first open GIMP (or Photoshop) are a good starting point, but just for the record, my settings were at or near:

Opacity: 60
Spacing: 10
Hardness: 75 (not to be confused with brush hardness, a different factor)
Force: 35
Exposure: 15-30

Again, a lot of this depends not just on the conditions and elements within the image, but your own taste, so these are only to get you started, as well as being the factors you’re most likely to alter to achieve the results you want. And I repeat, once again for nearly all image editing: subtlety is key.

Also, never alter your original files – always save a copy. If nothing else, this is your insurance if you do mess it up or take things too far, and need to start over.

Some trivia about this process. Most of the terms found in editing programs trace their origins to either graphic designers or darkroom technicians, and dodging and burning are courtesy of the latter. The old ‘wet’ darkrooms required light to be shone through the negative and focused onto the photographic paper; the emulsions were an inversion process, meaning the more light that reached them, the darker they got. Thus, the first exposure, in the camera, produced a negative image on the film, which subsequently was inverted again onto the paper emulsion in the printing stage, producing a proper positive image again.

So, to lighten a portion, you have to block (‘dodge’) some of the light reaching the paper momentarily, which was typically done with a little piece of black cardboard with ragged edges mounted on a thin wire, to target a particular spot on the image; this was moved gently in a circular motion to further fuzz out the edges and the wire itself, and would only be for a second or three of the print exposure time, usually running seven to ten seconds overall. Larger areas were done with bigger pieces of cardboard, sometimes even cut to a specific shape to custom-fit the area of the print (though still with ragged edges.) If you really needed to work with a print, the exposure times could be adjusted longer to allow more leeway in timing.

‘Burning’ was of course the opposite, permitting more light to reach only specific portions to darken just those, and often required longer exposure times to work. The tool was just the opposite, too: a piece of paper or cardboard that would cover most or all of the print area, with only a ragged hole cut through it, and again, only used for a portion of the exposure time. Experienced techs would often eschew the cardboard bits altogether, and simply use their hands, but the wire-suspended circles and ovals tended to allow more precision.

Distance played a part too. The further the tools were from the paper (thus getting closer to the enlarger lens and the light emitted by it,) the more diffuse the shadows cast onto the paper were, so the edges could be harder or softer based only on how far away the tools were from the paper.

The biggest difference between the wet darkroom and the digital one? You can see what the hell’s happening in real time, rather than making the exposure, developing the print (which is when the exposure would actually begin to show results,) and then throwing the print out and trying again. There is a lot to be said for ‘Undo’ functions…

Things to do

Al DenelsbeckLeave a comment

S’okay, not much warning on one of them, but if you’re here, you don’t really need the prompting, even if it’s prompting to not be here – you may not need that either. But tomorrow, June 13th, is National Get Outdoors Day, or at least, USA Get Outdoors Day; it may not extend beyond our own country here. Now granted, the heat index the past few days has been having meteorologists recommending that we stay indoors – it topped 37°c today here – but the idea is, spend some time experiencing what there is to see, away from screens and streaming shit and constant news reports – you can’t really argue with that. If you have to put it off a few days until it’s safer and more comfortable out there, I don’t think anyone’s going to report you.

Either way, hopefully you’re not relying on me to provide your dose of outdoorsy stuff, and are doing your own things. Probably much better than I, too.

screenshot from Stellarium of moon occulting Venus, June 17, 2026 in North America
The other one is a little further off so you have more warning, and the ability to start looking more haggard at work before you call in sick that day. But Wednesday, June 17th will see the crescent moon occult (block) Venus in early to mid-afternoon across most, if not all, of North America – it will be roughly 3:45 PM on the east coast, but varies depending on location. See local listings for exact times, or better yet, load in Stellarium if you still haven’t done so, despite my repeated urging. This should occur, for just about everybody, awful close to due south and not-quite-as-close to straight up. Venus can occasionally be seen during the day, and it will be in gibbous phase at this time so better illuminated. The key, of course, is to locate the crescent moon, much easier, and be watching towards the dark side with a long lens, binoculars, or a telescope as the time approaches – if the sky is clear enough, you’ll be able to spot Venus and watch it vanish.

It will also re-appear not quite 90 minutes later, this time emerging from the crescent side, so go ahead and watch that happen too. I hope to catch video of both, but it’s going to depend on sky conditions, and the forecasts right at the moment are dicey.

If you’re planning to tackle this, first make sure you’re synced to an accurate time source – there’s nothing like missing something because your clock is off by two minutes. For video, know that the moon will move its own width in roughly 150 seconds, heading towards the crescent side (for this event,) so leave enough space in your frame to account for this motion as you’re watching for Venus to vanish or re-appear. As always, lock in your focus, manually is best, and keep the camera untouched on a firm tripod to avoid wobbling and vibration. Some test clips ahead of time are never a bad idea. If there’s anything more than a slight breeze, set the tripod as low as you can manage, or get out of the wind – otherwise this is going to vibrate the view significantly, the more so the longer the focal length.

Good luck with either, or both!

Right on schedule

Al DenelsbeckLeave a comment

Out the other evening, I found something that, in the back of my mind, I figured was about due to start showing up, if last year was any guide. That would be this:

immature female golden silk orbweaver Trichonephila clavipes on web attached to paperbush Edgeworthia
Yep, it’s a golden silk orbweaver (Trichonephila clavipes,) almost certainly female yet quite a young and small one, considering how big they usually get. I guess I should say was, since I just went back out there for an accurate measurement (silly me, I wasn’t carrying the calipers with me at the time) and did not find it again. Anyway, in the rough vicinity of 12mm body length, about the same as the specimen that I caught and featured last year at this time. If the pattern holds, we’ll see an explosion of them on the property over the next few weeks, lasting until perhaps even November.

This did mean that I failed in finding one much smaller than this, closer to the newly-hatched stage, and haven’t yet even seen an egg sac, much less had the opportunity to check for hatching. Maybe this is the year – something fun to look forward to!

Same night, there was also this little Sheila:

female giant lichen orbweaver Araneus bicentenarius spinning web
This is much earlier than expected, certainly for this size, which is again about 12mm in body length, which looks much more impressive with an abdomen this big – roughly marble-sized, or malted milk ball. This is a giant lichen orbweaver (Araneus bicentenarius) – great color pattern, which must be marvelous camouflage during the day when they’re likely holed up against one of the branches used for their web anchor. At night, they come down and make their orb webs to catch the nighttime insects, which is what this one was in the process of as I got my images. I would seriously have expected one less than a third this size, since this is usually how big they get right before creating an egg sac, which is often close to the end of their life cycle, at least to my knowledge. At this time of year, I’d expect to see the hatchlings from late last year that had overwintered and were now progressing towards the egg-producing stage, like the one above it. So, is this one that got an early start (and a lot of food,) or an adult from last year that overwintered and was starting another reproduction cycle? Not sure – I just takes picchers…

The other impressive thing is the size of their web, specifically the anchor strands, that might stretch several meters up to overhanging branches and across to other trees, making crossing the yard hazardous (or at least, icky) at night. I have yet to see them making these anchors, so I’m not sure if it’s by ‘ballooning,” catching a breeze and being carried bodily across to branches and trees, or if it’s simply by casting a webline in the same breeze. Even while I’ve watched this, I’m always impressed that their silk is sticky enough to anchor itself to another branch on casual contact when carried by the breeze, firmly enough that the spider can at least scamper along it to reinforce it before creating the orb portion of the web. I also know that I have been the anchor myself at times, wandering through the area while the spider is casting and thus getting caught in their web, and on occasion I’ve carried said spider along and even back inside with me, though never anything even half as large as this.

This is also the breeding season for several amphibian species, made clear by the overwhelming cacophony of calls that occurs each night – I can’t even have the door open some times. I’ve tracked and photographed plenty of these and so wasn’t trying, but did snag a shot in passing as I examined the pond by night.

green treefrog Dryophytes cinereus perched on yellow cow lily Nuphar lutea leaves and calling at night
Just a green treefrog (Dryophytes cinereus) seen from the back, swollen with air as it made its booty-calls into the night. They’re really quite efficient at this, considering that they expel maybe a couple of cubic-centimeters of air with each call and it’s loud enough to actually hurt your ears.

And another, that would easily have escaped my attention had it simply held still.

southern leopard frog Lithobates sphenocephalus in closeup under blades of grass
I had a macro lens attached when this one hopped over to a clump of grass and froze, so all we have is this closeup of a southern leopard frog (Lithobates sphenocephalus,) which seem to be the dominant aquatic frog species on the property – though perhaps not by much. While the safety of the pond was a little over a meter distant, this one seemed to feel it was safe enough behind these blades of grass – after, of course, attracting my attention with movement. Not winning any awards for cognition, is what I’m saying. Lucky I wasn’t a heron or a snake.

Okay, more sorting and editing awaits…

Tip Jar 23: Batteries

Al DenelsbeckLeave a comment

I had two other potential topics slotted in for this one, and had stalled in deciding which one to tackle, much less begin on. Then yesterday my gut decided I should be spending a lot more time in the bathroom, and I didn’t get to either of them. Finally stabilizing much later, I still decided to put the whole post off until today, and instead just started checking out Walkabout Estates by the headlamp, as is my wont. That’s what led to the topic for this post, and this is a little more of a ‘learn from my mistakes’ thing, but also partially the frustration of not being able to effectively monitor certain things.

The two key portions of the preceding video were the video camcorder, and the off-camera lapel mic that connected to the parabolic dish – both of these failed, solely because of batteries. Let’s do this in order.

The mic connected to the parabolic dish is a Sony ECM-44B lavalier mic, which uses an internal AA battery for power. This can last quite a long time, but there’s no on-off switch for it, so I have to assume that the power doesn’t flow until the recording source is reading from it. There also is no external indication that it’s working, no LEDs or anything, so really, the only way to tell that the battery is still good is to check what was just recorded. That’s how I got caught by this one, in that I really didn’t know I was capturing inadequate audio until I’d returned from getting the video clips and reviewed them. I was extraordinarily lucky in that I could return to capture more once I’d replaced the battery, and that enough audio existed on the first clips that I could enhance it, though the quality certainly suffered from that.

Right before I set out on the second session, I plugged the mic into the little digital recorder that I use from time to time when only audio is needed; this has the ability to monitor the audio realtime, so I could tell that it was working. The camcorder doesn’t have this option. So the primary way to tell if the mic battery is still good is to switch the recording source and test it, which is not a huge hassle, but enough of one when you’re trying to capture something that might disappear at any moment. Another way is to voltage test the battery, but the Sony mic has a screw-on sleeve over the battery compartment that has to slide over one of the wires exiting the housing, so I can’t actually do this while the mic is mounted to the video rig. Stupid, fussy little things.

And then there’s the camcorder battery. Now, I’d fully charged it just over a week previously to have it handy for a wedding that I was shooting, but didn’t actually use it. So the sum total of legitimate drain on the battery was about two minutes of goose video in the past week. That’s it. When I went out last night and began the recording, I did indeed check and the battery indicator was reading 3/4 charged – which is not where it should have been, but adequate. Except it wasn’t. With just a few minutes of actual operation time, it was dying. That’s not acceptable.

Now, where was the failure? Just over a week of merely sitting should not be enough to drain a lithium-ion battery, which have enormous shelf life and charge integrity, more so since this was an extended capacity 3000 milliamp-hour version. The camcorder even has an automatic shutoff after two minutes of standby, so it’s not like I forgot to shut it down. So this leaves four potential causes:

1) As I was heading up the road tracking the sounds, I was using the video camera to record the audio, but it was likely also trying to autofocus on virtually nothing, since I hadn’t turned on the external video light yet. The occasional appearance of a streetlight as I aimed roughly at the noise source (the parabolic mic attached to the video stabilizing rig) might have made the autofocus struggle to snag something, draining more power than normal. Still, this seems excessive, since this was two minutes of active recording time;

2) Parasitic drain. I already know the camcorder has a tendency to use a little power when completely inactive and turned off, which no device should ever do. I understand it in things like TVs, which maintain a trickle flow to keep components warmed up enough to turn on instantly, but there’s no such excuse for a camcorder. Even the internal clock should use such a trivial amount of power as to be inconsequential, since my wristwatch uses a little 3v ‘coin’ battery to last for five years doing the same thing while also displaying it;

3) A bad battery pack. They have a life of course, and will lose longevity as they start to die out. This seems most likely, and this one’s been getting a lot of use in the past year or so;

4) A bad charger. Also a possibility, and next to impossible to distinguish from a bad battery.

Therein lies the problem. Determining which of these causes, if not multiple ones, has no simple solution. If you’re lucky enough to have a multitester that determines amps, you can test a battery to see if it’s not up to full charge (in this case, 3000 mah) when fully charged, and narrow it down to a bad battery or charger. But then, it’s a matter of replacing one or both to determine which it was. Also note that the amp-hour rating for batteries is notoriously exaggerated, with few actually hitting the numbers they claim, so testing them when brand new is the only way to know when they’re dropping off. If you have a tester that tells amps, which I don’t.

As for the autofocus using too much power? That would take a decent amount of testing to determine, with careful notes of actual longevity. Not worth it to me, just something to keep in mind as a potential drain.

Parasitic drain? The best solution is to remove the battery between uses, and I do this with the audio recorder because I know it will run its own batteries dead just sitting in a drawer for a couple of weeks. It’s also better for the dry-cell batteries like AAs and such, since the same drain can cause them to corrode and leak. But this also means, on systems that maintain a date (both the camcorder and audio recorder) that you have to reset the date every time you insert the batteries again, a hassle when you’re trying to capture something before it disappears. Or you can cope with everything having a time stamp of January 1, 2000, just after midnight. I’ve dealt with this too, and it messes with decent sorting and cataloging.

So, how to avoid these? There’s no simple solution. Spare batteries, of course, and maintaining a charging schedule works best – with a lot of batteries for different devices, this can be more of a chore than it sounds, especially when a full charge can take hours on some of these. You end up with a rack of chargers that you monitor periodically to remove or swap batteries when they’re charged.

Definitely, charge everything before an important session, like a paid gig. I was charging batteries for two days before the wedding, to be sure that I had everything and spares. Thankfully, I didn’t have to do one swap (most of the batteries I have are decent capacity, and none failed,) but being able to switch quickly is paramount when stuff is happening.

The batteries that aren’t able to be monitored, like dry cells in the mics and so on? Voltage and amp testing of these is fussy, so it’s up to you and your habits as to how useful this is – I only do it when something is looming, but for paid gigs, I just swap for new. Batteries are not good for landfills and, even in places that claim to recycle them, many don’t, so I use the batteries until they’re determinedly dead before I discard them. Most of the AAs that I use are rechargeable anyway, but some devices (like the Sony mic) don’t like the power curve of rechargeables – they’re virtually always 1.2 volts instead of the 1.5 of dry cells, and often lower mah ratings than alkalines – so there’s a limit to those too.

Monitor your usage. There’s no easy way to do this either, except for meticulous notes, but over time you’ll get a feel for when a set of batteries isn’t lasting as long as before, and then it’s time to have a new set waiting in the wings. Especially, carry a backup with you every chance you can, which is what camera bags are good for, but stuff some in your pocket if you aren’t carrying the bag. It’s impossible to be prepared for everything, and I get caught from time to time, but far less so once I realized how often these things occur.

Quality batteries. This does not necessarily mean name-brand or original equipment manufacturer, and in far too many cases (most camera brands, certainly,) this actually means you’re paying a lot more for the same thing than if you just bought aftermarket. Though admittedly, many aftermarket brands suck, so finding the ones that don’t takes time and research. I can say I’ve had as good luck with Kastar batteries as I have with Canon’s own; there remains a chance that Canon’s are actually a rebranded Kastar or something similar – a lot of manufacturers don’t actually have factories for their own batteries, among other things, and simply relabel some other brand’s offerings.

Along those same lines, however, I worked in Florida with a wedding photographer that bought AAs in bulk for flash units, some off-brand source. We routinely voltage-tested all of them before we put them in the bag, since one out of every eight to ten was literally without any charge at all. When used in a sequence of four like in a flash, they work, briefly, the other batteries covering the slack. But a dead battery in a sequence will actually get reverse polarized by the others and soon wreck the power curve and longevity of all of them, leading you to wonder what the hell is going on. Not a bad habit to test all new dry cells before use.

So, here’s hoping you learn a little from my mistakes and don’t repeat them – at least, too often. It’s impossible to avoid getting caught at times, but we can reduce the number of these with good habits.

(Off) Estate Find 63

Al DenelsbeckLeave a comment

Poking around at night by the headlamp again, endeavoring not to get eaten by a bear, I realized there was a faint sound that kept repeating, and I didn’t recognize it as anything ‘typical’ – the frogs were making a racket down at the pond, but this wasn’t a frog. So I started following it. This took me off of the property, so technically this isn’t an Estate Find, but I was there initially, so I’m counting it.

I located the noisemaker roughly a hundred meters from where I’d first heard it, and you’ll hear the audio in the video clip, so you should get the idea that this was initially right at the edge of hearing – I consider myself lucky that I can still hear things like this at my age, especially since I know that The Girlfriend cannot. I also had to pass directly under a streetlamp as I came closer, to say nothing of the headlamp light itself, so I was also lucky in that the noisemaker stayed put, but that was probably a factor of its age.

This is a good example of not just using one’s ears, but in realizing what particular sounds might mean, or at the very least, don’t belong among the ‘normal’ lineup of things you’re likely to hear. I suspected a bird, but I was honestly thinking more in lines of a nightjar (which I also would have been delighted to get, but likely would not have stuck around as long as this one did.)

Now, after the batteries died, I simply turned and walked back to Walkabout Estates, and hadn’t gotten very far when the calls of both mother and child get a lot closer together, more ‘talkative,’ so I turned back and could just barely see (the headlamp is dimmer than the flashlight I use for night video) that mother and child were now on the same branch right next to each other, with absolutely nothing I could do about it. Grumble mutter blaspheme and all that. As I said in the video, I’ll go into that in the post following.

Still, while hearing barred owls all the time around here, this is only the third or fourth time actually catching sight of one, and the first in capturing it on video, so I can’t complain too much. Well, not justifiably, anyway…

Numbers don’t lie. Do they?

Al Denelsbeck2 Comments

I realize my posting has been pretty thin of late – still tackling home projects, still stalling on another video. And then I go off on these tangents that don’t help at all, but I want to put them down while they’re still fresh, so here we are.

While working on the post about Ultrafinitism, I had read that it was not gaining as much acceptance as the form/realm that permitted infinity, because it had no axioms or distinct rules, and while I pointed out that in and of itself, it disproved one or more of those axioms, I still toyed with the idea that there was a simple addition or change to mathematics that would clarify the matter and prevent some of the unprovable and undemonstrable nonsense that pervades math, or at least these advanced axioms. And for giggles, I started working them out – and then abruptly realized that not only was it far simpler than even that, but I’d been voicing the ideas multiple times in posts without distinctly pinning them down. So try this:

1) Numbers are not real. They have no existence in and of themselves, and do not define anything. Rather, they are defined by that to which they are applied, specifically the scale or increment. For instance, one may have three apples, or a mass of 390 grams, or a volume of 540 cubic centimeters – but none of these might accurately compare to the others, meaning each apple does not automatically mass 130 grams. The scale defines the numbers that apply.

2) By extension, creating any given number does not imply any application for it until it can be assigned to objects, scales, or measurements. While any number can be imagined to any value/degree of whole or decimal places, this has no meaning without application, any more than listing letters creates a new word; it does not exist as such until it has a definition, preferably agreed-upon by multiple people at the minimum.

Anyone can, as they wish, scribble down a shape or symbol and then claim that it means something, or has certain properties – but that doesn’t translate to any such properties actually existing. While a great deal of mathematics applies quite well to describing and comparing real, physical traits, this does not mean that, by extension, whatever lengths you might take the math to will have application as well. Beyond physical constraints, you are only dealing with make-believe.

Most especially, what these two axioms do is eliminate a very large amount of ‘theoretical’ (these aren’t in any way theories in the scientific sense) and ‘infinite’ progressions. As a ground rule, it doesn’t alter Set Theory, or Zermelo-Fraenkel Choice axioms if you prefer, save for a) eliminating the idea of infinity, and b) stipulating that all sets abide by application. As yet, I have not found a place where this breaks down, but again, I’m no mathematician, nor even close, so we perhaps know what end I’m talking out of.

But it didn’t stop there. Prompted by a communiqué with The Manatee (outside of the comments on that post,) I started wondering why humans, as a whole, have spent so much time on inapplicable math, and now strongly suspect that it ties in with other aspects that I’ve wondered and talked about. Evolutionary psychology is a pet hobby of mine, pondering what makes us (any animal) think and react in the way that we do; an awful lot of it comes down to, we evolved to think this way because it worked better than the available alternatives. We humans like to believe that we carefully consider most of our decisions, but it’s likely far less than we believe, and we’re prompted towards certain decisions or biases by inherent traits that assign greater importance to certain factors. The big three – avoiding death, eating, and reproduction – are undeniable, but there are plenty more that are likely there, just not recognized too often. The way we respond positively to large eyes in a small face, a trait of infants, or negatively by the crying of the same. The nonsensical fascination with sports to such a huge degree (tribal instincts.) Making posts about things we think we might have figured out…

And I came back to one I’ve long known: we are pattern-seeking animals. This on its own likely had a lot to do with our progress towards industrialization, since we recognized properties of certain things, like how to start fires and make metals and so on, but it also drives us too far, believing in superstitious things like gambling ‘streaks’ and gods that are angry because we didn’t feed the volcano or ate meat on Friday. Way back in the long-ago, pattern recognition helped us survive, in two ways. First, most animals actually have patterns to their coloration, shapes, and even behavior, so this would let us spot both potential prey and potential predators from the ‘chaos’ of natural foliage. And by extension, we can see a pattern to this very chaos, in that leaves grow in certain clumps and branches taper to specific ratios, so we can spot the differences within. Additionally, asymmetry is often an indication that something is wrong with a species, perhaps signifying a lack of health or a poor choice to mate with.

Mathematics is, almost entirely, patterns. Ratios, repetition, progression, and so on. We recognize when a tree or flower is symmetrical, and not just prefer it, but try to define how and why. We can easily spot the sine wave of water, or the expanding circles of a splash, as well as the break of these patterns that indicate something else is acting upon them, perhaps right under the surface. Douglas Adams (in Dirk Gently’s Holistic Detective Agency) pointed out one that we barely even register despite its pervasiveness: our ability to not just recognize the consistency of a parabolic arc, but predict its path from mere milliseconds of observation and catch a flying ball, much less throw something accurately enough to hit a target, one of the many factors that allowed us to progress past the ‘caveman’ stage. And the application of math to physics is undeniable, as well as showing us how predictable many things are.

Yet this, to me, is where that search for patterns leads to a bias that works against us. Because we like the idea, because we have a desire to find something, doesn’t mean that it’s actually there. I’ve touched on this before when discussing phi/the golden ratio/the rule of thirds in art & photography, which doesn’t stand up to examination (and none of those three actually match anyway.) It’s far more a matter of confirmation bias, of selecting only those factors that fit, within a reasonable approximation, and ignoring all of those that don’t. And the bare fact that we can spot patterns in places, especially differentiating them from non-patterns, illustrates that nature/the universe isn’t actually all that good at mathematical precision.

Now we do, in fact, have mathematical formulae that underlie all of physics – of everything. The four fundamental interactions – the strong nuclear force, the weak nuclear force, electromagnetism, and gravity – dictate how everything behaves, describing the interaction within the entire universe, from neutron stars down to the friction of simply holding something in your hand. They can be expressed mathematically, certainly. Aha! See that? But I’m not arguing that math doesn’t have its place, only that too many mathematicians fail to recognize its limitations. It wasn’t mathematicians that predicted or defined these forces either, but meticulous observations and measurements by physicists.

And that led to part two of what may be behind a lot of this, what I tend to call the ‘puzzle drive.’ We are obsessed with solving things, figuring them out, finding the solutions, so much so that we do it for fun, and I find it hard to believe there isn’t, not just a positive reward system within our brains when we’re successful, however trivial the puzzle might be, but also a negative ‘punishment’ system as well, bolstering our frustration with failing to solve such things – again, no matter how trivial. We play games all the time, and only a few of them tie into other survival traits.

Given this, it’s easy to see that finding something interesting within math can lead one to suspect (or hope, perhaps) that they’d found some solution, something meaningful, perhaps even a new trait of physics or of the universe itself. It does not help that mathematical proofs do not have to apply to anything real or predict anything – they just have to “add up,’ as it were. Nice and neat. These traits might also help explain why there’s such a thing as ‘chaos theory‘ despite the fact that there is no application and no actual predictions from such. In contrast, most of the hard sciences don’t even mess about with proof; instead, weight is given to the evidence that exists and supports any particular idea, and most especially, how well it predicts future findings. It’s rarely nice and neat, and very often goes through modifications when dictated by the evidence we find in the real world.

There’s a distinction here, a difference that I think escapes attention far too often. Mathematics can be used to express many ideas, including most of physics. Indeed, we don’t have any other way to explain these if we didn’t use it. But that means it’s a tool, just like language itself. The universe doesn’t care about the numbers, doesn’t even know what they are, doesn’t have the concept of knowing. It just has properties. And while we may hope to gain insight into further properties by applying our knowledge of ratios, this can only work if they exist to begin with. Yet we can only know that if we skip the axioms and find the supporting evidence – math alone cannot dictate or fulfill our knowledge.

In some cases, a hammer is the right tool for the job, but this does not extrapolate to being appropriate for every job, despite anyone’s wishes or any proverbs which insist that it should.

Ya got a dime?

Al DenelsbeckLeave a comment

Hang onto it, because you’ll need it in a moment.

Towards dusk, The Girlfriend and I were next to the liriope patches alongside the walk when I spotted movement. Expecting an anole, because of course (they do own the property,) instead I found a micro-subject that The Girlfriend was astonished by. I went to get something to capture it within while she kept her eyes on it, and luckily it remained in place and actually wasn’t too hard to capture. Well, I mean, for someone as experienced as I…

The photos proved a little harder, since my subject was disinclined to use the plant that I gathered for a natural setting, instead hopping around several portions of the bathroom. I always do small active subjects in the bathroom, since it’s small and relatively clean and uncluttered, making it easier to spot and recapture escaping subjects. But this means we only have shots of it on the acrylic sheet covering the sink, or my finger:

unidentified juvenile frog on author's finger
This is among the smallest of the frogs that I’ve seen and photographed, about half the size of your pinky nail. It clearly seems to be a juvenile, perhaps only days away from tadpoledom, which means identifying it is next to impossible, since none of the adult characteristics have developed yet. I think I’ve narrowed it down to two possible species, based on what few markings there are. Note the faint stripe passing through the eye but not continuing past the shoulder, no visible eardrum, and the lack of back markings, which we see better here:

unmarked back of unidentified juvenile frog
So my choices right now are the ubiquitous spring peeper (Pseudacris crucifer,) or the never-before-spotted little grass frog (Pseudacris ocularis.) While I’m favoring the peeper solely because we have oodles of them here, there are a few reasons to suspect the little grass frog. Peepers have distinctive back markings, though I can’t vouch for how quickly they develop. But peepers are also quite a bit larger than this, and twice the length of the grass frogs. Again, this one was tiny:

unidentified juvenile frog perched on US dime coin
This is why you needed the dime, so you could directly see the scale. Eentsy. But the other thing that makes me lean away from the grass frog is that their noses are pointier than this – again, maybe not at this age.

I snuck the millimeter scale into the shot too, for a more universal comparison.

unidentified juvenile frog on US dime alongside millimeter scale
Under 10mm in body length; an adult grass frog would be a few millimeters longer, but a peeper close to three times this. Any herpetologists that want to chime in, I’m not stopping you.

I returned my subject to the liriope, but dinner was ready so I couldn’t try any shots there. When I returned later, I couldn’t find it again – not surprising, though for a moment I mistook a beetle for my subject. While out, however, I wandered around checking for other subjects.

unidentified katydid nymph on liriope blade
This unidentified katydid nymph was perched on a blade of liriope, and might have made a meal for the tiny frog except I honestly think it was too big, perhaps 3/4 (or more) the length of the frog itself – not counting those antennae of course. The cropping was intentional – I like working the corners…

large pale specimen of southern toad Anaxyrus terrestris
This is a southern toad (Anaxyrus terrestris,) a pale and large specimen, and as such probably massing a hundred times the tiny frog – I’m not exaggerating. This one was hanging out near the greenhouse where I was hearing (among many other things) a Copes grey treefrog calling – it’s actually a huge night for amphibian calls out there right now. The treefrog wouldn’t let me get any pics, and even this one hopped away quickly while I was trying for the portrait. I suppose word that I’m liable to capture them and restrict them to a bathroom for a bit gets around quickly…

The butterfly bush has been in full bloom, and I’ve been checking carefully since the flowers are a favorite haunt of crab spiders. No sign of those, but I did see another type suspended near a bloom cluster.

unidentified likely orb weaver stringing web from flowers of butterfly bush Buddleja davidii
Another unidentified specimen, but likely an orb weaver at least, and this one would have been a decent meal for the tiny frog, and probably ignored entirely by the toad, being smaller than its eye. Speaking of eyes, there’s the barest hint of a white reflection from one of the spider’s own, if you look closely. I even captured that from my next subject too.

juvenile black and yellow argiope Argiope aurantia on web strung from porcelain berry Ampelopsis glandulosa vines
The spiders are still small yet, so this black-and-yellow argiope (Argiope aurantia) was nowhere near the impressive size it could reach in late summer, as long as it escapes the attention of predators. Probably about 10mm in body length, but quite obvious with the typical ‘scribbling’ in the web. This was on the porcelain berry vine (Ampelopsis glandulosa,) that we provided with a trellis late last year and it took to it this spring with enthusiasm, so hopefully I’ll have some colorful subjects to work with later in the year.

Okay, back to sorting…

Tip Jar 22: Condensation

Al DenelsbeckLeave a comment

Quick one this week – I think I mentioned someplace that I’ve been a little busy, and so too little time to prepare with images and so on. However, we’re just entering into the season for this in roughly half of the US, while the northernmost portions might see very little application of this advice, and the southernmost may have already been dealing with it. There are also times when it applies in entirely opposite conditions, too. So let’s deal with condensation.

Basic premise: If the humidity is anything above very dry and the temperature of your camera equipment, specifically the lenses, is significantly below the ambient air, condensation will form on the glass very quickly. Usually, this is from the equipment sitting within an air-conditioned house or car long enough to reach the same temperature, and then suddenly being exposed to the much-hotter summer outdoors. However, this can also happen when entering a hot and humid environment such as a rainforest or butterfly enclosure, or a greenhouse (or, actually, a busy kitchen.) But then, it can also happen in the winter, when the equipment has been outside enough to get significantly chilled, and then enters the average indoor temperatures. Having your lenses all foggy means you’re not going to get pics of much of anything until it clears, but worse, if this gets into the camera body itself, there’s a chance for both electronic trouble and actual damage, though such circumstances are rare.

The solution? Never expose your equipment to significant temperature differences. Though at times this is not only impossible, it completely ignores that we intend to be taking photographs at these temperatures. So, how to handle them?

Leave the lens cap on until the lens is well warmed up. This will take several minutes, as in, perhaps twenty or more. Do not take it off real quick ‘just to check’ – there’s no such thing as fast enough not to have the adverse effects. At times, if you’re in an environment with forced air (like a butterfly house,) you might be able to find the blower exhaust and leave the camera within the air flow to speed up the process, but the key is, the lens barrel does not feel even a little chilly when you handle it. Then it may be okay to check.

Take the equipment out of the bag. This is for going from air-conditioning to higher ambient temps. Camera bags are padded, which means insulated, and it can take an hour or better for the warmer air to bring the contents up to ambient.

By the way, I’ve tried warming the lens barrels in my hands, and it didn’t seem to significantly decrease the wait times, certainly not half as much as the suggestion below.

Use the sun. If you have direct sunlight, even through glass, place the camera and lens there to shorten the warmup time. This is the nice thing about them almost always being black – they absorb the heat from sunlight better. Monitor this, though – you never want your equipment in sunlight long enough to get hot, since this can also be damaging, especially by causing lubricant within the lens (for focus and zoom rings) to get thin and runny. Again, expensive repairs (or outright replacement.)

Do not switch lenses. Especially with another that’s been sitting in the bag, even after your primary one has warmed up. Condensation on the interior lens elements can take a very long time to clear, and stands the chance of leaving behind residue that is very hard (expensive) to clean.

Probably leave the battery (and film) doors closed too. Generally, the outside shell of the camera is resistant to ambient humidity, but not when any access doors are opened. The chances of getting so much humidity within that it damages anything is slim, but why take chances? A few minutes wasted is better than several hundred dollars worth of equipment or cleaning fees.

Ah, hell, we didn’t wait long enough. Or we didn’t expect the humidity to be high enough, or we simply forgot. Now the lens is all fogged up. Now what?

We still have to wait. It’s not going to remain clear, even if we wipe it away, until the temperatures have come closer to matching. Wiping isn’t recommended, for two reasons. First, this always takes the chance of scratching the lens with something coarse that we didn’t realize was present, and even if we use a blower of some kind to try and get rid of this, the moisture may be sufficient to keep it in place on the glass. Second, any cloths soft enough to use on lenses, like microfibers, aren’t terribly absorbent, and may push around as much moisture as they absorb.

Worse, they can also collect the moisture into droplets, and if there was anything other than pure water in the air, this takes the chance that residue gets left behind in spots, rather than carrying away as the lens dries naturally. Then we still have to clean the lens.

No, lens pens and the like do not work. They don’t absorb enough, so we’re only pushing the moisture around. Concentrated droplets take longer to evaporate than a light fog, so this may actually lengthen our wait times.

Blot, don’t wipe. If we have to try and clear things quickly, a very clean cotton cloth works better, because they absorb more. Just hold them against the glass and let them absorb, without wiping – it’s safest that way.

Fans again. Moving air is best for temperature exchange and evaporation – this is also best if our equipment got a little too damp from an unexpected rainstorm, or our bags got wet. Put them in the airflow and let them sit for a bit. The wetter, the longer.

Do not leave equipment in even damp bags – this is notorious for driving humidity deep into camera equipment. Take everything out and dry the bags thoroughly, at least overnight – the longer the better.

Can we save ourselves the hassle, and prepare ahead of time? Possibly, but probably not significantly. Leaving the loaded bags outside in a sheltered area, like on the screened porch or at least under an overhang and out of direct sunlight, for about an hour should bring the equipment up to the ambient temperatures. Leaving the A/C off in the car and having the windows open while we’re on the way can work. Not having the indoors A/C set as cold. But most times, we just have to be patient. And believe me, there have been plenty of times that I was rushing out to try and get some particular shot, to get nothing while I sat there fanning the lens madly to clear the condensation.

So, know the hazards, and what not to do at least. Good luck!

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