Mixed luck

Widely mixed, even.

So Buggato and I had another outing yesterday, once again to Jordan Lake because, while plants are indeed budding out around here, full bloom is a ways off meanwhile, we’re keeping an eye on bird activity at the lake. And in some cases, it was active.


While seeing double-crested cormorants (Nannopterum auritum) is fairly easy down there, yesterday read more

This doesn’t count


I did manage to set aside a little time to pursue some photos for National Wildlife Day but the wildlife was not cooperating very well at all – mostly what I got were some lackluster photos of solitary cormorants. And the images here are about as far removed from wildlife as possible, definitionally and linearly, but I saw this in the sky and had to grab the tripod to fire read more

This is not a comet


It’s probably not too far from what I would have captured if I tried, admittedly, and the intention was to try, just a little later on. This came Friday night, when I stepped out to check conditions and decided to shoot the first-quarter (“half”) moon real quick. This is not the first-quarter moon either, but the [ahem] ‘dagger’ in read more

Too cool, part 50: Hey sis!

Star formation is a long-drawn-out process, which we know from both basic physics and actually seeing it happening in telescopic views, though we can’t see change in real time. Gases and dust have to be pretty thick in some region of space, molecular clouds to provide the raw materials, which gradually coalesce under combined gravity and with the help of Core-Collapse Supernovae (CCSN,) which read more

More than six

A lot more. Ahhh…


With the sky bright but showing some hazy clouds and the first full moon of the year about to rise, I decided that I needed an outing, and headed down to (of course) Jordan Lake. There’s a spot on the causeway where both moonrise and sunset can be seen easily, so the only switching that I’d have to do would be, at worst, sides of the road. But read more

Living in the past IIX (or is it VIII?)

You know, why use four digits when you can use three? I never understood that convention for Roman numerals, but then again, Arabic doesn’t make any sense either – they’re just what we’ve been taught.

Anyway, another from 2012, and it wouldn’t be hard to figure out the exact date.


There was a lot of media attention regarding the transit of Venus in front read more

Living in the past I

I noticed in passing that the post count was at 2,470 at the end of last month, which meant that I could reach 2,500 posts at the end of the year – if I did better than I have been. I wasn’t worried about it – I’d prefer to post regarding content rather than arbitrary numbers – but then this afternoon I realized how I could meet this goal and have a bit of read more

Visibly different, part 47

This one was inspired when I was going through the folders and realized I had a counterpart that was just done recently (like, since the last Visibly Different post.) We start back in October 2009.


Part of the reasoning behind this was wanting a portrait of myself to use for promotional purposes, only not serious ones – I’m never going to be a realtor so I don’t read more

Pfeh

So not only did I get out to view the ‘peak’ of the Leonids meteor shower on Thursday night/Friday morning, I returned on Friday night/Saturday morning for the predicted surge. Though you wouldn’t know it in the slightest – yeah, it was that bad. The first night was notably cold, dropping below freezing, which I realize doesn’t hold a candle to some northern weather read more

One of these days…

… I’ll feel justified in making this yearly post.

If you’re checking out that sidebar where it shows what posted around this date on previous years, you may notice a pattern: we’re coming up on the peak of the Leonids meteor shower, which may be visible all throughout November but reaches maximum activity on the 17th/18th. More or less, anyway – they’re read more

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