So the Industrious Mr Bugg and I actually had two outings this week, in abject denial of the season and the bare fact that there really isn’t much at all to chase, photographically. Thus this is more proof of making the effort, and not something that’s gonna rock anyone’s world. Right now we’re going to deal with only the first outing back on Tuesday, down to Jordan Lake.
Category: Astronomy
Real quick now
Trying to slam this story out before the date changes – wish me luck!
So, in checking out Stellarium earlier (a couple of times, actually,) I noticed that there were a few satellite passes that would appear to cross the still-slightly-crescent moon, one of which would trace right across the crescent itself from side to side, as long as I was in a particular location. Since this wasn’t
A valiant effort
Well, okay, you’ll probably have to be the judge of that…
A few days back, in the previous post, I mentioned that the rising moon the next day would be this itsy-bitsy little crescent, a mere 0.6% illuminated, preceding the sunrise by a little over 20 minutes. I also mentioned that the weather here wasn’t amenable to pursuing it.
In the interim (within a day, really,) the moon became
Too cool, part 45: Lunation libration animation
I’ve mentioned, many times, the curious wobble of the moon known as libration, and of course the different features and details you can see when photographing anything other than a completely full moon. Now, courtesy of Astronomy Picture of the Day comes a wicked animation of it, with lots of additional details.
Auspicious?
So yeah, my first post of the new year is gonna be a trivial one, and I’ll let you read into that whatever you like, because I know it’s mostly due to a lack of available time. I have a few things planned or in process, but they’ll be a little while in coming.
Right now, I’ll tell you that the Quadrantids meteor shower is peaking tonight – I should have been along with
On this date 53
As further evidence of my poor planning about this time a year ago, the normal weekly entry for the ‘On This Date’ posts would be tomorrow, but as I look at my spreadsheet for December 30th I find that (as far as my annotated, digital images go anyway,) I’ve shot nothing. Not a sausage. Hell of a finalé, eh? Ah, well – see you next year.
Nah, I can’t let it go at that.
Gave it a try
Yes, I did indeed get out to view the conjunction of Jupiter and Saturn yesterday evening – for what it was worth. I can tell you right now, there are better efforts out there, with better, more dedicated equipment (and probably no small amount of digital “enhancement,” or “compositing,” or as most people call it, “photoshopping.”) I knew how challenging
A correction: Not even a whisker
Back on November 18th, I posted about going out early that morning to try and snag some of the Leonids meteor shower that was peaking then, and successfully capturing a couple. But a few days after that post as I was sorting the images, I looked closely at a few of them
Too cool, part 43: Something for the solstice
Not only are we going to cross the line on December 21st with the winter solstice, so the days start getting longer thereafter, but we’re going to have an interesting conjunction visible in the early evening sky. Courtesy of Astronomy Picture of the Day (among numerous other sources
On this day (a whisker of success)
In the previous post, I mentioned attempting in vain to capture any of the Leonid meteors nine years ago, ending with, “Leave it to me to chase meteors on the colder nights…” And since it was 4°C at 4 AM this morning, guess what I decided to attempt again?
The primary difference being, this time I was moderately successful!
But first off, the false alarm.
I saw a
