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
Category: Astronomy
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
On this date 47
Just four (well, four-ish) this time – could have had a lot more, because I’ve shot plenty on this date, but some were repetitive, and some have already been featured in posts. We’ll start with 2003.
At this point in time, I was living in Florida but up visiting with Jim Kramer for a week, while he still lived in North Carolina. This was playing around
Tell me why…
… I get up to things like this.
So, okay, I got two different detailed photos of a gibbous moon, one waxing, one waning, taken 10 days apart. And of course, at different heights in the sky, so angled differently, as shown here in the original orientations.
Now, some landmarks. If you look at the left version, there is a dark almost-circular, almost-centered spot in the visible
Showers and ‘shopping
Two things to mention here, real quick-like now.
First, we are approaching the peak of the Leonids meteor shower, in two days, but you may be able to go out at any time in the next week or so and see something – the moon will be dark, so if you have clear skies in your area, give it a shot. The worst that can happen is you get horribly slaughtered by the Meteor Shower Murderer,
Ah, what the hell
I know we just did some moon stuff a few days back, and we also just had (or are about to have, if I finish this post before the other hits its schedule) a lot of B&W images, but I liked this clip and had to share.
After playing around a bit, I angled the camera to align with the diagonal direction of travel for the moon, aiming slightly above it to let it come into the frame
Some more experiments
During an outing yesterday, Buggato asked if I was going to chase any moon shots in the next few nights, and I shrugged and said, “Maybe.” I had some experiments to try, but the past several nights the humidity and haze were affecting things too much.
Going out after 11 PM, however, I saw the moon was showing as deep contrast as I’ve ever seen, evidence of a good clear night, so
Consistency is important, so I hear
Hey! You know what’s coming up again within the next few days? That’s right – the Orionids meteor shower.
You know what I’m going to get no worthwhile images of at all? By the most astounding of coincidences, it’s also the Orionids meteor shower.
It’s not like I don’t try, but between work schedules, weather, temperature, and just plain motivation, I only
Because Tuesday follows Monday
Back indeed, with the animated gif (pronounced, “GAL-eh-fray”) that I wanted to include, because it shows better this way. I tweaked the colors to come close to matching, and while it might seem that I didn’t line them up well enough, I think we’re actually seeing the libration between the two shooting sessions, the wobble that the moon performs as it orbits the Earth and
Because it’s Monday (part two, fer sure)
As threatened, I have the next phase of the moon, appearing on the same day as the previous phase, being shot at a little after 11 pm. You can compare it to the previous post to see the reduced amount of light, but, given that it was lower on the horizon and the atmospheric conditions were different, there’s a different color cast. Plus I think I may have had saturation settings