The eclectic humor/cheesecake website theCHIVE is part of my routine, and it’s where I collect humor and memes to harass my friends acquaintances with. They have a couple of daily galleries, one of which being Daily Afternoon Randomness, and
Category: Astronomy
Equinox moon
Yes, it’s the autumnal equinox, that particular day when half of the moon is illuminated by the sun. Let’s have a look, shall we?
What, you were expecting to see a half-sphere, first quarter moon? I said half of it was illuminated, but that doesn’t mean we’re in a position to see it from Earth. I mean, half of the moon is illuminated when it’s
Ah, but the moon!
Buggato has, several times, avowed that he was going to be up, having fun shooting sunrise, while I had to go into work, but somehow I never see any sunrise pics on his blog. Odd, that. But this morning, up far earlier than intended, I had my chance. Only thing is, the sky is perfectly clear and thus rotten conditions for sunrise, which needs humidity and for preference scattered high-level clouds
Another alert
In the next couple of nights, the Perseids meteor shower is supposed to be peaking, and of course, I say this with a certain fatalism, because my personal history of meteor showers is pretty disappointing: one fantastic shower,
On this date 29
July 15th seems to have been a slow photography day throughout the range of my digital stock, for unknown reasons, so we have only two for this week’s post, and both from the same day at that, in 2013. I can’t remember where I was when I shot the female dark phase eastern tiger swallowtail (Papilio glaucus) above, and have never tried to identify the flower
Needs something
One of my background projects, along with everything else that I’ve been involved with in the past couple of weeks, has been the attempt to capture images of comet C/2020 F3, mostly known as NEOWISE, which has been visible just before dawn for large portions of the northern hemisphere, and recently moved into being visible after sunset as well. The views are to the north, roughly at 30°
Another try
So, Monday night I went down to the lake to try again on those focus and tracking tests. The light was again ideal, only this time, it remained that way until the sun disappeared behind the trees. Unfortunately, I saw even fewer birds than before. I may be partially to blame here, since we’re now past nesting season and the adults have much less to do with no babies to feed.
Almost totally dry
So, I went out Monday night/Tuesday morning to try and catch something for the Lyrids meteor shower that we are currently undergoing. For once, we had ideal conditions, or as ideal as I can possibly achieve in this location: no moon, clear skies, and I traveled down to Jordan Lake to get the darkest skies possible within, oh, thirty kilometers or so (which isn’t all that dark,
This week needs some restraint
There’s a bunch of stuff going on this week that you should already be absolutely aware of and I could avoid posting entirely, but just in case…
This entire week is the Lyrids meteor shower, peaking around Tuesday but hey, meteor
What makes it special
On this date, we remember the man from above, the carpenter’s son who changed the world for all humankind and brought in a whole new culture, outlook, and future by his selfless actions, regardless of how anyone personally feels about it within circles that somehow dismiss his presence. So today, let’s all keep him in our hearts, and strive to emulate the courage and convictions of