I went out again a bit earlier to see if I could spot, and potentially photograph, Comet 12P/Pons-Brooks, supposed to be visible as twilight fades after sunset. Coming in at just under magnitude 6, which is about the minimum to spot unaided, I knew it was too faint for the light pollution in this area, but perhaps I could snag it with a slightly long exposure at high ISO? I plotted the rough location
Category: Astronomy
Not on the NWP front
What do you mean, “What’s ‘NWP’ stand for?” It’s short for ‘Nature/Wildlife Photography,’ for dog’s sake! Don’t you even text?
But what I’m saying is that, despite the lack of posts, I’ve been busy, just not with… you got it now. I have a handful of photos from earlier, and two from last night nothing
These might work
Just so you know, Thursday (February 22nd) is National Wildlife Day, so call in sick that day and go find wildlife, even if it’s captive wildlife in a zoo or nature park or something, but preferably really and for true in the wild, which means outdoors. Now, c’mon – how many of your coworkers failed to show up the day after Super Bowl or some such rot?
Too cool, part 52: Falcon transit
The latest ‘Too Cool’ entry comes from Astronomy Picture of the Day again, but wonder of wonders, it’s not a composite edited photo – I was starting to think this was a requirement for them. Instead, this is a carefully planned and timed shot, one that took a lot more effort than it might first appear.
Half again
Yes, today is that very special day, but only right here in this imaginary, electron-supported environment known as the blogoblob, because it’s the 15th anniversary of the first post on Walkabout. Imagine that! And this is the 2,750th post therein, which is why this past month or so has been overtaken by dross. I regret nothing
Nowhere to go but up
As of now – like, right now, as this posts (which is 10:27 PM local, or 03:27 UTC tomorrow) – we have passed the December solstice, and the days are getting longer again, for those of us in the northern hemisphere. The daylight hours, anyway – we’ve been through all
Utterly robbed
My calendar has been reminding me of the Geminids meteor shower for the past week or so, which was due to peak overnight last night, but the temperatures have dropped significantly for the past week as well. Since the Geminids are touted to be one of the better showers and we had nice clear skies, I finally got motivated to bundle up, go out, and try.
And indeed, it was a notably active shower, more
Too cool, part 51: Enki Catena
I still routinely check out Astronomy Picture of the Day, even though I’ve come to personally call it the Photoshop of the Day because the number of edited images are now surpassing the unaltered ones – virtually all of those showing starfields over landscapes, certainly. But yesterday’s deserves
Why, yes – yes I did
I don’t know why I did, because the results were as expected, but I made the attempt again early this morning to capture some meteors. It was, at least, quite clear.
Not a glimmer of shooting star in there anywhere, nor did I see any no matter where I looked. So I boosted ISO to 6400 and just did some night sky exposures of this nature – but this is the funny thing:
Not a mighty roar
Well, it’s the Leonids meteor shower again, or at least the time for it, and since the skies looked pretty clear when I checked, I did a quick trip down to the lake to see what I could capture. However, once I got down there, the clouds rolling in were quite evident, especially well to the southwest as seen here. Still, the skies above were clear, and I re-aimed for a wider