Normally, I avoid the ‘popular’ news items (or, for that matter, nearly all news items) because frankly, there are enough sources for such out there and I certainly don’t need to offer my two pfennigs, much less jump on any bandwagon, and I have established my own typical subject matter herein anyway – stay in your lane, kind of thing. At this point in time, however, the
Category: Astronomy
Visibly different, part 54
Okay, not all that visibly different, really, but it’s not my fault.
We begin with the full moon at 10:12 PM EDT last night.
“Last night” being a little over five hours ago, but basically, before the start of the penumbral lunar eclipse – use 02:12 UTC 03/25/24 if you like. Yes, there was a lunar eclipse this morning (actually, it’s still going on as
A night without success
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
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