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.
Category: Video
Cleaning out the fridge
I mentioned earlier that I might do this, and you’d hoped that I wouldn’t, I know, but here it is anyway because I’m sadistic. In sorting video clips, I realized I had a handful (well, 25) that I’d been pleased to get – they just weren’t enough to justify editing and uploading, and while I’d waited to see if I’d get some more to make a complete
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
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
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
Wait, we’re one short!
I had said earlier that, after an auspicious start, I thought I could do a post for every day of October, and had intended to post this one yesterday, so the month end abstract would bring us up to the full 31 posts this morning. Alas, the day at work yesterday was horrendous, running quite late, and I was exhausted and actually in pain when I got home late yesterday afternoon,
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
More luck than normal
It had been a while since I’d spent any time at all at the nearby pond, so the other afternoon I wandered over to see what could be found. Right off the bat, I could see a great egret (Ardea alba) hanging out at the nearest edge, about where the green herons had been hunting earlier. Pausing well back where I wouldn’t spook it, I affixed the long lens and began
Herons all the way down
The other morning Buggato and I did a photo outing to the head of the Neuse River in Raleigh, an area called ‘Falls of the Neuse’ even though the falls have been replaced by a dam and spillway now. We hadn’t been down there in a while, and figured this was a decent time, but hadn’t counted on the flow being higher than normal, which prevented wading across to other photo
Money well spent
… or at least, so far. I doubt I’ll be regretting it.
The Girlfriend and I take the kayaks out every once in a while, so far only on Jordan Lake (though they’ve been out at both North Topsail Island, NC and Murrell’s Inlet, SC,) and the biggest frustration that I have with this – still admittedly minor – is that I have no decent way of capturing images or video