Not a long time but, you know, a long time

Al Denelsbeck

So this isn’t really a proper holiday today, but we’re celebrating it all the same, and by “we” I mean, “The Girlfriend and I,” though you’re welcome to celebrate it too if you like. I can finally break the big news that has been brewing for a while and announce that Walkabout Estates is now in a new location!

Actually, we wouldn’t be anywhere near as far along if we’d actually moved Walkabout Estates – I’m not even sure how you’d go about that; how deep do you dig? But we’ve moved the various accoutrements that we had gathered within the old Walkabout Estates and shifted them to a new house – bigger, better, cooler, and so on. And part of that coolness was hinted at with last month’s holiday, because we have our own pond now! That was actually the factor that held off the closing date (which was scheduled then) because the deed to the pond was not perfectly clean and tidy, and had to be remedied. That’s done now – in fact, it’s been done for over a week, but we’re still in the process of moving in, much less getting things established how we want them. It’s likely even worse than I’m letting on, because this was written in advance and I don’t think we even have internet out there, uh, here, yet.

Plenty more will be coming, with undoubtedly a lot of new photos because we’ve already seen enough examples to believe this is going to be a productive place for such – you would have had some right now, except that I’ve barely had the camera in hand for the past couple of weeks. But for now, posts may still be a bit sparse – we really have far too much shit and it will be a while before it’s all in reasonable order, to the point where I don’t feel guilty chasing photos or writing posts instead of unpacking boxes and moving furniture.

Meanwhile, we’re taking suggestions on pond names, because it doesn’t appear to have one. Don’t go thinking you can poll bomb and get through some damn thing like, “Swampy McSwampface,” because The Girlfriend and I are the final arbiters, but if you manage to impress us enough that we adopt your suggestion, we’ll be sure to send something your way. In the meantime, we’ll be back up to speed here as soon as it’s feasible.

Plans to be a postal carrier

Al Denelsbeck

Early the other morning I went past the Japanese maple that has been hosting the newborn Carolina anole (Anolis carolinensis,) only it had been misty-raining overnight and I didn’t really expect to see the little lizard, since the species seems quite sensitive about rain – I’ve spooked them for cover on hot days when I just played the mist sprayer across them, and this is when they should have been most appreciative of it (the mantids certainly are.) But this guy, who’s been on the same small tree so regularly and far longer than I’ve ever seen an anole remain in one chosen sleeping spot, had to prove me wrong:

newborn Carolina anole Anolis carolinensis sleeping on Japanese ample leaf during misty rain
It should be noted that the rain did not drop the temperature more than a couple of degrees and it was still quite comfortable out there, at least if you ignored the humidity. I didn’t really have the chance to do more than a couple of frames, and to be honest, you’re kind of lucky to be seeing this now – I’ll explain more in a few days. I still like this capture from a few years ago better, but this one is certainly wetter – probably doubled its weight with all that water.

Pretty soon, by the way, I expect to have a few new charges to be chasing photographically, so don’t go away – the game is afoot, as some drug addict was known to say, which may explain why it’s such a really odd phrase when you think about it.

Walkabout recommends: 1941

Al Denelsbeck

All right, it’s time to get controversial, because the movie we’re recommending here is widely regarded as a flop, a failure, unfunny, and on and on; moreover, it’s by Steven Spielberg, which makes it almost personally offensive to many people. Yet I have to say, I saw it when it first came out in 1979, and have watched it frequently ever since, and I have never seen the slightest justification of these views. Star Wars did not hold up half as well for me as the years wore on, but this one does. To a very large extent, far too many people are influenced by what critics say, and I’m convinced that a large amount of the ill-will this movie engenders is exactly because of this, repeated ad nauseum, and I’d be fine if I could see any of the points that the nay-sayers try to make, but I can’t.

original promotional foldout poster for the movie 1941
The movie is 1941, a comedy starring a ridiculously large cast of notable actors; top billing is held by John Belushi and Dan Aykroyd of course, fresh from their Saturday Night Live days but before The Blues Brothers came out, though included within the cast are Robert Stack, Ned Beatty, Nancy Allen, Treat Williams, Dianne Kay, Warren Oates, Frank McRae, John Candy, Eddie Deezen, and many more… and then we have Slim Pickens, Toshirô Mifune, and Christopher Lee in there! And I can’t say that any one of them gave a bad performance – granted, it’s comedy, so believable characters aren’t the byword here. The style is just this side of slapstick, yet there is no mugging, no playing to the camera/audience, no tongue-in-cheek asides – the situations and dialogue are definitely warped, but the delivery is perfectly serious and deadpan.

The movie is set in the Los Angeles/Hollywood area just a few days after the bombing of Pearl Harbor, as war tensions were quickly giving way to paranoia. The residents are split between preparing for war, possibly an attack on the US mainland, and going on about their lives as before – some more than others. But a series of events begins to escalate the tension, and imaginations start running wilder, and this all builds towards a culmination where no one within really has any idea what’s actually happening. And here, writers Robert Zemeckis and Bob Gale demonstrate a lot of effort, because many of the factors within the film are historical; they are based on true events, though these were spaced out much more than the film portrays. Racial bias was very distinct in those days, and the riots between servicemen and Latin ‘zoot suiters’ were actual events, while anti-aircraft emplacements were strewn along the California coastline… and Hollywood really was originally named, “Hollywoodland.” Most notable, however, were two actual events from February 1942, on successive nights even: a Japanese sub shelling an oil refinery on the coastal town of Ellwood, California, and the following night, the infamous “Battle of Los Angeles;” it is quite clear that Zemeckis and Gale modeled much of the movie, and the entire third act, on these two bits of history (right down to the reports of a plane crashing on the streets of Hollywood.) Unfortunately, neither event is very well known and thus the comparison, and the fact that the movie is far less fictional than it first appears, often goes unnoticed.

This is an aspect of the movie that deserves some attention: almost none of the actions by most of the characters are out of the realm of human behavior – impulsive or compulsive, certainly, but it’s more the consequences that get out of hand rather than anyone directly producing the wayward results. It’s only Wild Bill Kelso (John Belushi) and General Maddox (Warren Oates) that are truly unhinged, and Maddox only has an effect when he comes in trivial contact with Kelso. Everyone else merely suffers from bad judgment or bad timing – it’s the confluence of events that causes the denouement to be so chaotic, while the individual factors therein can easily happen – and often have (see the link for the Battle of Los Angeles again.)

Despite being based on actual events, more or less, there is only one character that is named and based on a real person: General Joseph Stillwell, played by Robert Stack. And despite his out-of-character delight at the movie Dumbo, he is the lone rational player in the entire ensemble, repeatedly steering the others within his influence back on track almost effortlessly. This is exemplified when speaking to an officer over the phone regarding the air raid that was taking place:

Stillwell: Has anyone in your command seen these Zeros?

Officer: No sir – but we’re shooting at them.

Stillwell: Now I want you to think about something: Bombs! I don’t hear any bombs! If they’re up there, if they came all the way from Asia, don’t you think they’d bring a few bombs along?

Officer: I don’t know, sir, but…

Stillwell: But nothing! You can’t have an air raid without bombs!

This minor exchange is the epitome of critical thinking – not even intended as amusing, but still a favorite of mine just for that.

[The actual Stillwell, it must be noted, had nothing to do with units in or around southern California.]

As mentioned earlier, this film also possesses what is likely my favorite soundtrack of any movie, adeptly composed by none other than John Williams, and yes, it’s even better than the Star Wars films, because those stood alone. Here, Williams had to incorporate the feel and sounds of the era, from the tensions of post-Pearl-Harbor California past the triumphant military themes to the Big Band dance competition, and the choreography of the dance/chase/fight scene is exemplary. At the same time, numerous shots and framings are intentionally reminiscent of the popular films from that time period; as the hero and ingenue kiss atop the tank, the turret spins them around as the camera crane pulls up for the long shot.

The film was intended as a spectacle, as the movie poster implies, yet this was well before CGI, so the effects are all practical, large sets and models for much of it, and well done overall. Sure, the sharp-eyed IMDB fanatic will pick out small issues here and there, but there is little to take one out of the moment, and wherever possible, real vehicles and life-size sets are used – and, destroyed (it’s a war movie, after all.) And yet for all that, Spielberg, Zemeckis, and Gale included a specific, small detail: despite lots of destruction, no one dies or is even injured, save for perhaps The Dummy. At the very end, two of the characters that were ‘lost at sea’ can be found at the edge of the scene.

There are additional small easter eggs. Not only is the opening sequence a satire of Jaws (which Spielberg needed no permission to do,) it uses the same actress; the same can be said for the gas station and the proprietor, both originally appearing in one of Spielberg’s first films, Duel. Wally (Bobby DiCicco) is ‘beckoned’ to take command of the tank crew by Sgt Tree (Dan Aykroyd) in a direct homage to the 1956 version of Moby Dick. I was even suspicious that the line from Herbie (Eddie Deezen,) “Safety bar? We don’t need no safety bar!” was intended to refer to The Treasure of the Sierra Madre and contacted Eddie Deezen about this, who graciously replied and admitted that he didn’t know, and that I should ask Bob Gale; I could find no way to do so and determine this for sure.

Admittedly, some of the humor is contrived, such as when the tank turns too early and crashes through two factories in appropriate succession, but even then, the effort that went into the throwaway gag is enormous, entertaining to watch just because of the staging. I also find myself hard-pressed to find a comedy movie from any era that is not contrived; bear in mind that Airplane! came out only a year later. But in comparison to offerings like American Pie and even Dumb and Dumber? Neither of those can hold a candle to this film, and both had multiple sequels. What gives?

Perhaps the biggest shortcoming of the movie is that there is no character for the viewer to identify with, no real hero or island in the sea of chaos, though Stillwell comes closest – he does little, but avoids getting roped into the morass through sound judgment at least. And at the same time, there are no real villains; the two prime candidates aren’t actually dangerous enough to count. So the emotional involvement of the viewer is only to be entertained by the events and satirical aspects – which the film has in abundance. It is better written and better produced, many times over, than the vast majority of comedies from the past two decades, but… one of the things that it lacks is strong, repeatable quotes, which perhaps prevents it from entering into the meme consciousness like other films.

All that said, if you haven’t seen it, give it a shot. And if you have, re-watch it with a fresh perspective. I will refund you your wasted time if you still find it lackluster. But if you consider it a bomb, well, that issue’s all your own.

Randoms

Al Denelsbeck

Just a couple of photos that don’t belong anywhere else – clearing out the blog folder a little.

unidentified taller mushroom
From back during the Eno River outing, I spotted this mushroom from better than 10 meters way, because it stood that tall – somewhere between 15 and 20 cm. I have no idea what it is, but it might be related to the image below from 2015.

unidentified mushroom with tatters
I just want to point out that both images benefited from getting right down to ground level, as well as a short depth-of-field and natural lighting. I didn’t have the opportunity for sidelighting for the top image, given the time of day, but it might have made the textures more dramatic – you can see the increased contrast on the tattered piece of the bottom image. You could possibly also achieve this with an off-camera flash, but at the risk of becoming too contrasty as well as dropping the background into darkness. Plus they’re mushrooms, so decide for yourself how much effort they’re worth in getting fartsy with.

Another, from the butterfly bushes at home.

likely juvenile blue dasher dragonfly Pachydiplax longipennis on butterfly bush Buddleja davidii
This is likely a juvenile blue dasher (Pachydiplax longipennis,) but that’s not important right now. What I want you to do is find the four wingtips.

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Give up yet? One of them is trying to hide, but you can see it if you look carefully. It’s the second from left, and extends down across part of the dried flowers. One edge, well out of focus, sits right alongside the edge of the first wing (again, from left.) Don’t be fooled by the wings on the other side, or the leg that bends sharply to grip the flower horizontally. This just shows you how short depth-of-field can get, because we’re only talking about 15-20mm from the defocused wingtip to the sharper body (and especially the opposite wing) of the dragonfly. You’re seeing the first wing, its companion, better because it’s virtually edge-on to the camera – it’s still well out of focus, but darker and more distinct from being ‘concentrated’ in one spot, rather than flat like the second wing.

Okay, sorry, I’ll work on better content shortly.

Just once, part 38

Al Denelsbeck

possible Mabee's salamander Ambystoma mabeei in studio setting
Today we have a Mabee’s salamander (Ambystoma mabeei,) likely. When I initially featured this one I was unsure if it was this species or one of the slimy salamanders that can be found in the region, because the markings are almost completely interchangeable. However, since that time I have handled a white-spotted slimy salamander, and it was incredibly sticky while also staining my skin, so I feel comfortable saying that this would have created an indelible memory had it occurred when I was photographing this specimen. So it’s a Mabee’s. Maybe.

Given that I’ve featured, to memory, four five different salamander species herein, and the other three four were distinctive, I can firmly claim that, whatever it is, it hasn’t appeared here more than once before anyway. Go ahead, prove me wrong.

possibly Mabee's salmander Ambystoma mabeei placed on leaf for detail
This was intentionally over-exposed to bring out the skin detail, given that the flash unit that I was using at the time was too direct and contrasty, so the dark areas tended to be really dark. It was images like this that prompted me to develop macro softboxes, which helped tremendously, but then I didn’t get such good specimens to experiment with for a while. And of course, when I had the aforementioned slimy salamander on hand, I wasn’t carrying the softbox – listen, if I took along all of my various photo accoutrements to each outing I’d need two porters.

If you know anything at all about salamanders, you know the bottom photo isn’t very convincing of a ‘natural’ shot – they don’t tend to scamper across leaves in bushes, like, at all. The top shot is a bit better, but they’re both studio images – see the bit about ‘porters.’ I brought this one home to do the detailed images, and released it back where it was found later on. Getting nice profile shots of something nestled into rotting wood pulp underneath a log is pretty demanding on location. Oh, I can do it, I’m just lazy.

Miss Monday Monochrome?

Al Denelsbeck

It’s been a while, hasn’t it? I’ve had a couple of images set aside for this purpose, and just added a few more. Let’s see what we have now.

channel-mixed version of Gatsby Mansion abstract
The color version can be found here, but in this case, after converting to individual color channels, I reduced the topmost Red channel to 50% opacity over the underlying Green. Sometimes any one channel is too contrasty, or lacks details that another has, so mixing them in this manner can occasionally produce a useful blend of elements.

Another from the same trip:

osprey Pandion haliaetus silhouetted against high-contrast skin, channel-mixed monochrome
Same basic idea, but here, it was the Green channel reduced to 50% over the Blue, necessary to balance out the sun among the clouds – in the Blue channel, the sun was merely a partial disk with no flare, but the Green lacked contrast within the clouds.

green treefrog Dryophytes cinereus perched on stem, channel-mixed monochrome
This one was Red at only 25% opacity over the Green, mostly bringing out details that had little green within them.

And now for some more recent ones, without any blending.

dew on spiderwebs, strictly in Blue channel monochrome
As I was looking for candidates, there was no question that this had to be tried, since it was already pretty sharp in contrast to begin with. In this case, only the Blue channel was necessary. As usual, it produced a little blotchiness from the background, but so did the Red channel, and the Green made the background too bright, so here we are.

localized crepuscular rays within fog, Red channel monochrome
This is only the Red channel, with a slight tweak in contrast, but it’s cropped differently than the original, mostly to eliminate the foliage which became just an expanse of low-contrast darkness without detail – the Green channel would have improved this but then it reduced the contrast of the sun rays too much. The Blue channel, as is often the case, didn’t have much to contribute overall.

And now a curiosity from the same general subject.

Carolina anole Anolis carolinensis in Blue channel monochrome
The Blue channel held its own here, despite the prevalence of green from the color version – most especially, it highlighted the subtle spots on the skin behind the head onward, ones you might easily have said weren’t even there (I know I did.)

But then there’s this:

Carolina anole Anolis carolinensis sleeping, in Red channel monochrome
This time it’s the Red channel, and while those color variations were much more visible this time, they’re highlighted more in the monochrome version – well, you know what I mean. If you’d only seen this first, you might suspect that the color pattern on the anole was more varied than it really is.

So play around a bit, more than simply converting to greyscale – you might be surprised at what you can bring up. It doesn’t always work – I rejected as many as I included here – but sometimes you stumble upon a nice new variant to use.

Big honkin’ bird post

Al Denelsbeck

It’s been a few days since I got these, delayed partially by being busy (I keep saying that, and we’re close to finding out why) and partially because I knew it would take a while to write up the post. And I’m going to do things out of order because it’s better that way, maybe.

Once again, Jordan lake, but before the trip down to catch the ISS transiting the moon, which it never did. Well, I’m sure it did, if you were in the right spot, and we weren’t. And once again with Buggato too. One small section of woods was incredibly busy with bird life, noticeable only if you listened carefully and paid close attention, since most of it was from the smaller species.

tufted titmouse Baeolophus bicolor with acorn almost too large to handle
I wasn’t sure whether this tufted titmouse (Baeolophus bicolor) found this acorn in the end of a broken trunk, or brought it there, but it juggled the nut for no small amount of time in the apparent effort to lodge it securely enough to crack, which we never witnessed. If you’ve ever heard titmouses, they’re quite talkative, but not loudly, and a few of them were chattering away as this was going on.

Close by, a pair of downy woodpeckers (Dryobates pubescens) made an appearance, virtually silent except for very quite drilling.

female downy woodpecker Dryobates pubescens on pine trunk
Differentiated from the hairy woodpecker by their smaller size and shorter bill, it’s extremely easy to mistake one for the other, but I’ve only ever found the downy around here anyway. This female worked her way up a trunk subtly, spotted only when she flew over to it in the first place because those markings helped her blend in against the rough pine bark. After a minute or so, however, she was chased off by a male, for reasons unknown.

male downy woodpecker Dryobates pubescens on same tree
Key part here of course is the red MPB fringe, and with the sun largely behind the tree, this was the best lighting that we got (which woodpeckers also seem to exploit more often than not.) We worked our way around to the sunlit side of the copse of trees, and then of course few birds chose to show themselves. The American crows (Corvus brachyrhynchos) aren’t shy, however.

American crow Corvus brachyrhynchos sounding off from atop broken trunk
Perched in perhaps the most obvious spot in the whole woods, this one was calling enthusiastically, but not alarm calls – it simply seemed to be territorial, and this was bolstered by it taking over this spot from a red-headed woodpecker. The light angle worked for its jet-black plumage though.

Nearby, a green heron (Butorides virescens) was being shy and waiting for us to leave.

green heron Butorides virescens hiding in shadows on edge of water
Small and unobtrusive (for herons, anyway,) the greens can be hard to spot and even harder to get clear photos of; this one was giving us a run for the money, unwilling to leave its prime hunting spot but not happy with our presence. It did a lot of slinking around on the water’s edge.

green heron Butorides virescens seen through foliage
These were all shot with the longer lens and a lot of careful sidestepping to try and get a clear shot through the undergrowth, but eventually it moved just a little ways further on where we could maneuver for a cleared shot.

grene heron Butorides virescens finally catching some sunlight
A little bit of a pose in the sunlight, and that was it. The great blue herons (Ardea herodias herodias) were a bit more cooperative.

great blue heron Ardea herodias herodias cruising low over the water in decent light
This was one of a pair that were fishing along the lakeshore but refused to let us get too close, though at least it flew past in good later afternoon light. At another location, the subject there was more cooperative but there was no way to get better lighting on it:

juvenile great blue heron Ardea herodias herodias preening on dock
The barred/speckled markings on the throat and chest, as well as the overall more brownish hue, pegs this as a juvenile, this year’s brood. It was quite complacent in its spot on the docks, and even let a boat approach to within eight meters or so before it decided that was too close.

juvenile great blue heron Ardea herodias herodias not quite finished with its grooming task
Typical adolescent: done grooming but missed a spot. This was closing in on sunset but without any kind of decent sunset colors. Am I surprised?

Actually, I was slightly surprised by this one, ninety degrees away anti-sunward at the same time:

lone osprey Pandion haliaetus sitting in tree among flock of black vultures Coragyps atratus
That’s a single osprey (Pandion haliaetus) up there to the right, hanging out with an entire flock of black vultures (Coragyps atratus.) There’s no animosity nor prey competition between these two species, but osprey tend to be solitary birds and this is the first I’ve seen one perching among other species, or even a flock of its own. I mean, sure it’s way out there away from everyone like the kid with the eight-crayon box, but at least it’s in the same tree. And you have to admit the body positions all give the same cliquish impression.

Further on, I heard a belted kingfisher (Megaceryle alcyon) chattering as it came closer, and I tracked it carefully when it came into view. The species is notoriously shy and my attempts to creep closer to its perching spot didn’t net any decent frames, foliage always getting in the way, and the bird flew off while I was attempting to subtly slip past this; so much for my stalking. But it took a perch twice as far away on top of an old snag, and I could get a few frames there:

female belted kingfisher Megaceryle alcyon perched on old snag
You can’t make out the brown neck band that denotes this as a female, but it’s there in the other semi-obscured attempts, so take my word for it. The raised crest feathers are very typical of the species, always seeming upset about something – now I have to snag a photo of one with the crest down. But at least I could manage an angle without the bright sky directly behind the bird bleaching out the edges (or forcing the exposure much lower.) Tiny victories.

How about another vulture? (he asks, plowing ahead without waiting for an answer…)

turkey vulture Cathartes aura standing on beach staring into camera
This one came cruising in for a landing as we stood there, and we endeavored to remain quiet for the portrait – look at them nostrils. It’ll it least distract you from the rest of the head – which, because it’s bare of feathers, seems tiny in comparison to the body, but having handled many birds, I can tell you that the body feels scrawny too and matches the head in appropriate proportions. Owls are the most startling; they seem to have no neck at all, going from shoulder to head dome. but then you reach in to secure the head against tearing into you (this is from wildlife rehab, so chill,) and you find this measly little thing buried in the feathers between head and shoulders that isn’t much bigger than your thumb. It’s disturbing.

But now let’s get to the real captures of the day, which actually occurred very early on. It was a quiet day and as we worked our way along the lakeshore, I suggested keeping an eye on the bordering trees, especially high up, because I suspected there might be some raptors perching there and it would be better to see them before they spooked. But then, not twenty meters away, I hear something crashing down through the pine needles, heavier than a pine cone, and suspected that it had been dislodged up above – I was expecting a squirrel or something. Yet the shape that was revealed told me that my intentions and abilities were not in alignment, because we were far closer to this guy than it should have allowed.

second-year bald eagle Haliaeetus leucocephalus perched high in pine tree
That’s the juvenile plumage of a second-year bald eagle, and it was roughly ten meters above our heads in the pine tree. We fired off tons of frames as we crept closer, knowing that at any time it would decide we were too close and fly away – which it did not do. The potential explanation for this was forthcoming.

second-year bald eagle Haliaeetus leucocephalus giving regal pose in pine tree
While I was in a bad position – not this one – the eagle vomited something up, and then again a minute or so later, which I missed because the pine needles that were intervening at that point grabbed the autofocus away from the eagle itself. It was likely this that I’d heard crashing down through the pine needles, though a subsequent examination under the tree only turned up half of a minnow and a medium-sized patch of fish skin. There was what appeared to be a fresh-ish persimmon nearby, which eagles don’t eat – had it consumed this by accident and was trying to get rid of it? I can’t say. Meanwhile, the eagle regarded us without alarm.

second-year bald eagle Haliaeetus leucocephalus wondering just what the photographer below is up to
What a great pose, and to our credit, we were remaining silent and casual, not alerting the bird with predatory fixation behavior, though as high up as it was, it likely wasn’t very concerned. But we’d gotten right underneath the eagle and it simply watched us curiously so, great opportunity.

Off in the distance, another was wheeling out over the lake, and we fired off some frames of that one too.

third-year bald eagle Haliaeetus leucocephalus circling in distance
This is a third-year juvenile instead, so not a sibling – or at least, not an immediate sibling. Nonetheless, while we were watching this one and further away than we had been, the second-year one overhead took flight and headed in this direction. They never drew close together or exhibited any kind of territorial behavior, so the reasoning behind this was lost to us, but at the same time the apparently ill specimen was showing no signs of distress.

second-year bald eagle Haliaeetus leucocephalus flying off without apparent concern
Getting even more frames as it flew off allowed me to compare the markings, especially under the wings, with photos from previous outings to the same location in an attempt to see if we’d photographed this one before. Answer: not to any appearances – the markings all have distinctive differences. So how many eagles are actually hanging out in the area? It might take a lot of long-distance photography and cataloging plumage variations to determine, and this can only be done between molts, since that act alone can change the appearance.

Anyway, you can see why I left these for the end, even though they were close to the beginning of the outing. Far more luck than we’ve had on many days out there, but that’s why you keep returning.

So much for that

Al Denelsbeck

A couple weeks back, I came across another photo of the International Space Station in front of the sun, and it renewed my interest in trying to obtain an image of this on my own, especially since I now have a working solar filter – I’d be fine with the moon, too. Thus began the research into how one got an accurate prediction for the passes as seen from one’s own location.

Here’s the deal: the ISS is close, in relative terms, and both the sun and the moon are pretty small in the sky. The path across the Earth where you can see one intersecting (transiting) the other is pretty narrow, maybe 20 kilometers wide, and of course the timing has to be precise too, not only to account for the motions of all bodies but also to have sunlight still striking the ISS so it can be seen. After a bit of poking around, I settled on ISS Transit Finder, a site which allows you to put in your exact geographic location and will produce any predictions for a particular time frame, including a map of the path where this will be visible (because chances are it won’t be exactly where you are at any given time.)

Before you get excited, I can tell you not to bother, at least with this site. It predicted a transit of the moon for last night right before 8PM EDT, and Mr Bugg and I made sure to be in the path and ready to roll. The ISS showed up at the right time, but passed quite far away from the moon, at least three diameters. That’s pretty wide of the mark.

Not only that, but when I first plotted this and planned the photo session, it predicted it for Monday night, and I dutifully noted down all the details. About a week later when I went in to confirm, that prediction had switched to Wednesday night (but almost the exact same time and path) – that was my warning. And right now as I started typing this post, I went back in and searched with backdated info (which it does allow,) and the pass didn’t even show at all despite the fact that we saw it, albeit way off target. Conclusion: the site does not have their math down, and I strongly recommend against trying to use it at all.

ISS in sky at 483MM focal lengthNow, we did get a few pics of the ISS passing, quite some distance away, so we’re not talking great detail here. This is at full resolution, but I’d also started backing off from 600mm because, as it was passing near the moon, I thought I might be able to get both in the frame at least. This was a waste of time, and I did not track back out to 600mm for this shot. Now, I would have thought it would be sharper, since I had meticulously focused on the moon for maximum sharpness, but there’s something that I’ve noticed with the Tamron 150-600 G2: it’s extremely sensitive to small tweaks of focus near the ‘infinity’ point – which is why I meticulously focused in the first place, shooting a frame and then chimping at it (which Mr Bugg failed to catch) at high magnification on the LCD to ensure it was as sharp as possible; repeat as needed. So is it so sensitive that the ISS, considerably closer than the moon yet still a few hundred kilometers off, was faintly defocused? I can’t be sure without more testing, and there aren’t too many subjects I can test with that are a few hundred kilometers off, you know? Certainly none that will hold still.

Here’s the same shot at 200%:

ISS in flight at 200%, 483mm focal length
Enough to determine that it is rather oddly shaped, but not to see any real detail. It got a little better on as the station continued to pass, not overhead really, but closer at least. This is the entire frame, now at 600mm, to give you an idea of how little could be seen.

full-frame shot of ISS in flight at 600mm focal length
And now at 200%:

200% resolution inset of ISS in flight at 600mm focal length
That looks a bit more like the ISS, or maybe a tie fighter, or a floating letter ‘N’ – something other than a bat, anyway. But worth the effort? Not really.

Of course, we shot the moon while doing this.

first quarter moon with no ISS in sight
See? I can focus the lens halfway decently. The ISS would have passed diagonally across the bottom ‘limb’ (don’t ask me why astronomers use that term,) including across the shadowed portion, and it was soon after sunset and the station was strongly illuminated by the sun, to a magnitude of -4 (so I was told) – it should have shown up against both portions just fine, given that the moon was significantly brighter at magnitude -11 (the smaller the number, the brighter – again astronomers.) Yet there’s something else that was captured, wholly unintentionally, but I’ll take it. We’ll go in closer for this.

close inset of first quarter moon showing sunrise on Tycho's central peak
That sharply-contrasted crater in the near-center of this crop is Tycho, and if you look closely, you’ll see a tiny spot of brightness in the middle of it; that’s the sun catching the top of the central peak in the crater, something that, for reasons yet to be determined, I like trying to capture. Wasn’t even thinking about it this time, believing that it would be a day later without actually checking, but there we go. Note that this is also about 200% resolution and looks much better than the ISS, though granted, the moon was also moving slower.

Anyway, got something for the efforts, which also makes me strongly reconsider making the attempt again.

Just once, part 37

Al Denelsbeck

likely male bobolink Dolichonyx oryzivorus perched on marsh reeds and calling
This week we have both a male and female bobolink (Dolichonyx oryzivorus,) found in the tall grasses of Savannah National Wildlife Refuge, South Carolina. Now, why there has only been one appearance of them before, I cannot say, since they are found throughout the eastern seaboard, but it might have something to do with there being no fields of tall grasses and grains anywhere near where I usually spend my time. This guy does at least appear to like his grains. It’s the male of course, while the female is below:

female bobolink Dolichonyx oryzivorus seen from the rear
When I re-use these images, they come along with the original ‘alt data’ from the first time I posted them, both of which had typos within them – sheesh. And while I’m not a ‘birder,’ I will take the opportunity to record species that I haven’t seen before, as long as they’re not just some variation of sparrows or ‘brown birds’ – not that I have anything against brown birds, mind you, some of my best friends are… well, not really, but regardless, I’m cool with them, I just find them boring.

I took that same opportunity to do some brief video clips as well, braced against the open window of the vehicle we took through the refuge – mostly just feeding behavior, but I did get their calls in there.


I believe this was the last time that we passed through that refuge, which has been a little long – I’ve been to Montezuma in New York three time since then, though I can put those down to extenuating circumstances. Still, we should get back to Savannah at some point…

Outer limits

Al Denelsbeck

I often have to explain to students that camera and lens manufacturers tend to exaggerate abilities, and the students should automatically drop off, for instance, the upper two ‘factors’ of any claim that is made about their equipment. For instance, while the ISO setting in a new camera body can go all the way up to 12800 or whatever, you will typically find that useful results can only be obtained two stops or more below that, 3200 or lower, and even then it depends on the usage and how picky you are (and how much noise you want to filter out after the fact.) For things like the umpteen different names for in-lens stabilization to combat camera shake, the claim may be for up to four or six stops of improvement, but take two away from those numbers right off the bat.

Occasionally, however, such failures produce – well, not a gem, but an interesting composition nonetheless. Such as…

great blue heron Ardea herodias in flight blurred by slow shutter speed and Vibration Control effects
When a great blue heron cruised past at twilight against dark background trees, I didn’t have time to change settings on the camera and fired off in Aperture Priority at f9.0, ISO 250. The stabilization in the lens (which for the Tamron 150-600 is dubbed ‘Vibration Control’) did its best to cope with the lousy 1/4 second shutter speed, but there’s a limit, and we were well beyond that. Even had it been perfectly capable of handling my unsteadiness with a long lens for that period of time, the heron was still flapping, and how much of the camera movement was due to intentional panning? What we have is this, a ghostly blur of an image that contains two heads and two pairs of legs in there, semi-sharp, and wings in two positions as well as blurring in between. Without the VC activated, it probably would have been evenly blurred without those specific details among the bits, so, good? It has a neat, impressionistic effect, to me at least, but I can’t take credit for it at all since I wasn’t trying for anything like this. Maybe someday I’ll experiment…

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