Tempestuous

Al DenelsbeckLeave a comment

Last night the lightning alert was going off madly, and the maps showed a couple of massive cells passing through, but not quite getting to us – they looked to be missing us by a small margin off to the west. Encouraged by this, I headed down to the waterfront because that afforded the best views east and west (actually, more west-northwest and east-southeast, but you take what you can get.) And it was quite active; I did a few video clips because that was the only way to demonstrate this.

A short note: the exposure meter wanted to render it brighter than it actually was, and I hadn’t tried dialing in any compensation, so this made it distinctly grainy. That’s okay – we’re not after accuracy in brightness, just seeing how often the lightning was firing off.

I didn’t bother with a voiceover because I wanted you to hear the sounds, which were – nothing, really; the loudest thing in there isn’t thunder at all, was just the breeze beating against the microphone since I hadn’t used the external mic that has a wind guard. The whole time I was out there, only the barest rumble of thunder carried through – this was mostly high-altitude, cloud-to-cloud stuff. And while the clip is only thirty seconds, this light show continued for perhaps twenty minutes, as the cells slowly moved northward without seeming to come closer. Of course, I did some still photography as well, a few time exposures to see if I could capture any visible bolts.

time exposure out along waterfront between lightning strikes
This is just to set the scene. I was running roughly 10-15 second exposures because the waterfront lighting was illuminating the foreground elements quite a bit, so I purposefully darkened this frame down to represent what it actually looked like, more or less – there were only a couple of instances where such short exposures still didn’t yield any noticeable sky lights. It was just before 9:00 PM locally – the sun had set not half an hour before, and without the clouds it would have still been twilight. But now the comparison:

time exposure along waterfront with plenty of inter-cloud lighting
These were back to back frames, though this one had actually come first, 11 seconds as opposed to 9, but not darkened to match visible conditions – look at the pilings in the foreground. Since this is at 18mm focal length, you know it’s showing multiple cell strikes in there. And in fact, I did, barely, catch a visible bolt, down there on the horizon peeking out from the cloud deck. A closer look:

cropped inset of previous image showing lightning bolt under cloud cover
Not the kind of thing that I’m trying to capture (well, it is, only much bigger and much closer,) but at least I caught something.

And again,

time exposure of thundercells in distance lighting up sky
Yep, there’s another down there, looking like this:

cropped inset of previous photo to show lightning bolt peeking under cloud deck
This spot seemed to produce the brighter and more noticeable sky bursts, even when I never saw these bolts as they occurred, so I set up in a slightly different position to try and take advantage of this. While there was no activity:

view down onto small dock between lightning bursts
Again, darkened to appear more accurate. The new position was actually successful, which is usually more miss than hit when it comes to electrical storms (probably not the best phrasing):

view down onto small dock with successful strike visible
Well, technically successful, but as noted before, not what I was really after, and it intertwined with the mast of a foreground sailboat:

cropped inset of previous image to highlight distant lightning bolt
This is, as close as can possibly be determined, in the same location as the previous bolt capture – I was the one that had shifted position, as comparing the location of that sailboat mast will show.

My favorite image for the night, however, was this one:

churning clouds lit from within by lightning over Pitt Street Brewing Company
This was easily the most active cell, though it was also a hair too far north to see underneath with the buildings there. While I was out, this cell gradually moved well behind the trees and the other was petering out, so I wrapped things up for the evening, having heard only the faintest rumble of thunder the entire time. The breeze off of the water felt great after the hot days we’ve been having, though, so it was a nice night.

A few hours later, another collection of cells (I honestly have no idea how many,) did actually pass through our area, producing at least three separate horrendous downpours, perhaps more, and a few lightning strikes that were within half a kilometer as we were trying to sleep. It’s been that kind of weather recently, and I’m used to hearing the lightning alert on my smutphone just about every hour, though the sources of most alerts aren’t actually passing that close. I’m still after those really dramatic pics, though…

Reclaimed

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A few weeks back, we installed a new light fixture by the front walk, mounted to a 4×4 post. Going to the local Lowes Home Improvement store to get a cap for it was utterly pointless, despite the fact that they listed 15 of them in stock – the store has repeatedly proven to be grossly incompetent, and unfortunately it’s the only place for such materials within 30 kilometers. This frustration led me to design my own damn cap (yes, I could have ordered one online, but that’s stupid for something costing a couple bucks that will more than double with shipping,) putting the 3D printer and my Blender skills to work. Of course it’s customized, now a working weathervane topped by a wood duck, looking great and personalizing the front walk a bit more.

This morning, however, we found that it had attracted some outside attention.

Carolina anole Anolis carolinensis perched on crossarm of custom weathervane
I don’t have to waste typing time telling you this is a Carolina anole (Anolis carolinensis,) do I? Good. With the new pole that is no longer hollow, the anoles seemed to have been miffed for a bit, but they’re starting to warm up to it. Meanwhile, I hate how the light angle makes the paint job on the wood duck sail look washed out and blotchy, and the portions of the head that are supposed to be iridescent feathers actually have a little shine to them that can’t be seen, but oh well.

About a half-hour later, just as we were leaving to go someplace, the anole had changed position.

Carolina anole Anolis carolinensis perched on wood duck figure of custom weathervane
The figure, which is a reworked and thinned version of my display model, really is pretty thin and the anole can’t be that comfortable, but no one can dispute that he was the highest anole for meters.

And I know it was a male, because he quickly began telling me that the weathervane was his, and to get lost.

Carolina anole Anolis carolinensis doing territorial display from top of wood duck figure on custom weathervane
Yeah, yeah, we get it: you own this now. Chill out, dude – you’re free to do what you want until it needs repainting. You may not like it when we get a gusty storm, though…

Sidetracking (literally)

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Just throwing this down for giggles. As I was sitting down to do a few of the in situ shots of the last Estate Find, I heard a rustling in the taller grasses/weeds very close behind me. It wasn’t a deer as expected, and wasn’t showing above the grasses at all, but was easy enough to find. So while I was there, I shot a quick video clip.

That’s all – nothing elaborate, just taking the opportunity with an incidental find. I haven’t a decent idea where her nest might be, except “north-ish” and off of our property, so I’m not going looking for it. If the newborns take a direct route back to the pond when hatched, I shouldn’t have to worry about them when mowing, at least…

Estate Find XXIV

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This Estate Find might set the record for the most frames taken to capture what I was after, but that’s because I was after some pretty specific things that are very hard to see, from a subject that’s difficult to work with.

In the past week, as if a switch has been thrown, there’s a section of the property that sports large numbers of this week’s find, which could be a lot worse if they all get to be the size of a typical adult. We’re talking about these little monsters:

juvenile golden silk orbweaver Trichonephila clavipes in web
As massive as it appears here, it’s actually not, and a tiny fraction of what they can achieve in adulthood. This is a juvenile golden silk orbweaver (Trichonephila clavipes,) and this specimen, which accounts for all images herein except one, is only 12mm in body length – naturally, this is a bit more when you count leg spread, but it still tops maybe 35mm with that. Compare that to a large adult, which can exceed 100mm in spread, spanning across your palm. I very quickly became aware that the species could be found here, but by mid-fall they had vanished. Spiders typically only live a single year, but curiously, the young usually hatch in late summer to early fall and survive through the winter, quite tiny, until spring when they start to do some serious hunting and put on weight.

juvenile golden silk orbweaver Trichonephila clavipes showing leg hairs
Even at this age/size, you can see why this species is also known as a “banana spider,” as well as a few other colloquial names, and they have the uninviting habit of stringing their large webs between trees at heights of one to six meters, which you can easily become aware of (even if you miss the brilliant spider) because the silk is damn strong – that’s how I located this particular specimen, when I was aiming to use one of three different ones that I’d already plotted. You can also see another trait that makes them easy to identify, which is the tufts of black hair on three pairs of their legs, making the joints look swollen.

silk strands of golden silk orbweaver Trichonephila clavipes showing distinctly yellow hue
This is a patch of the silk, and it’s clear that it really is yellow, though it often takes the right lighting to reveal this distinctly; I’ve seen plenty of webs and it’s only occasionally visible, not helped at all by the webs usually being seen against the sky.

The ‘orbweaver’ bit means that they make circular, ‘wheel’ webs of course, which as adults can reach two meters in the main part (not counting the anchoring strands which can go a lot further,) but as I discovered, the juveniles at least may make dual-structure webs, surrounding the orb by a random ‘cob’ web, as protection from predators. Like so:

dual web structure of juvenile golden silk orbweaver Trichonephila clavipes, highlighted by mist droplets
I came prepared to snag an image of this, armed with a misting bottle to highlight the strands – if you look, you can see the orb structure, semi-obscured by the cob structure surrounding it. My guess is that only the orb is sticky silk, so insects won’t get snagged by the outer cob, though it almost certainly connects to the orb so the spider can feel disturbances. This, by the way, is the sole appearance of a second subject. Now we return to the first, who I collected to so detailed photos in controlled conditions within Walkabout Studios. Without the interference of the wind, web strands, poor positions, or crappy lighting, I could capture some of those specific details I mentioned.

closeup of cephalothorax of juvenile golden silk orbweaver Trichonephila clavipes showing eye arrangement
Like the eye arrangement, though it’s only partially visible here. You can make out the posterior median (back middle) eyes here easily, but there are another two below them, facing more forward, and four out on those bumps flanking the visible eyes. You can also see that the silver-grey coloration of the cephalothorax really depends on the light angle, though from nearly every ‘normal’ view, this will appear silver-white.

underside of juvenile golden silk orbweaver Trichonephila clavipes with fang tips cleaning one leg
Now we go underneath, and despite countless attempts and digging out the ringflash for the first time in years, this was the best view that I achieved of the fangs; you can just make out the reddish-brown tips of them overlapping the leg while the spider cleans it (the spider is facing down in this pic.) My specimen was more-or-less free to go where she chose, as long as she chose to remain on the bamboo branch that I’d provided her, while I attempted to get the angle I needed. Her tendency was to hang from the underside and head down on any branch she paused upon, and at these magnifications, focus distance is critical – about a millimeter for sharp focus, and I can easily sway a lot more than that while “holding perfectly still.” She’d pause, and I’d gently rotate the branch to have her face the way I wanted, and she would usually maneuver back into the same position as I did so.

This was also the most ‘retro’ Estate Find so far, because in addition to the ringflash, I also dug out the Mamiya 45mm lens to use reversed – there’s a reason for this, and I’ll get to that in another post. These closeups were a combination of the reversed 45mm and the reversed 28-105, which allows greater flexibility in working distance and magnification, at the cost of a) permanently being fixed at f16, thus making the viewfinder view quite dark and necessitating bright focusing lights, and b) having waayyy too short depth of field, meaning focus distance is absolutely critical. Lots of shots are getting tossed.

head-on shot of juvenile golden silk orbweaver Trichonephila clavipes showing angles of lateral eyes
This is why I the ringflash has been stored away for so long. The softbox has its own issues, mostly that it still throws shadows that can hide crucial details, closely followed by, it’s big and can interfere with things like, say, a bamboo branch that your subject is perched upon (working distance for these images are a hand-width to a hand-length.) The ringflash is attached to the end of the lens and illuminates the subject evenly, but this often takes away shadows that provide the shape and textures, and it does this: reflects in little circles from shiny surfaces like four of the spider’s eyes. You can make out two more eyes because of the ringflash though, on those humps flanking the center eyes, aiming wide and down (in relation to the spider.) I had intended the ringflash to illuminate the fangs better, but after I’d switched, the spider refused to give me the same poses.

straight-down shot of juvenile golden silk orbweaver Trichonephila clavipes showing anterior median eyes
And a top-down shot to close out the post. The ring reflection is still there, but the angle is right now to get a reflection from the retinas of the spider, brighter and thus appearing like a pale grey pupil. By this point I figured I’d had enough frustration, since the multiple shooting sessions with lens and lighting changes had spanned 83 minutes and I still had to download and edit the shots and write the post. That contains closeup images of ooky spiders and thus too few people will even read…

Ducking in here

Al DenelsbeckLeave a comment

Okay, listen – I already have the Estate Find post written for this week, that will appear in a few hours (thus the same day,) and it’s a little easier on my recordkeeping if I keep posts on the same day in both alphabetical and chronological order – that meant I had titles beginning with “A” through “Er” to work with. Plus I’ve gone all week with almost no posts, and had to throw something up. I don’t insist on stupid puns…

Anyway, from the guilt of not posting (and to have more of a buffer between the weekly subjects,) I offer this close portrait of a mallard that visits routinely:

close portrait of possibly crossbred mallard Anas platyrynchos
At least, I believe it’s a mallard (Anas platyrynchos,) but the coloration is atypical, with plenty of grey scattered throughout its plumage. Birds don’t really “go grey” with age, or at least not that I’ve ever encountered (no schooling here, I just takes picchers,) and in fact, only a handful of mammals demonstrate aging in this manner, usually around the muzzle. Does this mean that my subject here is actually a crossbreed? It happens, more than occasionally, in fact, but as yet, I haven’t thought of a duck species that might produce this kind of coloration. The mallards got used to us throwing down corn quickly, so much so that they will trot up like domesticated fowl if we’re doing it when they’re nearby, and this one has been a steady visitor, occasionally appearing with his mate/girlfriend/mistress/sister/justfriend/whatever. In fact, this one got punked into flying up, since I saw him a little ways off on the pond as I was distributing corn and quacked at him; this was (to my great surprise) close enough to his lady friend’s voice that he immediately took flight and came right to me, pausing suddenly in midair as he realized I was right there, but then landing anyway as he realized, Oh, it’s the corn people. We’re still waiting to see if they bring ducklings along at some point, but it’s getting late in the season now.

Magic bucket of variety

Al Denelsbeck1 Comment

I could have saved this one for the weekly topic, but I’m counting on getting something better before then, plus this is just too odd a story not to post immediately.

So, let me paint this picture. Walkabout Studios is a basement office half below grade, meaning my windows look out right at ground level and the outside door is sunk down a few steps. Right outside this door is a small wastebasket, used for the smellier things like the rags soaked in alcohol, UV resin, or acetone from the various projects that I get up to – don’t need those fumes in the studio, I’m weird enough already. Actually, I have a camera, I don’t need to paint a picture:

outside entryway to Walkabout Studios showing wastebasket
For reasons yet to be determined, this wastebasket collects a few too many specimens within it, such as the purseweb spider that I featured a month ago, as well as another of the same species a couple weeks later (not discovered until it had passed,) and an odd beetle late last night. I’d put this down to intoxicating fumes from the rags therein, except that they’re far from fresh and the fumes have to be almost nonexistent. I’m now going to have to check daily, it seems, because today I glanced in there and found this:

unidentified moderately large crayfish found in bottom of wastebasket outside Walkabout Studios
That, yes, is a crayfish, one that I’m not trying any further identification attempts on because there are 56 different species in North Carolina and it’s not worth the effort. Now, this isn’t too astounding, because the pond is a few dozen meters away. and crayfish (at least some species) do go wandering from their water source from time to time, something that I thought I had a post illustrating but cannot locate, and they can also climb moderately well. Still, why here, and why is this trash can so damn inviting?

[It’s possible that it’s not inviting at all, merely impossible to escape from, so it routinely samples what goes on in the yard perpetually.]

But yes, I did a photo session.

unidentified crayfish after being released from wastebasket
If you know your crayfish species, sing out; I have to say that the coloration and surprisingly small chelicerae (pincers) are not things that I recall seeing before, so it’s potentially a new species for me. Size-wise, however, it was what I expected.

underside of unidentified crayfish in author's grasp
It’s all clean and shiny for these because I gave it a good soak in water from the rain barrel before this session, since I’m a guy. Technically, I could sort these photos into the Arthropods folders, since the crustaceans are part of that Phylum, but I use the Aquatic folder instead – inconsistent or incorrect, perhaps, but I’m the only one that has to find the images, plus I have seven Arthropods folders (limited to about 4,000 images each) and one Aquatic, so…

Prompted by this knowledge (about the Phylum, I mean,) I did a quick check in BugGuide,net, which does indeed have a collection of crayfish photos. None of them are identified in any way though, so no help there. But check out this find – I’m jealous.

head-on view of unidentified crayfish on lawn after rescuing from wastebasket
Of course I went for the portrait angle, and of course my model here was released back into the pond immediately afterward – perhaps not where it really intended to be, since it had been going walkabout when it got trapped, but it had been out of the water for an unknown period of time and I felt it was best.

So, yeah, we’ll see if this is the oddest thing to show up in the trash can this year…

Estate Find XXIII

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Why is it that it seems (to me anyway) to be okay to write “XXIII” but not “XXVIII,” instead making me think it looks cleaner to write “XXIIX”? I mean sure, it’s a digit less, but doesn’t it just look better? Yet I don’t think writing “XXIIV” works the same way…

Or we could just stop pretending that it’s somehow classier to use Roman numerals in the first place. There’s that.

Slightly repetitive one here, depending on how you look at it. But sitting in my office one afternoon and hearing a ruckus from the pond, I went out back and made a new discovery, though it wasn’t until the next day that I was able to get adequate photos of it. Them. Whatever.

adult female wood duck Aix sponsa and brood of new ducklings
Yep, we have another brood of wood ducklings (Aix sponsa) to watch, and curiously, the mother seems to prefer keeping them on either the main pond or the upper pond, rather than just bringing them in for a couple of nights like the previous brood. And yes, I’m quite sure this isn’t the previous brood, since those ducklings should be a lot bigger than this by now.

adult female wood duck Aix sponsa and her brood of new ducklings all lined up next to her
As you can see, this session was occurring in late afternoon just before the sun disappeared behind the trees, still about 45 minutes before sunset, but this still mean the light wasn’t ideal. Although I did catch the young as they made a pass through a patch of bright sunlight, which is rare – wood ducks are very good about staying in shadow whenever possible.

The question is, is this the brood of the female that I caught peeking from the nest box? And the answer is, there’s no way I could tell for sure, but I’m leaning away from it; those young should have been out of the nest, if they did indeed leave in the few days that I was staking it out, for better than two weeks now, and I think they would have been bigger than this.

adult green heron Butorides virescens kicking up a fuss
While I never did discover what the ruckus was about the first day, it replayed almost exactly while I was doing these photos, and near as I can tell, the resident green heron (Butorides virescens) got quite upset to find the mama and ducklings nearby and protested it loudly – you can just see the feathers standing up in indignation. Why this might be, I cannot say – they don’t even share a food source, and the heron and adult wood duck are roughly the same size and pose no threat to each other. It might also have been that they both were responding to some other threat, though I saw nothing else either time.

adult female wood duck Aix sponsa leading her brood of new ducklings away while protesting loudly
For her part, the mother duck was also kicking up a fuss, leading her young off to other locations while crying plaintively in their manner, though this may also have been only a signal to the young to stay close and keep their eyes open. Just thinking about it now, I realize I may not have any decent recordings of the various wood duck calls, which do not sound like ducks – I’ll try to remedy that soon (the recording, I mean, not trying to get them to sound like other ducks…)

Twice now, I’ve also witnessed the mother bringing her ducklings into the yard after the corn that we distribute, even though they probably cannot handle corn themselves at this point – I was unsuccessful at photos either time, since they’re still wood ducks and incredibly wary of people, and she led her brood to the water as soon as I slipped out the door with the camera. We’ll be trying to get the ducklings something more appropriate to nosh on very soon, though right now it’s a matter of timing to try and prevent it all from being consumed by other critters before she and her brood find it.

adult female wood duck Aix sponsa and her new brood of ducklings
This is the sharpest I’ve managed of her and the ducklings so far, and of course the ducklings are mostly obscured – I’ll be working on it. But for now, we’re pleased to see another brood staying so close by, and hope it remains this way for a bit. The geese and geeseling have totally stopped visiting, for reasons unknown, and right now just a male mallard, only occasionally accompanied by a female, make semi-regular visits, though the wood ducks are still fairly routine morning tourists. It’s been interesting watching their habits, not knowing the reasons or if this is typical or not.

My my my my, mimosa

Al DenelsbeckLeave a comment

I’ve been kinda deep in some projects right now, only one of which is photography-related, so not a lot of chance to get out. There was another ISS transit, this time of the sun, that was supposed to take place today, but we remained resolutely overcast and rainy for the entire day, so scratch that.

Right now, for the sake of it, I’ll just mention this one. For some time now I’ve been wanting to get a mimosa tree established, without any luck. And before I go any further, I need to clarify what I’m talking about, because I’ve just discovered that this is far from the proper name, regardless; the species is, scientifically, Albizia julibrissin, otherwise known as the Persian silk tree or pink silk tree, and while commonly referred to everywhere I’ve been as a mimosa, it’s not a member of the Subfamily Mimoseae, though it does bear a resemblance to those. I’m just going to stick with mimosa, though I’ll always append the Albizia julibrissin bit…

A few years back, I attempted to cultivate a few from the seed pods that I’d found, but nothing occurred. I put this down to squirrels digging up the seeds, apparently finding them a delicacy, but I’ve been told that growing them from seeds is difficult. The Girlfriend also checked to see if one could be purchased from one of our nurseries, but was told that they never carried them because they were a “trash tree.” I have no idea why this might be, since they’re quite nice looking, not prone to overrunning an area nor leaving behind lots of leaf litter or broken branches; loblolly pines are hideous, shedding huge volumes of needles and pinecones constantly, overtake an area within a few years and block out everything else from growing, and drop branches or entire trees in every major storm, constantly causing damage to houses and powerlines and so on – that’s exactly what I’d call a “trash tree,” but far too many people in this state seem inordinately enamored of them. All that said, I still wanted to try and establish a mimosa.

On moving to the new Walkabout Estates, however, I found that I didn’t need to.

nighttime view of Persian silk mimosa Albizia julibrissin tree with new blossom and closed leaves
This was my first inkling, since the trees leaf out later than others and close up their leaves at night, but the blossom is unmistakable. This was way out on the edge of The Bayou, not even visible from the backyard, and discovered by headlamp one night, though I did eventually return during the day for a few pics.

Persian silk mimosa Albizia julibrissin tree in full bloom
We had one of these in the front yard when I was growing up in southern New Jersey, and I always found it fun to strip all the fernlike leaves from those little stems that they originated from, bastard that I was then (not like I’m not now – I’m just saying I started early.) But c’mon, they’re cool-looking trees.

Persian silk mimosa Albizia julibrissin tree showing leaves and blossoms
Unfortunately, like many trees the flowering season is quite short, though they still retain the bright green leaves throughout the spring and summer, and have a nice, twisty nature to the branches, spreading wider rather than taller. I’m pleased to have one close by, though granted, it’s not routinely visible. We might still try to remedy this.

Also on the list is a honey locust, for semi-scientific reasons, and I’ll go into this in another post, at least after actually locating one.

But you would have found this eventually anyway

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I mean, I’m sure you check out Earth Science Picture of the Day routinely, but I’m also quite sure it’s not until after you see what I’ve posted, so I’m just sending you there a little early, is all.

Earth Science Picture of the Day for June 3

I’ve been meaning to do this for a while, I’ve just never gotten around to selecting and writing up a submission, but the ice storm photo prompted me. I actually submitted in February – there’s a bit of lead time.

[And I still have to make a print of this one for display here – it’s definitely a favorite of mine.]

Anyway, now to sit back and watch the fame roll in…

ice-covered Japanese maple catching the morning sun from behind with multi-colored sunbursts

Another attempt

Al Denelsbeck1 Comment

I’d found the website transit-finder.com last year, which takes a given location and lists the upcoming transits of the sun and moon for the International Space Station (as well as the Hubble Space Telescope and the Tiangong Space Station.) Last September I’d tried it out and did indeed see the ISS, but it came nowhere near the moon, despite the fact that we (Mr Bugg and I) made sure to be as close to the centerline of the pass as possible. I wasn’t sure what to put this down to; the site might just have been inaccurate, or the ISS might have gone through a boost in the week or so after I’d first plotted the transit. There was some support for this, in that when I went back in to confirm, a few days before the event, I noticed that both the time and the date had changed, though I might have chalked it up then to an error on my part. Still, I was wary this time around.

[Small note: Due to atmospheric drag, the ISS needs periodic rocket reboosts to maintain its orbital altitude, and these aren’t routinely scheduled because the drag is actually variable depending on conditions.]

example screenshot of transit plot from transit-finder.com
Not my location, just an example screenshot

I finally got around to trying again, yesterday evening. This time, I made sure to check the site right up until I was ready to leave, and was in place less than 30 meters from the centerline, meaning the ISS should pass right through the middle of the moon. I went with video this time around, especially since it was still daylight, and a bit hazy at that, and I wasn’t sure how clearly I’d see it. I’d synced my watch to atomic time and started the video about a minute ahead of the plotted pass. And this certainly benefits from being expanded to full-screen.

The amusing bit is, I watched the video carefully three times before I actually saw the ISS pass through; I was expecting a darker spot against the moon, or a brighter spot against the sky if the ISS was catching the sunlight adequately. I wasn’t looking up at the sky, nor at the LCD screen, when I went to stop the video – I’d checked my watch to ensure that we were well past the time of the transit, so long afterward when reviewing the video, the appearance of the plane was momentarily startling (thus I couldn’t pull up the Flightradar24 app and find out whose plane and where it was going.)

Still, this vindicated the site, since this was as close to prediction as I could confirm without looking carefully at my watch – within 30 seconds, at least, and bang-on for the location. I’d noted that the transit was only predicted to last 0.59 seconds and that’s close enough to count, too – that thing was hauling across the sky. It would be much better at night, though.

While there, I did a few photos too, mostly to nail focus.

1st quarter half moon at roughly 19:30 EDT
The haze undoubtedly reduced the contrast a bit, so I’m actually lucky to have caught the ISS at all. Some time later and back home, I went out to grab a comparison shot:

1st quarter half moon at 22:09 EDT
This was not quite three hours later, but the apparent rotation isn’t accurate: I’d rotated the camera in the lens mount for the video so the apparent motion would traverse side-to-side, maximizing the time within the frame.

The next opportunity will be a solar transit in just two days time, so we’ll see what happens with that one. Against the sun, even with the solar filter, the shutter speed can be a hell of a lot faster, and so maybe something more than blurs can be captured in the frame. Wish me luck!

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