A small package arrived today:
A little less than a month to arrive, I believe. They’d originally e-mailed me and said that due to demand, there would be a delay and they’d forward a tracking number when it shipped, then I never heard anything further. Yet here we are.
In case this is confusing, the initial post about it is here. Order yours today!
Widely mixed, even.
So Buggato and I had another outing yesterday, once again to Jordan Lake because, while plants are indeed budding out around here, full bloom is a ways off; meanwhile, we’re keeping an eye on bird activity at the lake. And in some cases, it was active.
While seeing double-crested cormorants (Nannopterum auritum) is fairly easy down there, yesterday they were out in force, and flocking right overhead in numerous cases – we saw hundreds. I wasn’t too fired up about snagging photos because I have more than a few of the species, in flight and perched and quite close, but I collected a few frames anyway, including several as they flew past in what almost amounted to a cloud – I had the long lens attached so no wide angle shots for this one. If I really wanted to be ‘prepared,’ I’d have a second body with the 18-135 attached along as well, but I’m already carrying too much weight and this would also necessitate using neck straps, which I passionately abhor. If you really want the impression, multiply this image here by a couple dozen and composite them together in a giant frame.
We were, naturally, keeping a close eye out for eagles, which did indeed make appearances, but almost always at a significant distance – the closest was directly over the road as we approached our parking spot in the car, perhaps a hundred meters away (which is plenty close enough,) but being in a car in the middle of the road we could do nothing about it, and that one failed to reappear later on. They know.
However, while watching one at least three times as distant wheeling around, I managed to snag a pretty nice shot anyway.
This is at full resolution from the 600mm lens, so very distant indeed, but the pose and lighting were perfect, and show the captured fish distinctly. This was curious to me, however, because the eagle had been wheeling out there for several passes and I’d never seen the capture, so it was carrying a fish around in circles for a while. Normally, they immediately head to a safe place to eat it, usually well out of sight, or deposit it at the nest for the young-uns, but it’s still a little too early for hatchling season around here. Showing off its hunting prowess for a potential mate? Perhaps, though no other eagle was visible at all, so there’s no additional support for that conjecture. Maybe it simply didn’t like wet food…
The day, by the way, was quite warm but ridiculously windy, enough so that we remained very wary while among the various dead trees in the area – it was the kind of conditions to bring them down, and while that might be a fitting demise for a nature photographer, I personally am aiming for being savaged by an angry wombat when I’m 100 or so; the close-up photos of a gaping gullet would bring me posthumous fame at least. Overall, however, the birds weren’t performing well enough to make it a decent session, but we were also out there for both the sunset and the moonrise, so we waited out the fading light.
Sunset, as predicted, was boring – a completely cloudless sky and only moderate humidity meant a yellow sun and very sparse sky color, but right after it went down I did a few frames on the lake just for the sake of having something.
A few kayakers and a sailboat coincided within view against the spot where the sun had disappeared, the best I was finding, so I tripped a few frames, capturing a huge backlit swarm of insects, likely midges, while doing so – that’s all the speckling against the trees, and of course they’re several times closer than the kayakers were. The wind was greatly reduced by this point yet not totally subsided, and I would have thought that would reduce the swarming behavior too, but oh well.
On the opposite horizon, the haze was looking a little thick, and I wondered about the conditions for the rising moon, but I put some of this down to shadows at sunset. It seemed a tad late in coming, but eventually the moon peeked over the trees, the brilliant color of a glowing ember and not obscured at all.
The humidity provided lots of distortion, however, including a separated greenish cap, but at no point did even a thin band of clouds give the moon something to pass behind. The clarity of the lunar mares was significant, and we fired off countless frames as the moon rose, brightened, and changed color.
The traffic into the nearby airport (Raleigh-Durham/RDU) was almost nonstop all afternoon, and the lake lay within the approach paths, so I was holding out hope that we might pull something off, something that I’ve been after for better than 25 years. Yet as the moon rose, the traffic virtually stopped, and I was worried that the opportunity wouldn’t present itself. Patience paid off however, and I accomplished this goal not just once, but twice.
Not just silhouetted against the moon, but with distinct clarity, showing the distortion from the jetwash along the right edge as well. And with the gear down for landing. Finally!
[In my defense, I haven’t been obsessive about this endeavor, going out every clear night with a full moon and watching for air traffic, but it’s been a goal every time I have been out photographing the moon, ever since my first attempts back sometime in ’96 or ’97. As easy as it seems like it might be, provided you’re close enough to decent air traffic, the path to cross the moon is actually very narrow, and the moon is constantly moving itself – we watched two other plans pass above and below the moon while out there. I’ll also point out that, due to not paying close enough attention, I just barely missed my opportunity last year right before the (first) total lunar eclipse.]
A little later on, the moon was still brightening and changing color, though at this point it was surprisingly a little greenish.
Whether this was due to the humidity, airborne particulates, or the camera settings, I can’t say – I was doing several frames with the low, middle, and high contrast/saturation settings for comparison, but I don’t see why these should have imparted a color cast, and I was using sunlight white-balance as usual, which should have captured it as-is. But for additional comparison, I include a full-resolution crop of the same image.
Some of those edge effects are atmospheric distortion, some of those are the moon being not perfectly full and thus that side dropping into shadow. But mostly what this is here for is to compare against the eagle shot above, because they were both shot at the same magnification/focal length, so you can look at the moon against the sky some night and realize that the eagle was perhaps half that in wingpspread. And no, I’m not likely to get an eagle against the moon anytime soon, because they don’t fly at night, but maybe someday I’ll pin one against a gibbous moon in early morning or late afternoon; if the same pattern holds, I’ll be in my eighties then, yet still some years away from the wombat incident.
I’ll close with another frame in the opposite direction again, back towards the deepening twilight well after sunset.
That speck towards upper left is Venus, and almost straight below it, a lot more subtle, is Jupiter – no stars were yet showing. Seven days ago Venus and Jupiter were just a finger-width apart, but of course we were seeing heavy rains here at that time. This was about the best color that the sky produced last night, so sunset was a bust, but we had enough successes overall for the session.
This is what comes from procrastinating. I’ve had “Jimmy Carter” as a topic in my list of potential posts for years, waiting for me to get motivated to do a little more research to clarify details, because I felt that his presidency had been badly misrepresented in the media since before he even left office, and now that he’s entered hospice, articles (mostly along the same lines, thankfully) are sprouting up here and there; now such a post looks like opportunism, which I hate even the suggestion of. However, one such article provided me with a slight change in approach, and here we are.
First off, I was there – melodrama aside, I’m old enough to remember his tenure in office firsthand, and was in fact right at that age when I would be soon able to vote; it was the 1980 election that actually cemented in my mind how utterly pointless this was in the face of our asinine and manipulative electoral christian daycare college system, but that’s a topic for another post. But this also means that I got to see the rather skewed take on things that occurred in the media (including Wikipedia) after Carter left office, which has been going on in the 40-odd years since – that’s one of the (many) reasons why I don’t pay much attention to media, as well. We’re tracing some of the roots of my skepticism as we go along.
The article in question is The Surprising Greatness of Jimmy Carter at Washington Monthly, which is a reflection of how we might get influenced in stupid ways, because it’s surprising only if you have the typical media representation of him, or focus solely on the superficial aspects of a few events during his term. The one that most people remember vividly, explained just a little within the article, is the Iranian hostage crisis, where militant students seized the US embassy in Tehran and held 52 Americans hostage; this lasted quite a long time, and during that period a US military force attempted to enter Tehran and rescue the hostages, bringing the word “fiasco” into public consciousness again when it failed. Public-image wise, perhaps that word is appropriate – certainly it can apply to Carter’s own approval ratings – but from a military exercise standpoint, we have had far worse, hundreds of times over – at least the civilian death count was one in this case. [Note: Had the mission gone largely as planned, the civilian death toll would undoubtedly have been much higher, which would have been completely ignored because it was “successful.”] Long story short: it was a remarkably risky and ill-advised mission, well outside of capabilities at the time, that had a ridiculous number of failure points that would ruin the mission. It had already failed and was scrubbed before a simple mistake caused the collision of two aircraft and a fatal fire. Carter publicly took full responsibility for this and received most of the blame, but a moment’s thought determines quite easily that this wasn’t his plan, his logistics, or his training; for that, we must look to the various military experts that assured him the mission could be accomplished.
Now we get to a little background. The utter shitshow that was US involvement in Vietnam had ‘closed’ only a few years before, tied in very closely with Watergate and a distinct (yet nonetheless appropriate) distrust of elected officials. Carter entered office with a clear plan, visible throughout most of his policy decisions: focus on solving our own country’s problems; lessen our interventions in foreign politics, with “diplomacy” as the keyword; focus on the actual intended functions of politicians in the first place; and try to establish a process of investing in our future. When it came to the Iranian affair, the gung-ho attitude has always been, “Let’s go in and blast them to hell” – which takes very little thought to recognize would be a huge international incident, resulting in countless civilian lives lost, and would rightfully have been considered invading a foreign country; it’s thinking with your dick, nothing more. Even more specifically, it reflects the idea of “our boys” being somehow more valuable than “them,” for any given value of them, which has been the impetus behind most wars, major and minor. Military might almost never solves any problems, it just shifts the focus, and Carter knew that. Resorting to a military endeavor, aimed for as low a body count as possible, was his reluctant admission that diplomacy wasn’t going to work in the face of Iranian zealotry – notice that it was students that took the hostages, never the clearest-thinking group in any society. (Also notice that I never specified, “muslim,” because islam was only a minor factor in the equation – narrow minds coupled with emotional baggage were the primary culprits, which happens all over the place, not-so-subtle hint there.)
By the way, this isn’t just me editorializing, because evidence of all of these factors is clearly on record, including within Carter’s own diaries. What was a surprise to me, within the article, was that in the months preceding the hostage situation, Carter fought against harboring the deposed Shah of Iran, Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, fearing it would trigger an adverse response from Iran – which it did, in spades. In several different cases, Carter caved to advice from his cabinet, against his better judgment, and took the blame when it turned out to be shitty advice.
Which leads us to another aspect: Carter was a statesman, which we see almost nothing of anymore. As Chief Executive, it was his responsibility overall, regardless of who it came from beneath him, because he was responsible for those beneath him. It’s a trait of actual leadership, one that we see very rarely anymore even from any aspect of corporate business, much less from our politicians (try to imagine Florida Man taking responsibility for any negative outcomes, much less giving credit where it’s properly due.) The only thing that I can fault Carter for in these circumstances was not immediately firing those cabinet-members or advisors that encouraged these courses of action, and I won’t (publicly) speculate on why – that would be attempting to psychoanalyze someone based on superficial impressions.
There’s a point in that linked article that was key, to me at least, and yet the writers seemed completely oblivious to it. The article is an interview with two authors of works on Carter’s legacy, and in there Jonathan Alter says, of Carter:
Where it hurt him, Kai, I think, is when he let that effort to try to get to the right answer crowd out the politics. He didn’t think of himself as a politician, and that really hurt him.
Getting to the right answer is what a politician is supposed to do – it’s the only reason to have the government structure that we do in the first place. That ‘politics’ is now considered to be playing a manipulative and self-promoting game is the key failure here, and one that too few people recognize. Carter was the last president that we had that knew, and demonstrated, what he was in office to do.
Again, not mere speculation or editorializing: Carter’s actions since leaving office have been overwhelmingly positive as well as humanitarian, a lifetime of accomplishments that defies comprehension, demonstrating that his focus remained firmly in place. He’s made countless diplomatic visits to other countries in the interests of peace and improved relations, among them Egypt, Israel, North Korea, South Africa, Sudan, and Darfur. The Carter Center, which he and his wife founded, partnered with the World Health Organization to combat malaria and virtually eradicate Guinea worm disease. He’s been recognized by several major awards, among them the United Nations Prize in the Field of Human Rights and the Nobel Peace Prize. His and his wife’s volunteer work for Habitat for Humanity wasn’t just administrative; he was personally building houses into his eighties at least.
The disingenuous might argue that this was all a case of conspicuous altruism, yet there remains very few people aware of the scope of his accomplishments, while media appearances were few and far between. The typical ‘lecture circuit’ of post-presidents in the US, commanding tens of thousands of dollars in fees per appearance, is almost non-existent in Carter’s history, and those that did occur were aimed towards his humanitarian goals. The authors within the interview, with the task of educating the public about Carter’s actions and attitudes in office (which would have greatly improved Carter’s own approval within the media and the population in general) were granted a strictly-enforced one hour of his time before he turned back to his duties. This from a man three decades past typical retirement age.
It’s easy to consider the Carter years as marred by numerous issues – it’s quite a bit harder to find those that he actually caused, much less that he had any control over. In the face of an energy crisis, he not only took actions to alleviate this, he fostered an attitude and policies of reducing our energy needs and turning away from petroleum – better than 40 years ago. His administration was notably unburdened by scandals, indictments, investigations, resignations, and above all, deaths from any of his actions, foreign or domestic. Feel free to tally up any US President to see how they compare in those regards alone – none will compare at all to Carter’s efforts following his tenure as President. He deserves a lot more respect than he’s been given, and a lot less attention paid to inept and superficial media representation. And above all, we really need to understand what our politicians are there to accomplish.
N 32° 1’19.99″ W 80°50’44.34″ Altitude ~40 meters Google Earth Location
For this one, the altitude is crucial, because you won’t achieve this perspective at ground level (which is notably close to sea level.) This is a view looking almost straight up into the lens and lamp housing of the Tybee Island Lighthouse on (wait for it) Tybee Island, Georgia, and was taken from just underneath – I don’t think access into the lamp room was permitted. What I liked most about this shot is how the fresnel lenses of the light worked, and despite aiming nearly vertical, the surrounding horizon is visible because of the lens distortion. This focuses the light to travel out to sea as far as possible, because it keeps the ships in the area from running into the lighthouse itself. You’d think if that was such a risk they’d build the damn thing further from the water, you know?
This main image might seem confusing when you see the lighthouse from the outside, because it looks almost globular here, yet exterior shots show straight, cylindrical sides. While there is a little wide-angle distortion in my image (shot at 21mm focal length,) it’s not that distinct – but the lens assembly is separate from the exterior housing and in indeed closer to globular – more like a squat pear shape, really, but the top is pretty small. If you look, you can see the white frames of the exterior housing through the lenses here. Even more interesting, the roof of the structure should extend out at least to the outer ring of the lens assembly and darken it, shadowing most of the frame, but the fresnel lens distortion prevent it from being seen at all.
By the way, that illuminated light is not the actual lighthouse bulb that keeps the marauding ships at bay – that’s the larger glass structure immediately to its left, and it’s safe to say this image would be significantly different if that one were illuminated. I’d probably still be seeing spots…
Doing a quick check in the back forty of Walkabout Estates this evening, I spotted this guy, almost certainly the same one as the first in this post from a couple days ago.
I’d seen him nearby earlier in the day – this was not even half-a-meter from both the earlier photo and this afternoon’s spotting. He’s entwined in a roll of chicken wire leaning against the edge of the greenhouse, by his own doing mind you – I’m glad to see that he found a spot not just warm and snug, but safe from being spotted as well.
Seriously, I think the instinct to find a safe place to snooze kinda slipped in this case. I found them plenty of times last year, either basking where they could get some overnight dew during the drought of the summer, or tucked in between leaves as the nights got chillier. It’s gotten a bit chilly tonight, but I doubt the benefits of this spot are notable.
While out there, I saw the ass-end of a mouse disappearing over top of a fence post, and played a little tag back and forth trying to get a good view. The mouse, instead of jumping off the post and disappearing into the voluminous leaves surrounding the area, chose to slip into the gap between post and garage and hold still, allowing me (after much angling and adjusting of the flash) to get a quick photo.
This isn’t a good enough view to determine species, though I would suspect, from their prevalence in the area, that it’s either a house mouse (Mus musculus) or eastern deer mouse (Peromyscus maniculatus) – I’d lean towards the former because, in my experience, the latter is a better climber than this one seemed to be.
No frogs anywhere though, which is curious after finding five out there last night/early this morning. No rain tonight though, so maybe that was it. They’ll be back.
It’s the last day of poor little underdeveloped February (wait, it’s not a leap year, is it? No, 2023, probably not,) and I shot nothing even remotely abstract all month. Granted, there wasn’t a bounty of things to shoot anyway, but here we are, making do with a frame taken not hours ago, heavily cropped to make it abstracty in some loose, Walkabout sense:
Hardly an award-winner, even by my standards (and there’s apparently a petition to keep me from even using the word, “standards,” snobbish pedantic pricks,) but what it does illustrate is that there is some color popping up here and there, and given that it was 18°c while I was out there shooting at 11:30 PM, who’s complaining? Not me, at least not about things other than stupid petitions.
But while we’re here…
This was one of five green treefrogs (Dryophytes cinereus) found out there while poking around, because see above about temperature, not to mention that it had rained lightly earlier, yet the moon was out as I was shooting. I suspect this guy was checking up on the upcoming conjunction, though that’ll be tomorrow night, March 1st, and I’ll be out there myself if the conditions hold – it’s not looking too promising right now, but we’ll see (or not,) I guess…
N 42°59’23.70″ W 76°45’9.08″ Google Earth Location
If you’re reasonably savvy about North American birds, you know the pink one is a roseate spoonbill (Platalea ajaja,) and if you know a decent amount about that species, you know that the location photographed is way the hell out of their range – you can try going back to this spot and seeing if you can find one, but I’m betting against it. As it was, this was in the Montezuma National Wildlife Refuge at the northern tip of Cayuga Lake in central New York, and The Girlfriend gets credit for spotting it before me and realizing it was not a typical species to be seen there. The word was just getting out among the birders of the area, but only a couple had managed to get there by that point to witness it; we returned a couple days later and the visitors were abuzz about it, though the spoonbill wasn’t making an appearance at that time.
Why it was there, we really don’t know. I have heard of cases where major storms drive birds well outside of their normal range as they try to escape the strong winds and pressure systems, but there had been none that passed even close to New York. Spoonbills don’t even migrate across the US; their flight patterns just hit the coasts of southern Florida and Mexico, extending down through the Caribbean and into South America, so this was well over a thousand kilometers out of normal range. Escapee from a zoo or wildlife park? Probably not, as I do a little webbernetting and find an article from that time, but it doesn’t appear that the mystery had been solved by that point at least. Either way, we’ll happily accept the blind luck that let us see it during our visit.
Here at Walkabout Studios, we don’t truck about with calendars. Well, we do, but only for unimportant things like reminders about the oft-ignored holidays, though when it comes to the important things like knowing when spring has arrived, we do it the old-fashioned way. Nope. we’re not talking about a Walkabouthenge (though that is a good idea, we’ll be looking into this,) but about the harbingers. And we have them, so go ahead and shift your wardrobe around – not the big piece of furniture, you can leave that where it is, but all those clothes inside it.
That there is a blossom, one of over a dozen, on the almond tree. Last year I started spraying the cherry and almond trees with deer repellent early on, with the result that both trees did much better, and achieved more new growth, than ever before – it appears that the deer were nibbling away far more than I thought. So this winter I’ve been maintaining the treatment, and whether this is directly related or not, the almond tree is notably in bloom right now. Yes, this is early, as it is for most of the plants and trees that are budding out, but no arguments on this end.
Alongside the greenhouse is a slapdash structure that I’ve dubbed the adjunct greenhouse, using old window sashes and sheet plastic, housing a few of the potted plants we’re trying to protect from cold snaps. Yesterday when I noticed that the sheeting had slipped a bit from the wind, I straightened it out and disturbed this guy, tucked within the folds.
This Carolina anole (Anolis carolinensis) is the largest specimen found around Walkabout Estates – I’d seen him numerous times last year – and likes the greenhouse area. I’m considering this one ‘official,’ even though I’d photographed one twelve days previously, because this one had little benefit from the house heat; the other clearly lived in or around the access door to the crawlspace and water heater, which remains warmer than the surrounding areas.
This is the gap along the edge of that door, and yes, it could use some more weatherstripping, but it only leads under the house and there’s plenty of insulation there, not to mention there are foundation vents along the walls, so it’s not exactly an energy loss. But the space is marginally warmer than the outdoors, plus a perfectly-sized gap for an anole, and this one (with one other at times last year) finds it a great place to nap. I just have to remember to check the door before I haul it open.
The green frogs (Lithobates clamitans,) as mentioned earlier, don’t indicate much, but while I was poking around late last night early this morning, this one was sitting on the edge of the backyard pond and so I crept in while it was dazzled by the headlamp.
Its associate saw me approaching somehow and launched itself into the water, but this one remained motionless even as I crawled forward on my knees and elbows to less than a half-meter away – it’s probably used to this jazz by now.
However, none of those were what I was really after, nor the true sign of spring. It was warm enough this morning and I suspected that I might find one, but had largely given up, finding none in the usual spots. Then as I was checking the plants in the greenhouse (the real one,) I espied this guy through the glass on the outside.
That’s a juvenile green treefrog (Dryophytes cinereus,) and the best indication of spring as far as I’m concerned, though I would have accepted a Copes grey treefrog as well. You can keep your equinoxes and official calendar days and robins and all that – it’s spring when the treefrogs say it is. Question it not.
One year ago today, Russia invaded Ukraine in a phenomenally stupid attempt to re-absorb the territory as their own, so this seemed the best time to post this (given as how I forgot about this little featured aspect until just recently.) Like most of the country, I stand 100% behind Ukraine in this regard. Until the invasion, I knew Putin was a return to the totalitarian mindset maintained throughout the Soviet Union years, but the invasion certified him as a megalomaniac, and not a very bright one – no wonder Florida Man is on good terms with him (that would be Trump, but this is the last time you’ll see that name here, because Florida Man fits him oh so much better.)
Anyway, around September I stumbled upon a model kit that I particularly liked, produced by an Ukrainian company and available nowhere else. The price was just a little steep but not too much so, and I was more than happy to place the order even with the warning that it might take some time to get here; frankly, I was glad to provide the funds and considered receiving the model, if it did indeed arrive, as a bonus.
It took just over a month, but arrived in good shape and appears to be quite a detailed kit – I have yet to start on it, but everything looks good (‘AMP’ is the company, if you’re into kits, and they produce aircraft that no other company has.) But with it came a little pamphlet, the cover of which is seen at right – the remaining pages will fall below the fold so as not to fill up the main page of the blog, but go ahead and click. It’s an absolute hoot.
[NOTE: I originally had a “read more” tag in here to prevent the entire content from appearing on the home page, but this isn’t working and I don’t have time to determine why right now, so here’s the full post anyway.]
Now, a couple of things to draw attention to, in case they were missed. You’ll note the depiction of the Russians in panel 4, and the infamous Russian tank being towed off by a Ukrainian farmer’s tractor in panel 5. Panel 7 is a reproduction of a Ukraine postage stamp issued on April 12th of last year, commemorating the response of Ukraine guards on Snake Island at the start of hostilities. It depicts the Russian guided missile cruiser Mockвa (“Moskva,” or, “Moscow”) being ‘saluted’ by Ukraine; whether this actually happened or not, what did happen was that, on being hailed and told by Mockвa to surrender, a Ukrainian soldier on Snake Island (specifically one Roman Hrybov) responded over the radio with, “Russian warship, go fuck yourself.” I decided that this quote needed to be featured for a while on the sidebar, and while I’m not retiring it now – it will go into regular rotation with the other, decidedly frivolous quotes – after today it will no longer be the sole quote featured.
Even better, the day after the issuing of the stamp, Ukraine forces sank the fucking Mockвa! The stamp (designed by Boris Groh – credit where it is due) was already approved and in production, so on subsequent stamp sheets, non-postable versions were included with the seal, “Mockвa DONE,” visible in the lower corner of panel 7 in the pamphlet – it’s not easy to make out in my photo of it, but the package is leaning against a button marked, “Bomb.” Or you can see the actual stamps here, if you like.
Which is the second story. I was of course dying to obtain at least one of those stamps from the moment that I saw the approved version, but knew the demand would be high and the production probably wiped out immediately. While writing this post, I decided to do a quick check, which is how I found the link above, direct to Ukrposhta, the Ukrainian postal service. Not only can you order sheets of the stamps, they do international shipping. While I suspected the cost, converted to US currency, would be prohibitive, it’s not in the slightest – you can convert it directly on the page by going to the upper left corner where “UA’ and “UAH” are listed, and selecting instead, “EN” (English) and, “USD” (dollar dollar bills y’all.) Which means that sheet, as I type this, was a mere $4.50, the postage to the US less than $8.00! Yes, I ordered a stack, and included a donation to help the animals of Ukraine as well. Fuck yes.
In the face of Russia’s brutal, unjustifiable attack, which has been targeting non-combatants and engaging in criminal and reprehensible acts, Ukrainian citizens and soldiers have been responding not just with resolve, but with competence, professionalism, and outright defiance. President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has displayed more statesmanship, leadership, and character than any US politician – really, all of them combined (which isn’t saying a lot, admittedly – most of ours believe they’re playing in sandboxes while overdue for a diaper change.) Here’s hoping that, by this time next year, this idiotic war will be well over. Slava Ukraini!
I did manage to set aside a little time to pursue some photos for National Wildlife Day but the wildlife was not cooperating very well at all – mostly what I got were some lackluster photos of solitary cormorants. And the images here are about as far removed from wildlife as possible, definitionally and linearly, but I saw this in the sky and had to grab the tripod to fire off a few frames. I remember hearing about a conjunction coming up but let it slip from my mind, and caught it anyway because I’m just that good. So here’s tonight’s crescent moon, with Jupiter alongside and Venus way off down there in the corner. I had the long lens on and, backing off down to 150mm, I could get all three in the frame. But it looks better concentrating on the closer two.
I was aiming mostly to bring up the earthshine in the shadowed portion of the moon, but also just barely caught the Jovian moons as well – no earthshine on those, admittedly, and there won’t be, because they will never show crescents to us here on Earth. Jupiter is far enough out that the sun is always effectively ‘behind’ us to its orbit, and the only planet (or any major body) that can show phases to us Venus, because it’s closer to the sun than we are. Mercury probably can too, but that’s close enough to the sun that no equipment that I have is going to capture it. Meanwhile, we’ll take a closer look at Jupiter and its entourage.
This is with the 150-600 at 600mm, with the 2X teleconverter as well, so about 1000mm (I know that doesn’t seem to make sense, but calculating the magnifications indicate that the 2X converter isn’t quite 2X – closer to 1.8X,) and this is a full-resolution crop of the frame. The Jovian moons, meaning the largest and easiest to see from Earth, are all visible here: from top, Ganymede, Io, Europa, and way down below trying to hide is Callisto. While checking the details in Stellarium, I noticed that it was showing only three of the moons, and eventually determined that Europa was ‘there’ but not displaying in the program – probably something to do with the version that I just reinstalled.
But yeah, this is as good as it gets until I get the telescope up to speed. So we’ll turn to the moon for a moment.
Part of the glare here is due to the humidity, and I will note that Venus vanished from site before it ever set, and only minutes after I got the frames that included it, above. But most of the glare simply comes from overexposing the moon to bring out detail from the earthshine – not quite the best phase to tackle this within. I should have tried last night if I wanted that, because we’re in the waxing period now and the moon will only be increasing in phase for the next two weeks, becoming brighter and worsening the glare.
BUT, I’m not a total loss, because while out on the edge of the neighborhood pond getting these pics (the best view towards the west,) I noticed a few frogs hanging out, so I include a true bit of wildlife for the day:
This is a common-as-the-muck-it’s-sitting-in green frog (Lithobates clamitans,) and about as token as you can get for ‘wildlife.’ But at least it’s not an insect. Admittedly, I could have snagged an image of one every night that it’s been even slightly warm all winter, because there are three wintering in the backyard pond that pop up with the faintest hint of a decent temperature, but, well…
