For a given “World,” anyway

Al Denelsbeck

black-capped chickadee Poecile atricapillus peering down from tree stump
Hey, you know what this coming Saturday (May 14th) is?

Well, it depends on where you are, really. If you’re in the US or Canada, it’s World Migratory Bird Day, so get out and find a migratory world to give to your bird. Or something. Give the bird to… no, that can’t be right. But I’d suggest going out and seeing how many species you can spot, or photograph, or do some research on, or make some new nest boxes, or set up some inviting habitat, or teach kids about, or, you know, something related to migratory birds, to show you’re not nature-hostile or Republican or whatever. Of course, this may be falling late for anyone from the mid-latitudes south, because the migratory birds have already arrived and thus nest boxes and so on would be late, but do something anyway.

As I discovered not too many days back, should you be in Mexico, the Caribbean, Central or South America, World Migratory Bird Day is the second Saturday in October. Makes a little sense, since those are the southern destinations for various species migrating south, and about the time that they’re doing it, so timed for their arrival in either case; how this escaped my attention before, I’ll never know, but I’ll blame it on US-centric Google (I’m now using Ecosia as a search engine.) If you’re in the rest of the world, apparently it’s not the right world because there is no World Migratory Bird Day celebrated therein, despite the fact that birds also migrate between Europe and Africa in the appropriate months. Maybe if I switched to Gügel as a search engine…

All that aside, you’ve had enough warning now to cancel those wedding plans, blow off the family reunion, postpone the trip to the ISS – whatever – and watch some birds instead. You can show this post to anyone protesting, because my name carries that much clout – my search engine says so (I’m also getting so handsome.) Enjoy yourself!

trio of double-crested cormorants Nannopterum auritum flying in formation

Not as efficient

Al Denelsbeck

So after the lightning images last night, I went out into the backyard a couple hours later and noticed that the moon was quite bright and clear – the clouds had vanished entirely. The peak of the Eta Aquariids had been the previous night, but the ‘storm’ really lasts for a couple of weeks, or at least, the Earth is in some contact with the debris trail that causes it; how many meteors this actually produces is another matter. Given that the sky conditions have been less-than-optimal all week, I decided to wait until the moon set and give it a shot. And since this occurred after 1 AM this morning, I was up ‘late.’

long night exposure over Jordan Lake showing kayaker preparing
The sky was indeed quite clear, though this didn’t eradicate the light pollution that exists, and Jordan Lake is the closest area with semi-dark skies – this meant that for a short while, I was sharing the area with a kayaker getting ready to do some night fishing. What you’re seeing down at the bottom are the trails left by his red headlamp around his car, though on the horizon you can see the moving tops of some very distant thunderheads. More on this later.

long night exposure anchored on Polaris
This image shows Polaris, the North Star, at the center of all those arcs, with Ursa Major/Big Dipper off to the left. Note that this is nowhere near Aquarius, the radiant of this storm, but technically that was still below the horizon and anyway, the trees were blocking my view in that direction which is pretty light polluted anyway – I was aiming for the best display regions.

Most of my exposures were around ten minutes, because the lack of humidity meant less light scatter and I could get away with it, and while the camera was just sitting there exposing away, I was scanning around quite a bit, as well as doing some limited exploring until my flashlight battery died. I saw one distinct meteor, though a couple of glimmers out of the corner of my eye may, or may not, have been more. Naturally, the one that I saw was well outside the field of view of the camera, but it did seem to be originating from the direction of Aquarius – it was better than half the dome away though, so far that only a whole-sky image would reveal it seemed to come from there. It was a short and basic meteor anyway, what would have been just a line of light on the image – I’m after the brilliant fireballs, or at least a seriously long trail.

But then, during a short exposure at high ISO, I captured one. Woo hoo.

light streak suring long night exposure
Yeah, that’s it, that little scratch at top center. I need to find some way to note which way I’m aiming during such sessions, because it took a little while to determine that I was facing almost straight up – the bright star at upper right is Vega, the one at upper left is Arcturus, and that curve of stars near the streak is Corona Borealis. The zenith falls just slightly right of center between Arcturus and Vega. I ran Stellarium back after I got home to see if there were any visible satellites around that time and found none, so I was pretty confident that I snagged at least one meteor in-camera for all these attempts – notably, this was only an 18-second exposure.

Then I looked at some other frames.

long night exposure with intruding satellite
long night exposure showing intruding satellite
I left these at full-frame, so look closely at top center of both images. These were two minutes after the previous, now aimed almost due east, 18 and 9 second exposures, and the continuity of the trail (not to mention the even brightness throughout, no tapering or change in magnitude) indicates this is a satellite. With Stellarium, it’s very hard to compare orientation, but given the timing and directions, all three are likely the same satellite – I have no record of which, but with the inordinate number of new launches, this isn’t terribly surprising. This means, yet again, no meteors to show for the time spent chasing them. Sigh.

Although, that little cloudiness visible in both frames isn’t humidity, it’s actually the Milky Way, and I decided to pursue that a little better.

milky Way over Jordan Lake
I boosted ISO to 6400, the maximum of the camera, and fired off a few test exposures. This one has undergone a slight tweak to contrast (and some camera-noise reduction,) but is otherwise as shot. Man, I really got to get back out to the beach for more attempts without light pollution, because this isn’t half bad for all that. Scorpius is curling up from near the horizon towards the right, which means that the galactic center is sitting there somewhere above that one tree. This is just 9 seconds, so streaking was kept to a bare minimum.

Then I moved into the parking lot further away from the trees, and reoriented a little.

long night exposure of Milky Way
The tail of Scorpius is down there at lower right, and even at 18mm focal length, some of the clusters and nebulas along the Milky Way can be seen. Admittedly, this doesn’t hold a candle to a lot of the images out there, but then again, this has undergone no post-processing at all save for a slight contrast tweak – no multiple-frame stacking or extrapolation, no enhancements, no filters, and so on. These things are de rigueur for astronomy photos anymore, but horseshit as far as I’m concerned, because it’s all computer work – you’ll never see nor capture anything of the sort in-camera, and can only achieve them with specialized software and multiple frames. Imagine what the reaction would be if we did that for any other kind of photography.

Now, I missed a trick myself while out there, only thinking about it after I got back and saw the large amount of chromatic speckling within the ISO 6400 frames. The 7D has a long-exposure noise reduction option, but I’d tried it out and it takes as long, processing within the camera, as the original exposure did; this is obviously a hindrance with ten-minute exposures, especially when chasing meteors, because it freezes up the camera from any other use. But with these ISO 6400 images lasting no more than 20 seconds – that’s doable. I wish I’d thought of it while out there, but I hadn’t yet seen the end results either.

combined frames of two exposures showing mysterious dark spotI’m throwing this one down for giggles, because that dark spot has me curious. These were consecutive, 8 and 17 seconds with a couple of seconds between them, and I don’t know how that dark patch got in there. I initially suspected a spot from the earlier rains, shown only by the brightness of the exposure, but it appears in no other frames and I never touched the lens while out there. I think a bug landed on the lens for a few moments.

I mentioned the thunderheads earlier, and I was seeing little flashes from that approximate direction some time later, figuring them to be distant lightning. So I pulled the lightning tracker up on my smutphone and found that the only strikes were something like 350 kilometers away! So either these carry for a remarkable distance on clear nights, or the tracker doesn’t register cloud-to-cloud activity and thus wasn’t pegging a closer storm, which is fairly likely. It seemed to be in the right direction anyway.

There were also a handful of fireflies cruising around out there, but none of them were inclined to cross the field of view of the camera, which might have been cool. I’ve seen too little firefly activity to try and capture it in a night exposure, but one of these days it’ll happen.

I’d headed down there hoping that my luck would continue after the lightning, and I’d catch an image of a glorious bolide, but no dice this time. And I remind myself, typing this, that the idea of ‘jinxing’ myself by hoping is just as superstitious as thinking there’s such a thing as luck holding. Meteor storms just ain’t been panning out for me – but I’ll catch nothing by not trying, so…

The easiest yet

Al Denelsbeck

It’s been a day of severe storm threats, alternating rain and sun, and tornado watches, but after dinner, I heard thunder about the same time that I was getting lightning strike alerts, and checked the Real Time Lightning Map: lots of strikes south of my location, but what looked like increasing activity to the west. I figured I’d give it a shot, and grabbed the camera and tripod and hiked it over to the neighborhood pond, knowing I had little time to spare.

Naturally, I saw one brilliant strike as the shutter was closed, but I waited it out – which hardly gives the right impression, because I didn’t have long to wait.

lightning strike beyond pond
It was dusk, with a little light still left in the sky, so I was slowly lengthening my exposures from 12 to 30 seconds or so. I was rewarded with this strike, and this is full frame; we can go in a little closer with a tighter crop for better framing:

closer crop of same lightning image
You can see that the wind and the rain have already roughed up the surface of the pond and all reflections. This exposure gives a decent idea of what I could see without the lightning, and I was watching to see if any beavers might want to get into the shot, though they remained out of sight.

But I could feel the wind picking up and the rain getting stronger – not like a front, but like a cell, gusty and sporadic. And then the wind really started to pick up. I had my hand on the tripod steadying it for this next frame.

closer lightning strike over pond
Even as brief as it was, I got the impression it was significantly closer, which the thunder confirmed, and the wind was roaring now. Still not close – several kilometers off – but lightning strikes can be unpredictable and the storm was serious by now. This was the last frame (uncropped at 18mm focal length, by the way,) and I immediately packed it up and headed back, not sure if I’d overstayed my time and wouldn’t be soaked before I got home. As it was, I was a bit damp, but the downpour held off long enough. Meanwhile, the lightning that seemed to be heading right in for a window-rattler died out almost as soon as I got home.

So you know, it was just shy of five minutes between the first and last frames that I shot on this little attempt, a total of 12 frames, which makes it by far the most efficient storm outing yet, even when others have produced better images. I could have thrown a pizza in the oven before I left and been back to take it out on time.

Well, that is good news

Al Denelsbeck

There’s a bit of sarcasm in that title, on multiple levels perhaps, but let’s take it from the beginning.

Almost four years ago, I had a paragraph within a post (down after the page break, here) that commented on the present state of cosmological physics and my ‘gut reaction’ to it. In short: the universe is not only expanding, it’s accelerating, and to do this it needs something to make it accelerate, which has been dubbed, “Dark energy.” We actually have no idea what dark energy is or how it would manifest, but the evidence of the acceleration is there from multiple measurements and methods, so it remains as a placeholder.

The upshot of this is, it would mean that the universe is destined to expand forever, eventually matter becoming so dissipated that energy exchange cannot take place and is simply lost to the depths of space; even the electron orbits of individual atoms dies out and the universe undergoes a ‘heat death.’ This happens so far off in the future that it’s academic, long after our own planetary system is destroyed by the death of the sun, and long after all of the other stars in the universe have lived out their own lives and dwindled into nothing. The time frame that is expressed here is millions of times the current age of the universe, though a great deal of that time would be spent dark and cold anyway as stars got more distant and petered out.

I mentioned there that the whole concept bothered me, the idea that the universe had this massive one-way trip, incredible energy exchanges and galaxy formations and all that jazz, to just drift off and die out, all change coming to an end. It didn’t seem right to me, to the point that this is a theory that I figure has got to be wrong. The Big Bang was/is extremely cool (probably not the best adjective there,) and it ends like that? No, I reckoned that there was something that made it cyclical, some process or undiscovered law of physics that slowed and eventually reversed the expansion, likely back down to the singularity that existed immediately before the Big Bang, whereupon a new universe could start from there. Yet, I recognize that this was only emotional, the distaste over the cessation of change, that went against what I felt was logical, and if I was fully accepting of the evidence, that was the way the universe would end, like it or not.

And then, there’s this paper, which says, “Maybe not. In fact, the acceleration may already be dying down, the expansion may stop soon, and the universe may start to contract again” [I am paraphrasing a bit here, but not inaccurately.]

Immediately, a part deep inside of me exults, “Nailed it!” even though I had no theory of my own (not quite true, but it was decidedly half-ass) and can’t be said to have forwarded any stance on the matter. It just validated my ‘gut instincts,’ which even I will admit weren’t instincts of any kind but just an emotional desire to see things differently. And soon afterward, my skepticism started kicking in.

With any scientific paper that promotes a significant change to our current understanding, the very first bit is to ask, “Has this been vetted and/or replicated yet?” A lot of new papers extend ideas that, with a bit of research or the attempt to duplicate the results, turn out to be overblown or just outright incorrect. Some of them aren’t even ‘papers,’ per se, in that they haven’t been published in serious peer reviewed journals – too many internet articles promote these without any recognition of this. Yet this paper has been published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America [PNAS], which ranks pretty decently. As for replication, well, there can’t be any, since the physics and math involved don’t, and cannot, show any avenue of testing. Given that however, the numbers fit with the observations, at least according to reviewers. There isn’t anything in here, to my knowledge, that distinctly overturns the present nonstop expansion view, it just proposes a different set of rules.

Which means it’s too soon to feel good about it, even if you’re so inclined. And we need to recognize that cosmological time frames are something else. The paper indicates that the acceleration may end within 65 million years, and the expansion itself within 100 million. In comparison to the 13.78 billion year age of the universe, this is like, “next week,” but for perspective, “we” (meaning our human ancestors) had recently achieved walking upright not quite four million years ago, while 65 million years ago was the beginning of the end for the dinosaurs – it’s not like we’re going to see something happen. Quite frankly, I think we’ll be lucky to see the next half-million years.

From my personal standpoint, I’m not going to even see the universe fifty years from now, so what happens after that is academic; why should I concern myself with dark energy or any ultimate fate? No matter what, it’s too far in the future to even conceive of. Liking or disliking any theory of what happens is pointless, from any perspective you care to name, but we’re weird like that; understanding our universe seems important, likely from badly misplaced evolutionary goads, and liking one concept over another is… what? I honestly don’t know, which is why this article has been on my mind the past couple of days, because I’m not even sure what it says about us. Or at least me.

*     *     *     *

Another page break. Just for the sake of it, I’ll bring up that there’s another theory on the fate of the universe, one that I’d been unaware of until reading this paper (or the parts that I could understand, anyway, which wasn’t much.) In that, the vacuum of our universe has a positive energy state, and may be separated from a neutral or negative energy state vacuum elsewhere (they’re using “bubble” as a descriptor, though whether we’re inside or outside of it is unclear.) Eventually, the bubble wall will pass over/through us, ending expansion – but also us, since the “ultrarelativistic” properties will alter pretty much everything. With no warning that this would be coming. Sleep tight.

Visibly different, part 18

Al Denelsbeck

very large fishing spider likely Dolomedes tenebrosus perched on root at river edge
I have a special treat for you today – I mean, aside from this delightful image – in that you get to learn a little important history. What you see here is the first professional sale that I made, published in a magazine (ask your grandmother what those were.)

Well, it was similar to this, anyway – it might not have been this exact slide, and they certainly printed it way darker than this, but close enough. I was active on several photography newsgroups at the time (again, grandma,) and someone posted their need for images of both fishing spiders and water striders. The fishing spider bit I wasn’t too sure of, but I knew I could obtain water strider photos, and set off to my regular haunt at the head of the Neuse River to see if I could snag a few photos, including being prepared to bring home a few and do ‘studio’ shots. Not only did I photograph a few in situ, I managed to capture a couple (you try this sometime) and photographed them in closeup detail, with natural-looking background within a shallow dish of water in the window of my office. I sent these along to the magazine along with a few photos, like the one above, that I considered wolf spiders. In a few days they responded, wanting to know the two species represented, and I was forced to contact an entomologist at the local state university. Listen, it was 2001, and the internet was a mere innocent child then: finding useful information remained hit-or-miss, and BugGuide.net did not exist. The entomologist was very helpful and identified the spider as, indeed, a fishing spider, probably Dolomedes tenebrosus, but the water striders couldn’t be pinned down – as he told me, one needed to see the genitalia to be sure, and I admitted I did not get photographs that detailed or personal. I dutifully passed this on to the magazine, though a little more circumspectly.

And then… nothing. No contact about usage, no contract, no discussion of terms in the slightest – this is typically an avenue of negotiation between photographers and editors, and I had recently attended a seminar on just this kind of thing and was thus at least a little prepared. Weeks later, I was notified by my cousin that the magazine had indeed published the images, but I still hadn’t heard a word from them. I went out and got a few copies myself, and it was gratifying to see my images in print with my byline right there, but getting paid for them was also imperative. Weeks later, I was fast approaching my self-imposed deadline of contacting the magazine and demanding to know what they were doing, when my slides were all returned with a check for the usage. The amount was within going rates, so I was mollified – I’m trying to recall if they even sent me a complimentary copy or not. Typically, the publisher provides several for ‘tearsheets,’ the résumé of the photographer to be able to show off to potential clients. But yeah, the failure to obtain agreement over fees or extend a contract was not at all typical of professional usage.

All that said, where do we find ourselves now, in comparison? We’ll start with more recent images.

Fishing spider Dolomedes tenebrosus close portrait
Same species, but this time at the side of my own pond here at Walkabout Estates, taken at night when the spider wasn’t fully aware of the danger because it was dazzled by the headlamp. For the record, this came from six years ago, still fifteen after that first publication. Yet we can do better than this.

extreme closeup of juvenile female six-spotted fishing spider Dolomedes triton showing prey
This is a year later in 2017, but more notable because of the size. You see, the first two above were both quite large – actually, freaking huge for North American spiders – both spanning across the legs about the width of your palm. This one is a juvenile Dolomedes triton, and I’ll let the illustrating image that I obtained of the same specimen speak for itself.

six-spotted fishing spider Dolomedes triton with measuring scale
Clearly, we’re talking many times smaller now, so the ‘facial’ detail is something that I’m very pleased with. That portrait was also a studio shot, with a story in itself – I’m still a little surprised it went as well as it did.

“But did this start you on the road to a lucrative and well-published nature photography career, Al?” you ask breathlessly, and I enthusiastically reply, “Yeah right.” The publications have been few and far between, not at all helped by the radical change in media that the internet brought with it, as well as the near-collapse of paid photographers. Much as I’d like to report that the increase in image quality resulted in a commensurate increase in income, the reality is exactly the opposite. Fuck it all, anyway.

But while we’re here, we’ll take a look at the water strider photo that went along with it.

pair of unidentified water striders on leaf in studio setting
I can’t recall what the entomologist told me was the potential genus, and it may take quite a bit of research in BugGuide to come close, but you don’t care anyway. This is my studio shot, and it published much smaller than you’re seeing here (unless you’re using a phone to view this site, and why would you do something that silly?) Now let’s look at what they didn’t publish, even though I sent them sixteen slides, I believe.

unidentified water strider on leaf in studio
Granted, this is both more anatomical than an article on water gardens merited, and a little sterile in the background department, but a pretty good slide for my efforts in 2001, and I haven’t surpassed this with any related species, anyway. That’s full frame – we need a detailed look at it.

detailed inset of unidentified water strider
This is a fraction under the full resolution of the original slide, and you can just make out some of the eye facets. If you’re not familiar with water striders, their overall length might get as high as 20mm, usually 10-15, and that eye was likely a millimeter across, give or take. Not too shabby for the Sigma 105 macro and a 2x converter (I’m almost certain, anyway.)

These probably weren’t my first strider photos, and maybe not even the fishing spider, but certainly the first of both in detail. A few years earlier, I’d had an encounter with a fisher that was a little creepy. I was opening an outdoor well-head to check the connections on the pipe, and pulled a few bats of fiberglass insulation from around the head. As I lifted it out and casually turned it over, it revealed another massive fishing spider, again about the size of my palm, directly on the opposite side of the insulation from my hand. I knew that if the spider spooked, it would certainly run to the ‘underside’ where my hand was, and in my mildly arachnophobic state this was something that I sincerely wished to avoid – gingerly, I placed the insulation on the ground with no undue movements and thus avoided any contact. Not that it would have been anything but frightening to me, since fishers are harmless and quite unlikely to bite in such circumstances, but logic doesn’t hold sway against phobias. I’m happy to report, though, that these can be overcome with time and exposure.

Just because, part 47

Al Denelsbeck

Nothing really to say here, just a couple of pics from ‘today.’ Too much like other recent pics, but that’s life – I have other subjects in the works, so something new will be along at some point. New-ish, anyway.

Carolina anole Anolis carolinensis basking on Japanese maple
I found a Carolina anole (Anolis carolinensis) basking on the Japanese maple out front, except that it’s no longer the Japanese maple out front, but one of three. We probably should name them or something, but it’s the oldest, at least. So you know. After a few typical perspectives, I sidled around to do more of a head-on view through the leaves, and liked the effect. I’d seen this one a few days previously on the same tree, so it’s residing in the vicinity, at least for the time being.

Out back, a green treefrog (Hyla cinerea) was spending the day in the ginkgo, except that’s one of three now too, though the others are dwarfs and potted.

green treefrog Hyla cinerea tucked in tight to ginkgo Ginkgo biloba tree
The frog had changed positions slightly throughout the day, but this was clearly the best, and the best perspective – you have to appreciate talent like this. The frog’s, I mean, not mine, though if you want to appreciate my talent there’s no stopping you.

Got clear skies?

Al Denelsbeck

Just letting you know that the Eta Aquariids meteor shower is due to peak on the night/morning of the 5th/6th, though it’s going on right now, since we’re passing through the dust trail left by Hailey’s comet on its passes around the sun – that’s what most meteor showers are, and why we can schedule them. As the Earth trundles around in its orbit, it crosses the paths that many comets have taken in their own orbits, and despite the fact that they look like they’re spewing stuff away at some inordinate rate, enough of their debris remains in its own orbit, littering space in the immediate vicinity like fishermen dropping beer bottles. When such debris (the comet dust) gets close enough, Earth’s gravity pulls it in and it hurtles through our atmosphere so fast that the air glows (that’s actually what you’re seeing, not the meteor itself.)

This year’s Eta Aquariids, unlike the Lyrids last month, will occur with dark skies, since the moon is a thin crescent those days that sets not long after the sun does. However, the radiant will be rising late – about 3 AM on the morning of the 6th – so many of the meteors will remain out of sight below the horizon, for northern hemisphere observers; it’s actually supposed to be a much better show from the southern hemisphere. However, if you want to give it a shot, your best observation direction is likely east until about 3 AM, when Saturn rises – the radiant is within the ‘water jug’ of Aquarius off to the left of Saturn. At that point, follow Aquarius across the sky.

However, don’t feel the need to be specific. Meteor showers may throw down from any direction, and in my experience, the best trails have not been from the radiants – but there isn’t a dependable direction to aim in, and the greater number have been from around the radiants, just tending towards the quick, ‘blink and you’ll miss it’ type. Secondly, you’ll want a wider angle anyway to capture as much as possible, so your field of view may take in a significant portion of the sky, and aiming towards the horizon as Aquarius rises may only fill the frame with light pollution, while the darkest portion of sky will increase your odds of seeing something.

I did indeed make an attempt on last month’s Lyrids, but I got out too late and the moon had already risen, so though it remained behind the trees from my vantage, it was lighting up the humidity in the sky.

long exposure of northwest sky during Lyrids meteor shower
In all my time spent observing, I saw one meteor, naturally not where the camera would catch it, and my handful of exposures showed bupkiss. This was directly opposite the moon, not at all towards the radiant but the darkest sky in my vicinity, and you can see the moonlight is reaching the trees already. I should have been out earlier, but believe it or not, I was busy before then despite the late hour – I tend to do a lot of my work at night, especially that on the computer or my workdesk.

long exposure over Jordan Lake showing star trails
Both of these were ten-minute exposures, and you can see how badly the humidity and moonlight (and light pollution) was affecting this one – this was 120-140° from the one above, within 60° of the moon off to the left. Hardly the best view, but had I caught a major fireball with its reflection in the lake, I would have been ecstatic. Maybe in a few nights I’ll double down, get out the old 30D and a second tripod, and shoot in two directions simultaneously. Dammit, one of these days I’ll snag a wicked bolide trail, and justify all of my attempts.

Been a while since we had arthropods

Al Denelsbeck

I think it has, anyway – I’m not going back to check, and this is what I have to feature regardless. Could have posted this Saturday night, if it hadn’t been for an extended phone call.

Atop a potted hydrangea bush on the back deck I spotted this little guy:

unidentified male spider on hydrangea buds
Nothing remarkable, not very big (about 5-7mm body length,) doing nothing in particular. I can only tell you it’s a male, because while the eye pattern seems distinctive, I have yet to identify the species, but it might be one of the long-legged sac spiders. I would have passed him up, but then within a few centimeters on the same bush, I found this:

unidentified female spider missing all four legs on left
This one is slightly larger, mostly in the abdomen, and female, but to all appearances it’s the same species. And yes, she’s missing all the legs on the left side. Despite this, she was gamely moving around, certainly not with agility and I couldn’t tell you her handicap in capturing prey, but she was mobile.

unidentified female spider missing all four legs on left
How did this happen? Don’t know. There are certainly enough anoles and skinks in the immediate vicinity to have launched an unsuccessful attack (though hours earlier than when I spotted her, since this was well after nightfall and those species would be snoozing by that time) – but the presence of the male was vaguely suspicious. It’s possible that I happened along shortly after a courtship, though whether he would have been responsible for such injuries seems a little unlikely. First off, it’s more often the male that stands at risk, both from unwelcoming females and from being a handy source of sustenance even after successful mating. Seems rather nasty, but nature favors reproduction, and once the male has done his duty, he may do a further duty in ensuring the female has enough food to produce the eggs – that means the genes carry on, which is the whole point. But the second factor making this seem unlikely is that the male injuring the female so distinctly is handicapping his own genes, since her survival chances, even just to producing an egg sac, are greatly diminished. This is not to say that it couldn’t happen, but the instincts for the male would likely be to avoid injury to the female. So, curious. I haven’t see either since, but I also didn’t perform a close examination of the bush since then.

That was enough to provoke me having the macro rig out, so I went looking for other subjects while at the same time checking the status of various plants and egg cases in the yard. Out front, I was near the hearts-a-bustin’ (Euonymus americanus) bush when I watched a large crane fly (Tipulidae) cruising along – “large” not being an adjective in this case but a proper name distinguishing them from other crane flies. It was clearly after the flowers, and soon alighted to feed.

large crane fly Tipulidae feeding from flowers of hearts-a-bustin' Euonymus americanus
While pleased to get a behavioral shot of a crane fly, even as simple as it is, the flowers drew my attention, because despite having this in the yard since we moved in, I’ve never looked closely at the flowers before – or at least, I don’t recall doing so, but we all know I’m getting ancient and decrepit and had I readers, one might snarkily point out the photos that I’ve featured here in an earlier post. Or I could simply search on the tags below to confirm/deny, but why do that? [See the bit about ‘readers’]

flowers of hearts-a-bustin' Euonymus americanus
You gotta admit, those are not typical flowers – they look like the product of a bored and inept factory worker just barely following directions. And their physiology is even curious, sprouting as they are with an attendant leaf, in pairs. I should probably look up the details of this plant someday, because this hints that it’s in a whole other class.

I probably should have tried stalking the (large) crane fly some more, just to see if any traces of pollen were visible upon it – get the illustrations while you can, you know? But it was aware of my presence and didn’t like me getting too close, so it soon moved to flowers out of easy viewing. Maybe later.

[A stupid little aside: once, while out stalking treefrogs at night for video, I was standing motionless with all lights out waiting for one nearby to sound off again, when a mating pair of crane flies lighted on a branch immediately alongside my ear. This sound, otherwordly, so close, and out of nowhere in total darkness, was extremely disorienting, and if I ever have the opportunity I will endeavor to record it.]

You’ve done enough, April

Al Denelsbeck

Why, look – it is the end of yet another month! Boy, they just don’t seem to last anymore, do they? Back in my day, months lasted a month and a half, especially during the school year. They weren’t made in China, either.

But this means it’s abstract time. You still have a chance to redeem yourself, April, if you pony up the goods right now.

glitter trail starbursts against coarse bark
That… almost cuts it. Almost. But we still can’t let you go any further, April, so you have until midnight to clear out your stuff and vamoose.

Taken during an outing on Jordan Lake, the glitter trail was being especially sparkly, and I had the opportunity to set it alongside some seriously shaggy bark – c’mon now, who wouldn’t take advantage of that? I popped several frames, because water reflections are wildly variable, and picked this one because the starbursts seemed to balance out the best. The starbursts were, to no one’s surprise, provoked by using a small aperture.

Here’s something that I never knew, nor checked out before, but in reading about diffraction around aperture blades (or the secondary mirror mounts of telescopes,) I found that the diffraction always extends perpendicular to the diffracting element, in both directions, so there will always be an even number of ‘arms’ to the starbursts. Thus, apertures with five, seven, or nine blades will produce ten, fourteen, or eighteen arms respectively. Funny how I knew about the diffraction thing for years, yet never noticed that the arms were never an odd number, or seemed to exceed a reasonable count of blades. There are fourteen spikes on these stars, and yes, the Canon 18-135 STM lens that I used for this shot does indeed have seven blades.

In fact, the reason that we even call these ‘starbursts’ is because of this diffraction, caused solely by the secondary, forward mirror of a reflecting telescope being supported by thin arms across the mouth of the telescope tube – you won’t see such a thing by naked eye, or through a refracting (lensed) telescope. As astrophotography became more common, we started seeing these spikes around stars in the photos, and associate them together even though they’re only an artifact.

As a bare bit of useless trivia, I once did a mural in my bedroom of a starfield, including dust lanes and my impression of a black hole, and the prominent, bright star in my painting had multiple arms – four big primaries, and smaller secondary and still-smaller tertiary arms, like fractions of an inch on a ruler. Except that these never occur. Nertz.

Whaddya want? It’s free

Al Denelsbeck

Posting has been slow this week, entirely because I’ve been buried in projects and the only things that I’ve found to photograph (up until just a couple hours ago) were all the same things I’ve been featuring way too much of. My assertions, even just internally, that I’m going to branch out more haven’t really been working, but as I said, I’ve had other things to do. Some of those have been working out pretty nicely, so while they’re not producing any content that anyone else would have an interest in (he says with astounding accuracy,) I’ve been pleased with my progress. Hell, if I felt I was obligated to maintain regular content for you guys, I’d be no better than those lame-ass influencers and social media yutzfucks. Basically, no new content means I’m bigger than that.

[Was that slick or what?]

Still, tonight netted me some interesting photos and video clips, so more will be along, but there’s a two-factor delay. The first is, I want more stuff to flesh it out some, so I’m waiting until further sessions produce what I need. Second, I need to upgrade my Vimeo account to host more clips, and I’m stalling on dropping the money. That’s typical, though; new purchases or expenses usually wait until the next paycheck/student/commission/successful mugging, avoiding impulse buys and balancing out income and expense to a small degree. It won’t be long.

Until then, a bare peek at what I snagged – this is, of course, not the best that I got, because drama, but at least you know it’s not a frog or lizard.

North American beaver Castor canadensis approaching in water

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