Xanthic Monday

Al Denelsbeck

Yes, it’s the thirteenth anniversary of the very first post here on the ol’ Walkabout Public Display of Narcissism, and I thought to myself (because who else am I gonna think to?) How do I make this special? And then it occurred to me that I should do something I’ve never done before.

I noticed some time back that I’ve never had a post that began with “X,” out of (presently) 2,228 posts. I even managed a “Z,” not even halfway to this point, but no “X.” So it was time to correct that.

rising yellow full moon with reflection in lake
Of course, it helps a little if you know what “xanthic” means.

yellow azaleas, maybe
Contrived? Well, naturally. Listen; you try even listing six words that begin with “X,” and then see how to work them into a blog post. I’ve been considering this endeavor for a while now, and this is the best I came up with, because I couldn’t think of anything interesting to say about xylophones. But now I can cross this goal off my list.

yellow jagged ambush bug
This particular image was in the running for a Profiles of Nature post, but seeing as how there’s only one left in the year…

bright yellow fungus on well-worn stump
This one’s a slide, over twenty years old now, but the contrast was nice.

yellow sky and clouds over beach at sunrise
If you don’t know what “xanthic” means and you never bothered to click on the link provided, you’ve probably still figured it out by now.

goldfinch - okay, this is a reach
Okay, yes, I was busy today, and you’ll see at least a portion of that a little later on, but hey – I posted, so throw me a cookie at least. Even better, I kept it under 300 words, which is less than most Profiles, so that should be worth another cookie. Don’t be stingy. Or just congratulate me on my accomplishment, at least. We all like recognition.

Brief public appearance

Al Denelsbeck

I ventured out today, partially to get some exercise, partially to see what there might be to photograph, but mostly to see if I could find any mantis egg cases. I was completely foiled in that primary goal, not spotting even one, but I snagged a handful of photos, including some most unexpected, so not a total loss. But yes, the quest for egg cases goes on…

For now, we have what can be found around here in the winter, even though it peaked around 21°c today.

backlit puffy seed spire of unidentified weed
I don’t know what this is, but there were plenty of them around Mason Farm Biological Reserve, and this one was catching the right light. I was out fairly late in the afternoon, at least according to the height of the sun, which had to be blocked from the lens by my hat to prevent glare in the image, despite the lens hood. Granted, this was with the Canon 18-135 so the ‘tulip’ lens hood is of very limited use in such circumstances – better than nothing, but hardly adequate.

[The reasoning behind this is, at the widest/shortest focal length, any typical lens hood would intrude into the frame around the corners because of the wide field of view, so lens hoods for wide angle lenses are cut in such a way that they will not intrude. But this leaves a lot of room for the sun to intrude, which is what lens hoods are there to prevent, so in many cases they do nothing.]

Another backlit shot:

dried seed pod, possibly milkweed, still retaining fluffy seeds
I didn’t closely examine this seed pod to confirm that it was milkweed (genus Asclepias,) because I was being fartsy and not sciencey, but it looks like it to me, with some other weed photobombing the frame. Why the seeds haven’t dispersed yet, I don’t know, but I think they have this appearance from the rains a few days back, which may have stuck them together and hindered their wafting away. I liked the stark look anyway. By the way, the fluffy bit is often called floss, but also goes by the labels of silk, coma, or pappus, while some of the seeds themselves can be seen towards the bottom of the frame, faintly out of focus. This is the hard-hitting information that you come here for.

blue-grey seed pods flowers of unidentified weed
same image in more neutral lightOf course, immediately after saying that, I present a weed that I’m not bothering to look up, but it has a pretty cool slate blue color. This was enhanced a bit by the lighting conditions, since the camera was still set for sunlight though I was shooting in open shade by this point, so the original image is tinted by the blueish light that results. Thus I tweaked it, at right, to be closer to what the colors looked like in white light – still fairly blue, but a lot closer to grey – they remained distinctive because there wasn’t a hint of brown therein, unlike virtually every other dried flower or seed pod, or leaf or stem, in the landscape. Might have looked pretty cool in a dried flower arrangement, if you’re into that kind of thing. Notably, it was not a mantis egg case, which is what I’m into, so I did not collect any.

But then, while I was playing in the editing program, I took the color-corrected version and slammed the Saturation setting against the stops, which is rather abusive to such precision programming though there are times when it’s necessary. Or maybe not. But since the image wasn’t too saturated to begin with, the effect is not as cartoonish as it would be in many other images, and is actually kind of pleasant in color. Plus it gives me another image to upload for the year, which isn’t going to be anywhere near enough but it gets us less than a hundred away from last year’s mark.

What surprised me a little, on my return leg, was finding a bat enthusiastically circling one of the fields, definitely doing its little swoops and dives after insects – I would have thought the bats were all tucked in for the season, but this one, at least, proved how little I know. Smartass. So I endeavored to snag a decent photo, knowing this was going to be tricky because the bat was moving fast and semi-erratically, ranging between perhaps eight and eighty meters in distance in its perambulations, and far too small in the frame for autofocus to lock onto more than momentarily. Manual focus was necessary, though requiring constant correction, and zooming in too far to try and get the bat larger in the frame meant it was very hard to track its wild movements. I shot 65 frames in my attempts, to give you an idea, knowing that most of them would be worthless.

unconfirmed bat, probably little brown bat Myotis lucifugus, out of focus overhead
This is full frame on one of its closest approaches, nearly right overhead, at a focal length of 428mm, about the best that I could get away with – you can see that focus isn’t tight, and the motion didn’t help. There were too few features visible to pin down a species accurately, but the size and prevalence in the area suggest the little brown bat (Myotis lucifugus.) I could track its movement for a few seconds at a time at best, longer at greater distances of course – as it got close, this dropped to no more than a second, every time. Bats more intent on snagging food than maintaining predictable geometric accuracy in their flight paths, which is just selfish.

But, I did get one frame that wasn’t completely unacceptable.

unconfirmed bat, probably little brown bat Myotis lucifugus, in dynamic pose
If I had to pick one angle to get sharp, it would be this one, so I’m satisfied – not ecstatic, but pleased that I got something to keep. This is a significantly tighter crop from the original frame, and just to let you know, if my species guess is correct, the wings are in the realm of 20cm across in this frame – the little brown bat averages more (22cm or so,) but they’re not fully extended here. And there’s even a little shaping from the fading light, instead of being a complete silhouette. I’m still looking to get better shots of a bat in flight, but this will do for now, especially given that it was taken in late December.

Tomorrow, by the way, marks the 13th anniversary of the first post, so it requires something, probably something related to thirteen. Well, it requires not a damn thing, but it’s an excuse to keep posting in the slow season, plus (maybe) making me get out again, so we’ll succumb to silly number recognition in this case. You know, for you.

Still works

Al Denelsbeck

I mentioned more photos, and I deliver! Before christmas, even.

First off, we continue the thread of finding things, with this little discovery:

egg case ootheca of Chinese mantis Tenodera sinensis
That’s the egg case (ootheca) of a Chinese mantis, definitely this year’s, so I have the first one to watch next spring – so far it’s been the only one found on the property, but I’m still watching. This is on the burning bush (Euonymus alatus) in the front garden that we call The Jungle, which is far less jungley so I may be able to keep an eye on it easier. It was less than two meters from the new bud in the previous post.

In the same region, I found this little scene, even though it rained two days ago – just goes to show you how these leaves are, I guess.

water drops from long past rain on unidentified plants
Yes, that’s white clover over to the left, so this is pretty small, and shielded from direct sunlight, which is probably how the drops remained as long as they have. Either that, or this is deer urine – I admit to not confirming, one way or another.

While I had the camera in hand, feeling guilty about neglecting it so much, I did a few experiments, then returned to them when conditions were better (i.e., darker.)

out-of-focus holiday lights and reflections
When putting up holiday lights this year, I ran a strand of white lights inside the glass cabinet of the grandfather clock (well, one of them,) which is actually a pretty cool effect and may get a more permanent installation later on. What you see here are a handful of the lights and their reflections in the brass pendulum, well out of focus and so rendered into diffuse circles. This technique will reveal every dust speck on your lens, so make sure it’s clean. Also make sure you’re shooting wide open at maximum aperture, to keep the little balls round.

And then, a purposefully staged shot.

fireplace and holiday lights
No special effects or editing here, this is all in-camera, like the previous image. Focus was on the fireplace, so the lights strewn across the coffee table in the foreground were all defocused again. I used the Mamiya 80mm macro at f4 (maximum,) though I did a few other experiments with the Sigma 24-60 f2.8 and the Canon 18-135, which could only manage f 4.5 at the focal length I used, and that wasn’t quite enough – the faster the lens, the better. I changed camera and light positions a few times to get the best effect, since it’s easy for the balls of light to overlap or cluster in less-than-ideal ways. But I do this partially so you can play around yourself while your own lights are up and handy.

Kaylee in the window with the lightsSo whatever you celebrate, or even if you don’t, take advantage of the holiday and kick back, be mellow and froody. By the way, I read somewhere that some people’s cats have been affected negatively by the lockdowns, not at all pleased with people being around the house all day, but Kaylee here is just the opposite; she’s quite happy with attention anytime she desires it, and gets a little antsy when The Girlfriend has to be away.

Happy holidays, everyone! Be courteous and generous. Or not, as you like it; I’m not your boss, I’m just making suggestions, but you do you. I’ll close with an image uploaded many years back, that’s… geez, it’s over fourteen years old now, featuring Ben, my first cat after moving out on my own, lived to be eighteen. If you were looking for what you imagine is the appropriate atheist response to the holidays, well, fine – here you go!

Cheers!

Ben on the author's backside, years ago

‘Tis the season

Al Denelsbeck

Yes indeed, another holiday rolls around… what? No, not that holiday – the day before a holiday isn’t a holiday itself, for christ’s sake! I’m talking about Capture Something Inadvertently Day, which is at least productive in some way. And no, you’ll never find anyone celebrating Capture Something Inadvertently Eve, unless the holidays get totally out of hand.

Now, unlike some of the events that we’ve celebrated this year, I find this one to be rather poorly conceived. How can you capture something inadvertently when you already know it’s the day to do this? It’s like running four times around a church without thinking of a fox. Try it – you’ll never make it to four. A mosque, maybe, but never a church.

And yet, somehow I pulled it off anyway, so while countless people out there are struggling with this pseudoparadox, I can post something smugly and hug myself all day. Behold.

new hydrangea bud with unnoticed tiny fly atop
I grabbed the camera to snag a couple of frames of a hardy (but likely unhappy) ladybeetle outside, and then wandered around to see if anything else was worth the effort. A hydrangea bush that we’d transplanted late this fall was surprisingly showing two new buds, so I went in close for a detail shot. It wasn’t until after I unloaded the memory card that I spotted the minuscule fly on the tip, probably no more than 3mm in length, and was lucky enough to have a paler oak leaf in the background for some decent contrast. It’s still pretty chilly out there, running around 7°c, so generally the only things stirring are birds and squirrels.

I did a few more frames of other things, including a serendipitous find, plus I have some experiments to refine, so more will be along at some point, but for now, I’ll just wave this holiday in your face and laugh, because I can.

Profiles of Nature 51

Al Denelsbeck

We know – you’re looking at that number up there and hoping, praying that this is just a year’s topic, and we can only grin evilly and think to ourselves, That’s what you get for praying…

unidentified flat fish Æðelflæd
This week we have Æðelflæd, demonstrating the power of professional makeup since she’s actually a pufferfish, moreover, one that you wouldn’t give a second glance to if you passed her on the street except to suddenly ask yourself, “What the fuck is a pufferfish doing on the streets on this side of town?” But you wouldn’t think it was a particularly sexy, smouldering pufferfish, is what we’re saying. Æðelflæd perfected her command of come-hither looks like that seen here by studying the photographs of women eating salads, as well as shoppers in the backsplash section of home improvement stores. What is it with that? She had a traumatic childhood, because every time the class was told to line up in alphabetical order, a fight ensued, though therapy helped her get past this; she still can’t utter the words, “Webster’s Unabridged,” though. She took up modeling on the advice of her school’s guidance counselor, though since she lived in a very rural, income-depressed district the counselor was just a Magic 8-Ball, but it presently has a better success rate than the majority of guidance counselors. Æðelflæd has a solid career and is happy with it, even when she has yet to use anything learned in Home Ec, but she knows her looks can’t last forever because her face will freeze that way (her parents are pretty old.) When the time comes, she plans to sabotage the career of her young upstart rival, look haughty in the court proceedings, vanish into obscurity only to reveal that she was hiking through Australia, write a few books, hold down her own spot in Hollywood Squares for five years, make a few cameos in crime dramas, start an overseas gardening business, get prosecuted for tax fraud, become a born-again Capricorn in prison, settle down on a ranch without actually owning one, and finally play her own mother in the biopic about her life. Or maybe research why field hockey is only considered a girls’ sport – it could go either way. Until then, she’s going to claim that “Æðelflæd” is pronounced a different way every six months or so just to screw with the gossipy types. She insists that her favorite fashion accessories are those little feathers on a lanyard and clip from the eighties, but we suspect that’s just to watch the eBay listings explode.

You know you’re just gonna suck it up for another week, so don’t bother feigning otherwise.

Not quite on top of it

Al Denelsbeck

I had gotten involved in other things this morning and wasn’t playing close attention to the time, and then suddenly realized that I was missing the solstice! So I grabbed the camera and dashed out to snag the shot, to salvage what I could.

just a grey sky - lol, as they say
This was actually nine minutes past the solstice time of 15:59 UTC, and as you can see, the sun is a few hundredths of an arcsecond higher than its lowest elevation for the year, but I’m counting on people that aren’t that well-versed in elevations (or believe that Walkabout Studios is further south than it is) to miss this detail.

Ah, who am I kidding? I blew it, and it’s obvious, so a real man would own it and embrace the shame, and do better next year.

Though in this case it really is The Girlfriend’s fault for interrupting me so often this morning…

On this date 60

Al Denelsbeck

Well, first of all, on this date every year (more or less,) it’s the winter solstice, the time of the year when the Earth’s axial tilt places the sun at its southernmost point, meaning the daylight for those in the northern hemisphere is the shortest of the year; from this point on, the ‘days’ will be getting longer. A little victory to most of us up here.

‘Course, in the southern hemisphere it’s the longest daylight period, and it’s summer. That’s because they have to do everything different down there, and even when they speak English, they do it weirdly. But whatcha gonna do?

I also slipped in “more or less” above because the solstice does not always fall on the 21st, because orbital mechanics and leap years and so on. It’s sloppy. Technically, the sun doesn’t reach its lowest elevation until 3:59 PM UTC today, which makes it 10:59 AM locally – I posted early so you can run out and see it dip the lowest before starting back up. Should be exciting.

But while we’re here, we’ll examine what I was shooting on this date in other years, because I haven’t picked up the camera since the failed attempt at the comet. I suck, I know, but I’ve actually been getting some other stuff done, and some of it may show here eventually. Mostly, however, I suck.

So, let’s see, in 2012 we had:

shed exoskeleton of unidentified grasshopper Orthoptera
Just one, really, but that was because I started this session late and subsequent frames fell on the 22nd. This is the shed exoskeleton of an unidentified grasshopper/Orthoptera, that I collected for detail shots, switching to the ring flash for different lighting after this. Don’t ask me what that circle in the eye is, because I’m not sure, but I suspect that it’s a moisture droplet on the inner surface. Yes, this is very small.

A minor observation, while we’re here. You’ll notice that the overall exoskeleton/chitin is very thin and translucent, except for the antennae. Which is curious because the antennae are sensing organs, so I would have thought the ‘skin’ covering them would be the thinnest, or perhaps perforated or something; this has the appearance of being much hardier. Or heartier, Perhaps both, but not what I’d have expected.

And then, a whole bunch for the next year, but I’ll only feature two.

larva of green lacewing Chrysopidae showing underside and camouflage
Freaky, I know, but if you’ve ever noticed a little ball of lint or fluff or debris meandering along a plant, this is what it looks like underneath. This is the larva of a green lacewing (family Chrysopidae,) head-on – the reddish-brown tongs are their chelicerae (fangs,) while at the base of those, the dark spots are the eyes. What I was pleased to capture are those pale appendages extending upwards and ending in a spray of ‘fronds;‘ these are the anchors for all that fluff, gathered by the lacewing and attached thereon to provide both camouflage and something for any predators to latch onto that isn’t the lacewing itself. Without the camouflage, they look like they’re sprouting a bunch of backscratchers from their bodies, but to see this, you have to gently and meticulously pluck the fluff away, which I know because I have. Yeah, yeah, I hear you, but I’m still waiting on those tickets to someplace exotic, so it’s at least partially your own fault.

dew on sails for small unidentified seeds
In like vein while being wholly unrelated, we have dew on the seeds of… something, a plant at least. I was just having fun with the high magnification lenses because, you know, it was winter. I was also probably already done with the christmas projects, or The Girlfriend was home and so I couldn’t work on them – more likely the latter, because I tend to run closer to the wire with such things (if not kilometers across it.) One of these days, I’ll have a nice, enclosed, heated workshop where I can do gifts away from prying eyes – it’s drawing closer, at least.

[By the way, if you followed that second link, you should know that they both still routinely drive those cars, even though both tire covers have been replaced by newer versions. Hondas last forever.]

What the deuce?

Al Denelsbeck

For psychological reasons that no one has fully fathomed yet (or maybe they have, and I just never looked it up,) we get some kind of satisfaction, even a little thrill, from meaningless numbers that nevertheless form a pattern. In that vein, I am letting you know that this is the 2,222nd post on the ol’ Walkabout blogoblob here. I just popped one of those little holiday crackers in celebration. We already celebrated the 2,000th post back in March, so don’t bother trying to tell me that I missed a better one.

Naturally, the only meaning this has is that we use a decimal/base 10 numbering system – in binary it’s the 100010101110th (or is that the 100010101110st?) post, so… yeah.

But anyway, to recognize this remarkable accomplishment, I decided to be a little thematic – only I was thwarted slightly in that regard, so we’re doing bookends instead. Thus we have the 2,222nd photos taken with the first digital camera that I’ve used, and the most recent.

unidentified amphipod within tank, Sony F717
May 23rd, 2004, using the Sony F717 that had been loaned to me before it went on to its new owner. I was making the most of it, and shot over 3,300 images in less than two months. This is an unidentified amphipod, only a handful of millimeters long, in my casual saltwater aquarium. Yes, those are algae spots – it was due for a cleaning, but I had the opportunity when the little scud paused against the glass.

ice frozen to branch, Canon 7D
February 21st, 2020, with the Canon 7D that I presently use, the aftermath of the last decent winter storm that we’ve had. For the record, the most recent frame that I shot with that body, as of this writing, is the 27,927th, so that was fairly early in the tenure for that camera.

I was going to do the 2,222nd image for each body I’ve used (add four more,) but some of those were simply deleted for not passing muster, and some were personal, so I just did the first and last. But those are still well away from the start of my photography, so for giggles, I’m adding another.

unidentified exotic deer from unremembered safari park, probably 1998 or so
This is the 2,222nd slide in my stock drawer, which doesn’t mean anything because they’re not in chronological order, but by category – this is the best I can do. This series doesn’t have a timestamp, so I’m guessing somewhere around 1998 or ’99, mostly because I switched to slide film not long before. I know this was in a wildlife park not terribly far from Atlanta, but that’s all I can recall. Not even sure of the species – not domestic, anyway. I do know this was with the Canon Elan IIe though, my film workhorse until I got the EOS 3 in 2005, I think.

How many cameras have I used? (No one asks.) I doubt I could give an accurate count. The first was either a Polaroid Land camera or some unidentified 126 film box camera, both from garage sales somewhere around the age of ten (so, the seventies.) Got a little Palmatic 110 camera for christmas one year, I think when I was thirteen. Got my first 35mm (the impossible-to-find Wittnauer Challenger) when I was fifteen, rummage sale find. Had a handful of Olympus bodies and a Minolta, before finally getting the Elan IIe as my first ‘serious’ (and brand new, except for the 110) camera, likely 1997. Then the EOS 3 and an Elan 7, as well as a Canon Pro90 IS as my first digital. Digital bodies progressed through the original Digital Rebel (300D), the Canon 30D, a T2i (which allowed video,) and finally the 7D. Add in a Mamiya 645E and 1000J. A Graflex Graphic View II. A couple of esoteric models like a Minolta 16 ‘spy camera’ which I recently replaced after having lost the original years ago (plus the Soviet counterpart, a Kiev 30,) obtained solely because I like them – not sure I could even locate film to fit them anymore. And I’m probably forgetting a few. Mind you, I’m not a collector or even concerned about getting new and better bodies – most of these were used. I’ve just been shooting for a while. Want me to dig out the 2,222nd negative in the books? I can, ya know…

Profiles of Nature 50

Al Denelsbeck

Back again – if nothing else, we always have the Profiles! Now isn’t that a warm and fuzzy for you?

green heron Butorides virescens Silas with unidentified protein
This week we make sure we greet Silas by name, as we catch him cheating on his widely-espoused churro diet – we debated about either hitting him up for hush money or seeing how much the tabloids would pay for this shot, and then asked, “Why not both?” Sucka. Silas is one of those spokespeople who is fame-fluid, meaning no one is quite sure if he’s a celebrity or not, having landed a couple of one-off characters on multiple television series before hawking his ‘wonder diet’ throughout late night infomercials, counting on the idea that we’ve seen him before, can’t recall where, to somehow translate into ‘worthy of giving nutritional advice.’ Unfortunately, this seems to work on enough people that we keep seeing it. But we’re not here for social commentary, we’re here for unfounded gossip. Silas reportedly gained his few acting parts through mob connections, which is about as vague as it can get and still imply something illicit. We mean, aside from the weaselly term, “reportedly,” someone could easily be a member of the mob and still accomplish a lot legitimately, right? Has anyone seen The Sorpranos? We ask because we haven’t – everyone seems to assume we wasted money on HBO, don’t know why. And isn’t it goofy how we associate broad, family-controlled aspects of criminal enterprises with the first thing any infant utters? “Mob.” Say it a few times – it’s a stupid-sounding word. Silas also, according to sources, votes Republican, but even we won’t repeat something that distasteful, mostly because no one would believe it anyway. Even though he protests fiercely whenever someone calls him, “green.” Lots of Tea-Party mobsters insist on chromatic accuracy – it doesn’t mean anything. And it’s certainly not true that chartreuse eye-shadow on the nose bridge is a secret sign of Djibouti descent. Not that there’s anything wrong with this – some of our best-… well, no, we don’t know any Djiboutis at all. We don’t think – are they fond of minnows? Regardless, Silas enthuses that his favorite blessing when someone sneezes is, “Damn, you got that on my leg!”

Half a hundred! Seems like an accomplishment until you say it that way, doesn’t it? But we’re still going, over and over, relentlessly…

*     *     *

So a little investigation was sparked by the Profiles choice today, when I noticed that Silas up there is only showing two toes on the left leg. Most bird species have a specific pattern to their toe placement, and with the waders it’s three-and-one: three toes forward, one toe back, what we consider ‘typical,’ though some of the raptors adopt a two-and-two stance, essentially their ‘thumb’ and ‘pinky’ going backwards. So there was a faint suspicion that my model here was missing a toe, and I knew this was taken from a sequence, so I dug into the stock.

green heron Butorides virescens stalking down snag
This is among the first in the series, and it doesn’t help yet, since it shows the placement we expect, but we can’t count the front toes.

green heron Butorides virescens having stepped forward
Then it stepped forward (I can’t tell you if this is male or female, nor the level of fame.) You can see the right foot hasn’t actually moved, so perhaps this is just an aspect of twisting its body sideways?

green heron Butorides virescens still not displaying adequately
The Profiles shot fell just before this one, and now we can see a hint of a fourth toe peeking out, but still not enough to know that it’s all there. The suspense is horrific, isn’t it?

green heron Butorides virescens displaying all toes
Ah, good – I feel better now. It seems the odd position was just because of that crossover step, and my model here can indeed count up to eight. But yes, I really was inclined to check on this out of curiosity, though it was also an excuse to get a handful more photos up since I’m not shooting anything. Sneaky, I know.

This is not a comet

Al Denelsbeck

waxing gibbous moon
Well, I mean, duryea! But I did not go out tonight with the intention of shooting the moon. I was out attempting to see and/or photograph comet C/2021 A1, otherwise known as Leonard (and somehow not “Al” as it seems to imply,) because it’s been visible along the horizon not long after sunset, and I finally got clear skies and a free schedule to get out and try. It was not the best of conditions no matter what; the comet was expected to hit magnitude 4-ish, but as a diffuse spot rather than a distinct point like a star, so easy enough to miss, but also too low on the horizon too soon after sunset, competing with the afterglow. And in my case, competing with the humidity on the horizon, visible as faintly colored bands at sunset. I didn’t see a damn thing, even with some long exposures to try and draw it out – some of the stars captured, around that magnitude, were diffuse themselves because of the humidity.

So while out there, I shot a few frames of the moon – and a few more, but only to try and lock in super-tight focus that I could then turn towards Venus and Jupiter, very visible themselves. Even with the 600mm lens and 2X converter, the planets (and any comet) are very small in the frame, so critically sharp focus is necessary, and the moon had enough brightness and detail to allow for an initial lock, and then several tweaks determined by chimping at the image in the viewfinder afterward, zoomed in significantly, to see what came up the sharpest. This technique isn’t perfect itself, as I noticed when I got back and unloaded the card, but it was the best method available.

So, we have another moon shot. Whoopee shit. I even tried for decent pics of Venus (showing a nice crescent right now) and Jupiter with the classic four moons, but nothing was sharp enough to really use. Another factor was in play, in that the air was pretty chilly by this time and it was cooling down the equipment, which in turn altered focus; I noticed this when I put down the meticulously-focused binoculars for a few minutes and found them out-of-focus when I picked them back up (and slightly damp from condensation.) Ideally, I should have let the equipment sit out for a solid half-hour or better to get close to ambient temperature, but I didn’t get down there soon enough to do this before Leonard dipped below the horizon.

For giggles, I took the same image above and boosted the contrast and saturation to enhance details, plus brought the color register closer to neutral. The moon still remains faintly yellowish even when high in the sky – humidity and smoke particles, I’m guessing. I even did a short video clip, but nothing additional was revealed by this, no birds or Batplanes or secret Nazi bases. Though I may have missed an excellent opportunity to frame an airliner against the moon, having looked up shortly after it passed and it seemed like it was right in line – dammit anyway. I’ve had that as a goal for years, though I’ve only specifically set out to capture it once; It’s harder than imagined.

Still the slow season, still haven’t received those airline tickets to someplace better. I say this only as a reminder, you know, just in case…

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