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

Visibly different, part 17

Al Denelsbeck

Another take on the subject this time; instead of comparing older and newer images, I’m going to show the alterations done to a single older image. I suspect this is the only image of mandrills that I have, and I can’t even recall where I took it, since I’m pretty sure the NC Zoo hasn’t ever had them and I’ve never been anywhere on the African continent.

Anyway, the original:

pair of mandrills Mandrillus sphinx in unknown location
This was before the routine cleanup that negative/print film requires, and you can see the dust and degradation from the original scan – nothing too hard to clean up, but that grain is another matter. This was a pretty high ISO film, and it shows: even with film, the higher the ISO, the lower the quality, and while it handled the reduced light of the enclosure and even produced some decent colors, the grain was simply overwhelming. For giggles, we’ll take a look at full resolution:

closeup of mandrill Mandrillus sphinx face on grainy negative film
Even as a small print, this was noticeable, but as an enlargement it simply wasn’t going to do. It was a shame, because I liked the semi-cloned poses of the two mandrills, a faintly cubist effect, and thinking in those terms also brought up pointillism, and I decided to try something.

[Pardon me for digressing slightly and further for potentially butchering the definitions, but I feel clarification might be in order for some. Cubism is the technique of showing two or more perspectives simultaneously, such as a face-front and a profile, what Picasso is best known for, while pointillism is creating the image from dots instead of strokes or lines, a little like a mosaic.]

With that in mind, I cleaned up the original, converted to greyscale, and then burned in the surroundings to make the mandrills almost floating in dark space. In that space, I added grain to match the original, giving it a little more of an old film effect, one of the interesting things about our culture. The older films were terrible and grainy compared to now, but we’ve gotten so used to it that converting a grainy image to greyscale simply makes it look more ‘natural.’ Meanwhile, the eradication of the surroundings draws more attention to the mandrills, and the similar poses gives an impression (to me at least) of two different ages, the senior years lurking in the background, and the greyscale enhances this idea too.

mandrill image converted to greyscale with background removed
Even the position of the wrist of the one behind seems to support this idea, more crooked and less fluid, and the shadowed brow helps too, implying sunken and even squinting eyes. Is there the suggestion of a hunch? It just seemed to work, and cleaning it up to concentrate on this faintly surreal aspect helped it along. Because of this, I added it to the Black & White gallery on the main site, though the version you see here is a remaster done recently.

And then, considering this post and the impressions that I was getting, I did another version, a little layer masking (there are tons of videos out there that explain and demonstrate this, but it’s easy to do in most of the Photoshop versions and in GIMP.)

selective color version of mandrills image
The selective color effect is a bit trite now, but it seems to work for this concept. This now largely defeats the purpose of converting to greyscale, since the grain remains in the color portion, but the greyscale portions gain a more unreal impression, more of the imagined/dreaded specter of old age sitting just behind. Without seeing the original, it would be easy to believe that I pasted two images together to convey this idea, though granted, most people wouldn’t choose to illustrate the idea with mandrills. Their loss, you know?

*       *      *

I just have to add this, because I’m me, but I suspect that we’re actually seeing a female and a male here instead of different ages, which puts an entirely different spin on the whole image, and one that I’m not going to comment on in the slightest…

Outside the box

Al Denelsbeck

Ran across this image online, unfortunately I forget where, but it was unattributed there anyway.

unidentified frog/toad with probable suitors on back
Though it’s not so much the image itself that I’m highlighting, but the context and captioning, which were references to a mother carrying her brood on her back.

Uhhhh, no. Almost certainly not, anyway. And it’s a subtle illustration of a prevalent attitude among humans, because we tend to view wildlife in our own terms, largely to our detriment.

We’ll start with, very few amphibians are even around for the birth of their young, having deposited their eggs in a favorable pond or pool and moved on long since – need we remind ourselves about the tadpole stage? While my knowledge is by no means comprehensive in this regard, I know of only one amphibian species that is present at the birth of its young, and it’s quite a weird one. The vast majority of amphibians and even reptiles are on their own from birth.

Moreover, we tend to view size disparity as a sign of disparate ages – if one’s smaller than the other, it much be younger. Which is a little funny, in that even our species has a distinct, though not remarkable, size difference between the sexes, but plenty of others, from amphibians to birds to insects, demonstrate this disparity, sometimes on orders of magnitude. Size really isn’t important – you heard it here first.

What we’re likely seeing here is mating behavior – the big one is the female, and the others (it’s not even clear how many there are) are all males, hopeful suitors. One is even clearly in the amplexus position, grasping the female under the armpits. Here they will remain until the female is ready and finds that favorable pond or pool to enter and expel her eggs, whereupon the male(s) will expel their sperm to seek the eggs out in the water itself, called external fertilization – many different species do this. As I type this I realize that my chosen title has a further, indelicate meaning (honestly not considered when I chose it,) that I take a certain delight in leaving as is.

My crudeness aside, I just like pointing out that assumptions regarding any other species stand a good chance of being completely wrong, and we need to remind ourselves of this constantly – our human-centric thought processes don’t work with other species. The image almost certainly does not represent motherhood (quite yet.) As pleasant as we may find bird song, an awful lot of it is warning other males to stay the hell away. The great apes lack the power of speech not because they lack the anatomy, but likely because they lack the need. I quote, once again, Douglas Adams, in reference to mountain gorillas:

They look like humans, they move like humans, they hold things in their fingers like humans, the expressions which play across their faces and in their intensely human-looking eyes are expressions that we instinctively feel we recognize as human expressions. We look them in the face and we think, “We know what they’re like,” but we don’t. Or rather, we actually block off any possible glimmering of understanding of what they may be like by making easy and tempting assumptions.

I was going to say that wildlife observation needs to begin with a blank slate, no assumptions, but this isn’t exactly true either; we sometimes need to be aware of what the species is, and does, its environment, predators, and prey. It’s tricky. But if we think we recognize some particular form of behavior, odds are we’re completely mistaken.

Dirty Day

Al Denelsbeck

This wasn’t intentionally aimed for Earth Day, yet it’ll do, unless I find something else. As indicated in the previous post, I was slightly delayed in getting this out, given that it happened yesterday, but so it goes.

While doing yard work yesterday, I came down the back steps and found this indelicate display right out there for all to see.

mating Carolina anoles Anolis carolinensis on iron gate
These are, naturally, Carolina anoles (Anolis carolinensis,) and they’re engaged in… well, they’re apparently beyond engagement at this point, but this is how they mate. I mentioned just a few days ago that I had several goals concerning this species, and this was one of them. I hadn’t wasted any time in grabbing the camera so I wasn’t fully equipped for video with tripod, microphone, external monitor, or even a longer lens, and thus what I captured was ‘on the fly,’ but quite acceptable for that. Quality-wise, anyway – I can’t vouch for the views of any delicate souls out there. So yes, I did capture a handful of video clips to illustrate, though there admittedly wasn’t a lot to illustrate.


For what little I have here, I was out there for quite a while, determined to capture a complete display of courtship and mating should it occur. Given that I had already seen the mating, only a few minutes earlier, I was surprised to see the male displaying a short distance away from the female, until I realized that there were two females. Or so I surmise, anyway, because while both sexes can change their coloration this distinctly, typically the territorial display for males is flashy green with other patches, not brown. But what had happened in the short space while I wasn’t observing? Was either female the one seen initially? Here, I figured I’d leave them be while they conducted business, and this resulted in missing some part of the drama.

male Carolina anole Anolis carolinensis during courtship/breeding display showing pink dewlap
The male spent a great deal of time scampering around on the fence, from the immediate vicinity to several meters away, displaying enthusiastically. The second female that appeared ever-so-briefly in the video remained completely out of sight, while the first took shelter and shortly reappeared, though circumspectly; I suspect this was from my presence. For my part, I picked a spot that had a decent view and held still, getting both too warm and more than a little achey from holding the camera higher. Not only that, but soon after starting video, the low-battery warning was flashing, typical when I start video because it uses the LCD for focusing and framing and this takes a lot more power. It’s one of the reasons that I have an external monitor – when I bother to have it attached.

Nothing ever came of this whole secondary courtship, despite my observing for about 15 minutes.

female Carolina anole Anolis carolinensis remaining unimpressed
From what I’ve seen of the species, they tend to be remarkably sharp-eyed, but I was never certain whether either could see the other – the female definitely showed no recognition of the male’s display, and the male never approached the female any closer than that seen in the video. Eventually, he gave up and took a position along a fence slat, his color fading closer to that of the fence as he appeared to get in a quick nap.

Meanwhile, I’m still not sure if this is my imagination, but the female here seems to show a hint of purple in her coloration. Is this typical, and I’ve never noticed it? Is it sparked by the proximity of the flowers? (I’ve once again forgotten the species.) Are my eyes shot? Tune in next week – we won’t have the answers then either, but perhaps there will be something else of interest.

By the way, as of this brief video upload, I believe I’ve reached my free limit on Vimeo, and will have to give them some money to host anything further. This isn’t a hint or anything – just observing. Gosh, sure are a lot of cool videos up here though, with fancy title cards and everything. Pretty classy for free content, you know? Not that I’m saying anything…

Poor planning

Al Denelsbeck

I’ve got some photos and video clips to upload, all taken today, but naturally the video needs a voiceover track and the 3D printer on my desk is grinding away right now, so I can’t record that bit just yet. They’ll all be along soon, but it will be tomorrow, even if it’s only an hour or two hence.

Yeah, I should have delayed starting the 3D job, but even the simple ones can take a while, so I fire them up and then turn to other projects. I’ve gotten the photos and the video clips edited, but now the audio bit is waiting until the printer ceases.

I didn’t really need to tell you all this, but it’s something to do while I’m stalled. Gotta keep that post count up, no matter how needless it is. There’s a multi-level joke about volume in here.

Visibly different, part 16

Al Denelsbeck

brown pelican Pelecanus occidentalis silhouetted in sky near sun
This one I can remember fairly well, despite having no context or surroundings. This was in Florida, Merritt Island National Wildlife Refuge to be exact, taken while my brother was visiting. It was a grab shot as I spotted the brown pelican (Pelecanus occidentalis) cruising overhead, and including the sun was intentional. This was with the Sony F717 loaner camera in late afternoon on a slightly hazy day, so there wasn’t a lot of color to work with.

But it’s pretty similar to the next, taken 15 (and not quite a half) years later.

brown pelican Pelecanus occidentalis banking with wingtips against sun
Seriously, not a lot different between them, though the latter is definitely superior. This does not come from greater experience, more planning, or anything of that crafty nature, though it might have benefited from using Full Sun white balance instead of Auto like the previous, retaining the color register of the early morning sun. Nor was this a planned revisit of the earlier image. I was simply tracking the pelican in the hopes of a close approach when it banked near the sun. The Canon 30D definitely did not have the shutter lag of the F717, and chances are I was anticipating this more, but other than that it was all chance differences. More than anything, this is just showing the unintentional similarity of two images shot years apart.

It’s that April busy season

Al Denelsbeck

Yes, indeed, like every year, we’re closing in on three principle events within April, and unlike some of the other ‘events’ that pop up around this time of year, these are not at all mythological.

First off, we’re already within the Lyrids Meteor Shower, though it peaks on the 21st-22nd – basically, go out whenever you get clear enough skies and give it a shot. On the peak nights, the moon will be rising just as the meteor activity is due to increase, not ideal, and it’s a waning gibbous moon so, still noticeably bright. The general rule is, after midnight the spot on Earth where you’re standing starts to face into the direction of Earth’s travel around the sun, which increases the likelihood of seeing meteors. This year, we have a little window around that time when the moon either hasn’t risen yet or has just risen and not gotten too high or bright, and the sun is as far from orbiting satellites as it can get, so our best chances of seeing something fall in there – weather cooperating, of course. Since we still haven’t gotten completely past this ridiculous tendency for overnight temperatures to drop to inexcusable levels, it might be less than comfortable out there, but hey, I didn’t plan this.

I have yet to capture anything even remotely noteworthy, despite my attempts, but I have to note that, to the best of my knowledge, neither did anyone else anyplace within a few hundred kilometers of my location during any of the storms that I tried observing. What I’m saying is, there’s no proof that I suck.

April 22nd is also Earth Day, so plan your visit there early because it’s sure to get crowded – scientists predict damn near everyone will be someplace on Earth that day. It’s a good time to see just how far you can get on strictly human power (well, camels are okay too I suppose,) or whether you can go the entire day without extraneous electricity, or things like that – trust me, I’m not getting preachy myself because I do too much stuff on a computer, even when I watch no TV myself; The Girlfriend and I watch an episode of Bob’s Burgers over dinner, three to four times a week, and that’s all the TV for me, but the computer, well… We’ll see if I can shut it down and leave it down for at least the day.

April 24th is the – are you ready for this? – 32nd anniversary of the launch of the Hubble Space Telescope, still going strong up there. Most people have at least heard of the newly-launched James Webb Space Telescope (“Webb” or “JWST” are fine,) and a lot think it’s Hubble’s replacement, which isn’t exactly true. Webb is geared towards more refined observations than Hubble, largely in the infra-red spectrum, so even though its main mirror, and thus its resolving power, are several times greater, it’ll be looking at different things.

[Sidetrack here for trivia that has nothing to do with Hubble. Webb is ‘parked’ at an imaginary point in space called Lagrange 2, or L2 – exactly opposite the Earth from the sun, so it will never receive any direct sunlight, and at such a distance that the gravitational pulls of both will help it remain there in orbit, self-stabilized. The instruments onboard need to be extremely cold to operate, so this is the best of the options available. It sits about 1.5 million kilometers out from Earth, about 1% of the distance between the Earth and the sun, but almost four times farther than the moon, and more than 2,600 times as far as Hubble. Unlike the Hubble, we’re not going to see it with any backyard telescope, especially since it perpetually remains in Earth’s shadow.]

Anyway, Hubble’s still kicking and can be spotted on certain nights – Stellarium, once again, is your bud.

HST images of protoplanetary disk AB Aurigae b
Credit: NASA and the Space Telescope Science Institute (STScI)

The image seen here shows a protoplanetary ‘blob,’ essentially a forming string of planets, in very wide orbit around the star AB Aurigae. Courtesy of Hubble, we’re seeing a planet (likely a string of them) forming around a star 531 light years away. Slick, right?

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