It’s plastic, with cheap gold-ish plating that’s already wearing off, but it’s the thought that counts, right?
This means I responded to the forecasts that there might be a decent aurora borealis display early this morning, and went out to try my hand. The temperature was near freezing and the LCD display wasn’t showing a lot, so I wrapped it up after 45 minutes at the most.
We didn’t have enough photos for November (for an arbitrary definition of ‘enough,’) so here are a few more – I already had most of them lined up in the folder for eventual use, but then settled on this topic and added a couple – even though they’re all only variants of the same image.
We start with a frame that I fired off while pursuing the Leonids and aurora
So we see the month close out, and what a month it was! Well, certainly a productive one from a photography standpoint, not too shabby as we enter the cold months. I’m not even sure what the count of image uploads stands at now, since I’m writing this ahead of time, but it’s at least 145 counting the ones you’re about to see, which puts it in the top ten for all of the months
This is just to let you know that not only is the Leonids meteor shower expected to peak tonight after midnight, but there’s a chance that the aurora borealis will make another appearance, and with a dark moon (actually, it doesn’t matter how bright it is, because it’s riding too close to the sun right now and thus wont be seen most of the night,) the conditions
I mentioned earlier that the Orionids meteor shower is supposed to peak soon, while right now, comet C/2025 A6 Lemmon is brightening and visible just after sunset, naturally to the west. We had perfectly clear skies on Saturday night, so I decided to try my hand at both, beginning with the comet.
[A note about comet names: They start with ‘C’ for comet, then the year
Because, why go in chronological order? More to the point however, the Eta Aquariids meteor shower is still going on for the next few days, we’re just not at peak. Not that I’m going to convince you to go out with this post, but we all know how good my luck with meteor showers is.
So I was out to do some time exposures in the quest for meteors last night, and the moon was a bit bright
A few photos sitting largely by themselves, just gotta clear some of the folder out.
Out the other night with the long lens attached, I fired off a few frames handheld at the waxing crescent (nearly half, or first quarter) moon high in the sky, adjusting focus manually each time. This one came out the sharpest, and this is a full-resolution crop from the center – that’s
Stepped out at dusk last night, then stepped back in to get the camera and shoot a couple of frames.
Well, it was more than a couple, because I was both focusing manually and freehanding the long lens, trying for an exposure that would bright out the branches against the last light in the sky I have a lot of discards. It would have been better about ten minutes
Tomorrow night, a little after 9 PM EST (so 2 AM Jan 14 UTC – adjust as necessary,) the moon will occult Mars, pretty directly for most of the US. This will last for a little over an hour before Mars reappears again out the other side, so this is an easy thing to spot by naked eye, and a good target for telephoto lenses, small and large telescopes.
I keep making noises to this
And so begins a new weekly topic, which will consist entirely of images shot right here at Walkabout Estates Plus, since it should be able to provide a decent array of subjects without too many repeats – that’s the goal, anyway.
Now, after deciding on this topic late Wednesday night, I went after a couple of subjects on Thursday but wasn’t successful in capturing anything compelling,
