A night without success

I went out again a bit earlier to see if I could spot, and potentially photograph, Comet 12P/Pons-Brooks, supposed to be visible as twilight fades after sunset. Coming in at just under magnitude 6, which is about the minimum to spot unaided, I knew it was too faint for the light pollution in this area, but perhaps I could snag it with a slightly long exposure at high ISO? I plotted the rough location read more

Not a mighty roar


Well, it’s the Leonids meteor shower again, or at least the time for it, and since the skies looked pretty clear when I checked, I did a quick trip down to the lake to see what I could capture. However, once I got down there, the clouds rolling in were quite evident, especially well to the southwest as seen here. Still, the skies above were clear, and I re-aimed for a wider read more

Visibly different, part 24

What were you up to 35 years ago?


I was a bit surprised to find this one while reviewing my old negatives, because I don’t remember it at all. Nonetheless, I can pin it down to central New York in 1987, and even better, it most likely was taken on August 13th. Naturally, this is a long night exposure anchored on Polaris, the north star, and shows a long-trail meteor read more

Define, “success”


I did indeed get out early this morning to chase the Tau Herculids meteor shower, and I have to admit it was one of the better nights for it. Initially, scattered clouds obscured small portions of the sky as glimpsed above, but they cleared within the first half-hour of observing, while the temperature remained a lovely 20°c with a light breeze eventually stirring. The humidity read more

Got clear skies?

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 read more

On this date 53

As further evidence of my poor planning about this time a year ago, the normal weekly entry for the ‘On This Date’ posts would be tomorrow, but as I look at my spreadsheet for December 30th I find that (as far as my annotated, digital images go anyway,) I’ve shot nothing. Not a sausage. Hell of a finalé, eh? Ah, well – see you next year.

Nah, I can’t let it go at that. read more

On the negative side 9


It’s been a while since the last dedicated negative post – just hadn’t found too much to scan and/or comment about, but then I ran across this old scan and decided to post it. Of course, if you’re seeing this in the slow winter months, that means I realized I’d need more post fodder for then/now and shelved it until then (it’s August as I type this initial bit.)

Obviously, read more

On this date 47

Just four (well, four-ish) this time – could have had a lot more, because I’ve shot plenty on this date, but some were repetitive, and some have already been featured in posts. We’ll start with 2003.


At this point in time, I was living in Florida but up visiting with Jim Kramer for a week, while he still lived in North Carolina. This was playing around read more

Storytime 27


I’m running a little behind today, since I normally have the storytime post up by now, but I wasn’t feeling very well last night and had several other things to tackle. But it’s not like I’m being audited or anything. I don’t think.

The main image above comes from just barely over nine years ago, taken July 3rd 2010 out over Jordan lake. I’d had some decent success read more

Per the ancient lore, part 41


Another week down, and nothing to show for it here – seriously, you’re not missing anything on my end. You want me to write about, like, what I had for dinner? I could feature some images from my friends’ trip to Costa Rica, except they’ve been so busy since they got back I’ve only seen the photos of them crashing a whitewater raft…

So today, in recognition of read more