Outdoors
Autumn Leaves | Scanned Images
Fellow bloggers Steve and Steve often include beautiful close-up photos of leaves in their posts. They inspired me to try imaging leaves in a different way. I decided to use a flatbed scanner. During a recent walk, I picked up three examples that were colorful and still in good shape. I got a pin oak, maple, and ornamental pear and headed home.
First up on the scanner was the oak leaf. I placed it face down on the glass and set the resolution to a high value of 800 dpi. I wanted to get lots of detail in the scanned image.
Pin oak | 800 dpi | Reflection setting
Wear Your Helmet
by Jim and Melanie
It was a little past 7 pm. Dinner was finished. The three of us decided to go to the waterfront park for the evening to enjoy the bay and watch people.
“I rode 65+ miles yesterday morning with the bicycle group. My legs are tired from that hard ride. I could use a slow ride to stretch and relax. You two go ahead to the park and find a bench in the usual place. I’ll follow up and meet you a few minutes later on my bicycle.”
We drove down the steep hill to the waterfront. I could see him farther back in the distance in the rear-view mirror going slowly down the rough streets. We reached the parking area and crossed the street to get onto the walkway. It was a beautiful evening. Many people and some other bikers were out. Cars were going along the street, some entering and leaving driveways to restaurants. One car leaving in front of us backed up a few feet to allow us to walk past. We waved our thanks.
We were perhaps 20 feet past that driveway when we heard a strange crashing noise behind us. A bicyclist was sprawled face down on the pavement where we had just walked. He was not moving. The car that allowed us to pass was still sitting there, waiting to see what he would do. Then the realization hit us. That was our son on the pavement!
New Meteors | Camelopardalids | May 24th
UPDATE: May 25, 2014: It seems the shower was but a sprinkle of possibly 5-10 meteors per hour. As with some other events of this type, the media and social media hype far exceeds anything the true event could produce. But, it was a nice night for being out under the stars.
Astronomers are predicting a new meteor shower the morning of May 24th for North America. Comet 209P/LINEAR was discovered February 3, 2004 by Lincoln Near-Earth Asteroid Research (LINEAR). It has an orbital period of 5.1 years. At the farthest point from the Sun, it is nearly as far away as the orbit of Jupiter. At the nearest point, it is as far as the orbit of Earth from the Sun. Meteor counts of 100-400 per hour have been predicted by some astronomers. Some say there is a chance for up to 1000. No one knows for certain. This will be the first time Earth passes through the debris in the path of this comet.
I recorded this desktop simulation of the orbit of the comet intersecting the orbit of Earth to give a sense of perspective. The plane of the orbit of the comet is inclined about 22˚ to the plane of Earth’s orbit. We are expected to pass through the debris left on some of the previous passes of the comet in our neighborhood of space. No one knows exactly how much debris we will encounter. If we are lucky, it might be a large amount that could produce some beautiful meteor streaks from north to south.
Here are two frames from the video for you to get a better look. The first is an oblique view. The second is from directly above.
Oblique View
Viewed Above – Note the orbits of Earth and Jupiter
If you are fortunate to have clear skies where you live, look to the north for Polaris as depicted in this graphic from Space.com. The meteors are to radiate from the constellation Camelopardalis, the Giraffe, near Polaris. Note the location of the Ursa Major (Big Dipper) to the left and Cassiopeia to the right. This view is for the early morning hours of Saturday May 24th.
Space.com
NASA released this excellent video summarizing the event and the best times to view it. I invite you to watch the 3 minute video. Let’s all hope for clear skies that morning. Set your clock. Chances are good you will see some meteors. It is is possible you will see something spectacular. Don’t risk missing it.
Here is one more special treat…the Moon occulted Saturn May 14 as seen from New South Wales in Australia. Thank for the video on Vimeo by Colin Legg.
Capture from 20 km north of Albury, NSW. I missed egress in February, so nice to get it this time around. Egress sequence centred around 10 pm Australian EST. The moon was higher for egress than ingress so seeing was better.
Equipment: Celestron C8, f/10, prime focus. Canon 5D2, running Magic Lantern RAW video firmware in 3x crop mode @ 1920 x 1076 resolution. 1/60 sec exposure, ISO 100, 16 fps.
More at facebook.com/ColinLeggPhotography
Venus-Moon Occultation
Before sunrise Feb. 26, 2014, the Moon and Venus presented a beautiful conjunction witnessed by many people. I set up my camera and tripod in the living room and posted this blog entry with four photographs.
Earlier that morning on the other side of the Earth, people were treated to a rare sight. The Moon passed in front of Venus and occulted the planet. The sight was featured in today’s Astronomy Picture of the Day. The two people got this daytime view minutes before the Moon passed in front of Venus. Beautiful, isn’t it? More below the image.
The Moon moves from west to east across the field of stars due to its orbit around the Earth. It moves east to west across our sky due to the rotation of the Earth. Each day, the Moon appears a little more to the east than the day before.
I opened my desktop planetarium software and set my viewing location to south of India in the Indian Ocean, just north of the equator. I set the time to 8:15 am local time. I located, locked on, and zoomed into Venus. There was the Moon very near to the right, or west of Venus. It is very bright because of the daylight. I clicked to animate the scene. The Moon moved to the east and occulted Venus like this. I wish that had happened here. Some day it will. I will be watching.
How I See It 