Insta-Millard, photography and astronomy edition: South DakotaHenge

December 23, 2013

How much image manipulation, if any, was necessary to capture this enormous-looking Moon rising over a South Dakota “road to nowhere,” close to the 2013 Winter Solstice?

From @GlobePics:

From @GlobePics: “Road To Nowhere – Supermoon” – Supermoon rises over this road to nowhere in eastern South Dakota. pic.twitter.com/82AoFgPvWn

Who should get credit for the photo?  (I can’t quite read the name in the lower left corner.)

Buy a print here, from the photographer, Aaron J. Groen.

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There’s a Milky Way in Australia?

November 26, 2013

Yes, but it’s upside down, right?

Meredith Frost Tweeted: Great shot of the Milky Way over Western Australia (Photo/Mike Salway) An Astronomy Picture of the DayMeredith Frost Tweeted: Great shot of the Milky Way over Western Australia (Photo/Mike Salway) An Astronomy Picture of the Day

Meredith Frost Tweeted: Great shot of the Milky Way over Western Australia (Photo/Mike Salway) An Astronomy Picture of the Day

Turns out this was the Astronomy Picture of the Day back in September 2012.  NASA said:

Milky Way Over the Bungle Bungles
Image Credit & Copyright: Mike Salway Explanation: Which part of this picture do you find more interesting — the land or the sky? Advocates for the land might cite the beauty of the ancient domes of the Bungle Bungle Range in Western Australia. These picturesque domes appear as huge layered beehives and are made of sandstones and conglomerates deposited over 350 million years ago. Advocates for the sky might laud the beauty of the Milky Way’s central band shown arching from horizon to horizon. The photogenic Milky Way band formed over 10 billion years ago and now includes many well-known nebulae and bright stars. Fortunately, you don’t have to decide and can enjoy both together in this beautiful 8-frame panorama taken from the dark skies of Purnululu National Park about two months ago.

Decide Anyway: Land or Sky

I’d make some remarks about silly names for land formations in Australia — but here we sit with The Grand Tetons, The Gros Ventre, and several dozen “Molly’s Nipples” in our nation.

But really:  Bungle-Bungles?

Ain’t geography grand? Ain’t nature grand? Ain’t NASA doing something right?

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Moon, stars, Earth, all conspire to produce astonishing beauty in Hawaii

November 5, 2013

It’s a composite of 11 photographs to get the whole panoramic view — which just demonstrates that in photography it’s great to be lucky, but it usually takes great skill to get that amount of luck.

How much processing was involved, really?

Don’t worry, just check out the photo.

Double Moonbow, lava glow and fading Lunar Halo; 11-picture Panoramic taken on the rim of Kilauea's Caldera On the Last Super Moon. Sean King, Atmospheric Phenomena

Double Moonbow, lava glow and fading Lunar Halo; 11-picture Panoramic taken on the rim of Kilauea’s Caldera On the Last Super Moon. Sean King, Atmospheric Phenomena

See the Facebook page for Hawaii Stargazing Adventures.

Click thumbnail for a larger image.  Kilauea and double Moonbow - Sean King - 736169_10201694350153369_1176409460_o


Milky Way in the Southern Hemisphere

September 26, 2013

What’s the southernmost unit of the U.S. National Park System?  That’s where this photo was taken.

Stunning southern night sky in Ofu Island in the National Park of American Samoa! They get a brighter, richer view of the Milky Way in the Southern Hemisphere due to the location on the globe. This is the only national park found in the Southern Hemisphere.  Photo: National Park Service

Stunning southern night sky in Ofu Island in the National Park of American Samoa! They get a brighter, richer view of the Milky Way in the Southern Hemisphere due to the location on the globe. This is the only national park found in the Southern Hemisphere. Photo: National Park Service

Many Americans seem unaware of worldwide holdings of the U.S. in territories, thinking the last territory was closed when Oklahoma or Arizona entered the union, or maybe Alaska or Hawaii.  U.S. territories today include the Northern Mariana Islands, Guam (from the Spanish American War), Puerto Rico (from the same war), and the U.S. Virgin Islands, as organized territories.  American Samoa is an “unorganized territory,” along with series of other islands in the Pacific:  Baker Island, Howland Island, Palmyra Atoll, Johnson Atoll, Jarvis Island, Kingman Reef, the Midway Islands, and Wake Island; and in the Caribbean, Bajo Nuevo Bank, Navassa Island (also claimed by Haiti), and Serranilla Bank, also claimed by Colombia.

Most of these islands offer much better star-gazing than is ever possible in Dallas.

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Voyager I becomes Earth’s first interstellar object

September 14, 2013

Can you recall what you were doing on September 5, 1977?

The Voyager 1 aboard the Titan III/Centaur lif...

The Voyager 1 aboard the Titan III/Centaur lifted off on September 5, 1977, joining its sister spacecraft, the Voyager 2, on a mission to the outer planets. Wikipedia image, from NASA

That’s the day NASA launched Voyager I, on a trip to photograph planets in our solar system more close up than we can get with Earth-bound telescopes.  The Hubble Space Telescope was not even on the drawing board then.

After completing its mission, Voyager I continued on its path.  Scientists thought it would survive to leave the solar systems, and a few forward-looking thinkers hoped to learn more about just how far the influence of our Sun really extends.  At some point, Voyager I would leave space where the chief gravitational and wind influence is the Sun, and move into truly inter-stellar (“between the stars”) space, where gravity and particle emissions are dominated by other objects in our galaxy.

Last week NASA announced that time came in August of 2012, confirmed by data transmitted back to earth by Voyager’s primitive capabilities, over the last year.

Space.com explains it well:

Interesting to think of the investment in thought, money, effort and patience by scientists and policy-makers to wait more than 35 years for such a research result.

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Voyager I, artist's interpretation.  NASA image

Voyager I, artist’s interpretation. NASA image


Quote of the moment: Carl Sagan, on perspective on our own lives

September 14, 2013

You’ve heard the news by now: Voyager I has left the system.

What are we to think of that?

perspective-mars-earth-saturn

Earth, Moon, Mars, Jupiter – What you see depends on where you are, in reality as well as metaphorically. Images from NASA

” . . . astronomy is a humbling and character-building experience.”

Carl Sagan on how images of Earth from space change our perspective

Sagan’s words in the full passage impart a larger message, about caring for our planet and our neighbors on it.

From this distant vantage point, the Earth might not seem of any particular interest. But for us, it’s different. Consider again that dot. That’s here. That’s home. That’s us. On it everyone you love, everyone you know, everyone you ever heard of, every human being who ever was, lived out their lives. The aggregate of our joy and suffering, thousands of confident religions, ideologies, and economic doctrines, every hunter and forager, every hero and coward, every creator and destroyer of civilization, every king and peasant, every young couple in love, every mother and father, hopeful child, inventor and explorer, every teacher of morals, every corrupt politician, every “superstar,” every “supreme leader,” every saint and sinner in the history of our species lived there – on a mote of dust suspended in a sunbeam.

The Earth is a very small stage in a vast cosmic arena. Think of the rivers of blood spilled by all those generals and emperors so that in glory and triumph they could become the momentary masters of a fraction of a dot. Think of the endless cruelties visited by the inhabitants of one corner of this pixel on the scarcely distinguishable inhabitants of some other corner. How frequent their misunderstandings, how eager they are to kill one another, how fervent their hatreds. Our posturings, our imagined self-importance, the delusion that we have some privileged position in the universe, are challenged by this point of pale light. Our planet is a lonely speck in the great enveloping cosmic dark. In our obscurity – in all this vastness – there is no hint that help will come from elsewhere to save us from ourselves.

The Earth is the only world known, so far, to harbor life. There is nowhere else, at least in the near future, to which our species could migrate. Visit, yes. Settle, not yet. Like it or not, for the moment, the Earth is where we make our stand. It has been said that astronomy is a humbling and character-building experience. There is perhaps no better demonstration of the folly of human conceits than this distant image of our tiny world. To me, it underscores our responsibility to deal more kindly with one another and to preserve and cherish the pale blue dot, the only home we’ve ever known.

Carl SaganPale Blue Dot: A Vision of the Human Future in Space, 1997 reprint, pp. xv–xvi

In other words, we’re on our own.  What are we going to do about that?

Tip of the old scrub brush to Hashem Al-ghaili for making this image! https://www.facebook.com/ScienceNaturePage, and to All Science, All the Time.

It would be good to have better photo credits, including the genius who put together the montage.

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Voyager I photo of the Earth from outside Jupiter's orbit - the Pale Blue Dot photo

This is the photo that inspired Sagan’s reflection, as opposed to the photos in the poster mashup above. Via Wikipedia, with captions. ¶Seen from about 6 billion kilometers (3.7 billion miles), Earth appears as a tiny dot (the blueish-white speck approximately halfway down the brown band to the right) within the darkness of deep space. ¶This narrow-angle color image of the Earth, dubbed ‘Pale Blue Dot’, is a part of the first ever ‘portrait’ of the solar system taken by Voyager 1. The spacecraft acquired a total of 60 frames for a mosaic of the solar system from a distance of more than 4 billion miles from Earth and about 32 degrees above the ecliptic. From Voyager’s great distance Earth is a mere point of light, less than the size of a picture element even in the narrow-angle camera. Earth was a crescent only 0.12 pixel in size. Coincidentally, Earth lies right in the center of one of the scattered light rays resulting from taking the image so close to the sun. This blown-up image of the Earth was taken through three color filters – violet, blue and green – and recombined to produce the color image. The background features in the image are artifacts resulting from the magnification.

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If the Moon were replaced by other planets, what would we see?

August 17, 2013

Odd and interesting idea for a video, from Yeti Animation:  What if the Moon disappeared, and were replaced by other planets in the solar system?  What would it look like?

I like the nonchalance with which the passing auto drivers and passengers treat these views.  Droll.

The ambitious filmmaker, YetPic1, describes the real science and non-science in the film:

Published on May 2, 2013

This is a visualization of what it might be like if the Moon was replaced with some of the other planets at the same distance as our moon. Planets Rendered in 4K resolution! On Change Quality click on “original” to view in 4k. You need a 4k Monitor to watch. otherwise just watch in 1080p or lower

SATURN!.. The super close moon is Dione, the one slightly further out is Tethys
Both are *tiny* but *very* close

In order show[n]:

Mars
Venus
Neptune
Uranus
Jupiter
Saturn

Mercury is intentionally left off as it isn’t Much bigger than our Moon (and hence is boring)

****************
on Jupiter, you might be able to make out the 4 big moons, They all have orbits larger than our moons orbit. but I stuck them on the far side of jupiter so that they could be seen so it looks as if they are closer (to Jupiter) than they really are.

***************
Video creation method
I created an Earth Moon system in 3dsmax, with accurate sizes and accurate orbital distances.. I than matched video of the real Moon with my video camera, against my model. I also researched the correct FOV of my video camera. I used both methods to verify my Virtual camera’s FOV (around 47 degrees). I next modeled up the rest of the planets in proper scale (Real values) set at the distance of the moon (center to center) (also real values), created the animation of them rotating around, and composited the whole bunch.
***************
Faq:

Scales used in Visualization:
Celestial Body Radius (in km)
Moon: 1738
Mars: 3397
Venus: 6052
Neptune: 25,269 (equatorial) 24,340 (polar)
Uranus: 25,559 (equatorial) 24,973 (polar)
Jupiter: 71,490 (equatorial) 66,854 (polar)
Saturn: 60,268 (equatorial) 54,360 (polar) (not including rings)

Distance to Moon 384,000km
Faq: (faq shrunk from other video for “reasons”)

1, We would not be engulfed by Jupiter or any other planet, Jupiter’s radius is 71,490 km and the distance to the Moon is 384,000km

2, We would suffer from really really horrible tides and earthquakes(and radiation)

3, I *did* model the Ring of debris around Uranus, I actually modeled 8 of them, but you can mostly just make out 3, This was actually the tipping point for me to render this out in 4k resolution

4, I love Pluto, and Mercury. They are left off because they are too small. Pluto is smaller than our Moon, and Mercury is not significantly larger than our Moon.

5, The “Sun” I used for lighting the planets is completely off from reality,

7 Orbiting! Yes! we would be a moon of Saturn, Jupiter, Uranus, and Neptune. They are much more massive than the Earth. Venus is about the same size of the Earth and we would orbit around a center point between us

8 Rotation rates and axial tilts are not accurate to anything

9 Radius of the Sun is 695,500 km, and hence if it were where our Moon is, we would be engulfed by it

10 Scales are Accurate, Every few days someone says my scales are wrong, Or that someone says I’m presenting Saturn as being bigger than Jupiter. I’m going to go through some of the arguments I keep hearing (paraphrasing each)

a. “You’re showing Saturn larger than Jupiter”: I am not, Saturn is clearly smaller than Jupiter in the video, Saturn+ring system *IS* larger than Jupiter (in terms of radius) This is easy to look up.

b. “Jupiter is 300 times larger than Earth! therefore it’s wrong in your video (or 1000 times larger etc)” : There are many sayings about how much larger Jupiter is than earth. 300 is Probably referring to Mass… 1000.. is probably referring to Volume. Without actually specifying the Dimension the argument is pretty moot. I will say this Jupiter’s Radius is about 11 times that of Earths, which fits precisely with my video.

c. “I saw another video where Jupiter Filled the sky!, therefore you’re wrong”: I am very familiar with the video. I even Like the video. However the FOV (field of view) of his Ground does not match the FOV of the planets. In other words, he has a wide angle lens on the ground, and a zoomed lens on the planets. To his own credit he admits this in his own description. In my video My ground FOV and my planet FOV are the same, and hence graphically matched and very reasonably accurate.

d. The confidence I have for my scales being correct is exceptionally high. The dimensions used for the planets and rings has at one point been triple checked along with the earth moon distance. It’s interesting to see how a *few* people have gotten completely worked up over their misconceptions on scale. The size of the Moon is a bit of an illusion, I Think if you still have misconceptions you should hold a dime out to arms length , and hold it against the moon, Or even go out with your own camera,, Zoom out all the way.. and take a photo of the Moon. It really is Tiny against the sky. It’s only about half a degree in angular diameter.

Thanks to everyone for watching, I enjoy making these

Tip of the old scrub brush to Lady Rhian.

More:

Planets of the Solar System

Planets of the Solar System not to scale – Wikipedia image


Horizons of South Dakota at night, in wonderful time-lapse

June 11, 2013

Photographer Randy Halverson lives and shoots in South Dakota, mostly.  Here’s an almost-five minute piece showing the night skies of South Dakota with a little Wyoming thrown in.

Halverson’s description:

If you have ever been in a wide open landscape the most interesting thing isn’t necessarily the landscape itself, but what you see coming over the horizon. Growing up in South Dakota the landscape itself can be beautiful at times, but that doesn’t compare to what the sky can do, especially at night. Combine that with the landscape, and it makes for great photo opportunities. More information and stills at dakotalapse.com/2013/06/horizons/

Bear McCreary (The Walking Dead, Defiance, Battlestar Galactica, etc) once again helped me with some original music for the video. This time he suggested adding vocals to the mix. Brendan McCreary and his band (Young Beautiful in a Hurry) did just that. They came up with “I Forever” The single is available on iTunes tinyurl.com/pgrq45p , Amazon and other online sources.

I shot Horizons from April – October 2012 mostly in South Dakota, but also some at Devils Tower in Wyoming. From the rugged Badlands, the White River valley and the Black Hills, the horizons seem to endlessly change.

Download the 30 minute long Horizons feature at dakotalapse.com/2013/06/horizons-feature

Photography and Editing – Randy Halverson
Production Assistants – River Halverson and Kelly McILhone
Color Correction – Jeff Zueger – Spectrum Films

Sponsors:
Dynamic Perception – The Stage Zero and Stage One dollies were used in many of the shots. I can’t recommend them enough for a quality product at a low price. dynamicperception.com/#oid=1005_1

Borrowlenses – Throughout the summer I got some great Canon and Zeiss lenses from Borrowlenses to use in the shoot. They have great service and every lens performed flawlessly. So if you ever want to try out a lens ,or just need one for an special shoot, give them a try! borrowlenses.com

Granite Bay Software – I try to avoid flicker in sunset or daytime timelapse while shooting. But sometimes it is unavoidable. I used GBDeflicker to smooth out the flicker in some of the sunset timelapse. granitebaysoftware.com/

Equipment Used
Canon 5D Mark III, sometimes with a 2nd from Borrowlenses.com
Canon 5D Mark II
Canon 60D

I used a variety of lenses, many from Borrowlenses.com

Canon 14, 16-35, 24-70, 50 F1.2, 70-200mm lenses

Zeiss 21, 25, 35mm lenses

Nikon 14-24mm with Novoflex Adapter

Available in 4K resolution.

Contact for licensing footage, shooting rates or anything else.
Randy Halverson
dakotalapse@gmail.com

Tip of the old scrub brush to Yahoo! Sideshow blog.

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Description unavailable

Devil’s Tower, Wyoming; image by americanbackroom.com


Beauty happens without warning

June 3, 2013

Brad Goldpaint (Goldpaint Photography) planned to shoot pictures of the Milky Way, something I’ve tried to do without much success, at Crater Lake National Park, one of the more spectacular backdrops for such a photograph.

Those plans were interrupted — without warning.  Thank goodness.

More information:

I drove to Crater Lake National Park on the night of May 31, 2013 to photograph the Milky Way rising above the rim. I’ve waited months for the roads to open and spring storms to pass, so I could spend a solitude night with the stars. Near 11pm, I was staring upward towards a clear night sky when suddenly, without warning, an unmistakable faint glow of the aurora borealis began erupting in front of me. I quickly packed up my gear, hiked down to my truck, and sped to a north facing location. With adrenaline pumping, I raced to the edge of the caldera, set up a time-lapse sequence, and watched the northern lights dance until sunrise. The moon rose around 2am and blanketed the surrounding landscape with a faint glow, adding depth and texture to the shot. The last image in the sequence above shows the route of the International Space Station (ISS) which flew over at 2:35am.

Please feel free to share #withoutwarning

See more images at goldpaintphotography.com/2013/06/02/without-warning/

Music composed by Ben Beiny entitled, “The Right Moment”

Limited edition, fine-art prints are available at goldpaintphotography.com/purchase

Follow me:
Facebook: facebook.com/goldpaintphotography
Twitter: twitter.com/goldpaintphoto
Google+: plus.google.com/117178975214870026107/
Newsletter: goo.gl/XLPgV

No motion control systems were used during the production of this time-lapse. We are actively seeking various marketing partnerships to strategically promote and develop, specialized photography equipment used in the field. If you are interested in soliciting your product with Goldpaint Photography, please contact us at info@goldpaintphotography.com.

Poetic understatement:  ” . . . without warning, an unmistakable faint glow of the aurora borealis began erupting in front of me.”

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Still from Brad Goldpaint's

Still from Brad Goldpaint’s “Without Warning,” image from Goldpaint via MSNBC


Long’s Peak in the Milky Way

May 17, 2013

I admire those who are able to capture a good image of the Milky Way in a photograph.

Here’s another one, with Long’s Peak in Rocky Mountain National Park as a foil.

Milky Way and Long's Peak, Rocky Mountain NP - Pat Gaines photo

The Milky Way rises over Long’s Peak (14,259 feet) as seen from 9,600 feet up Trail Bridge Road in Rocky Mountain National Park. Photo: Pat Gaines

Is it easier to get good photos at that altitude?

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Fantastic movies of Saturn, from Cassini and Voyager

May 13, 2013

Wow.

Eclipse of the Sun by Saturn

Saturn, ready for its close up: Eclipse of the Sun by Saturn. NASA photo at Wikipedia

Sander van den Berg downloaded publicly-available images of Saturn and its moons and rings, and patched them together in make time-lapse movies.

This short feature will stun you; these are real images, not altered, only patched together to pixillate motion.

“Outer Space,” by Sander van den Berg:

http://vimeo.com/40234826

van den Berg said the music is from the Cinematic Orchestra, “That Home (Instrumental).”  Details on how he made the film at Vimeo.

Tip of the old scrub brush to Steve @vanesch, https://twitter.com/vanesch

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More Aurora borealis, and Iceland

March 22, 2013

More Iceland than Aurora.  Not necessarily bad.  Great timelapse photos.

You have my permission to turn down the music volume.

Filmmaker Anna Possberg wrote:

Iceland has become a popular destination since the singer Björk made her island famous by her songs. Yet few people know Iceland during wintertime. And I am sure that they miss a beautiful part of the island: the snow covered rocks, the magic arctic light and especially the phantastic aurora borealis dancing in the sky. The days spent at the Jokülsarlon glacial lake were one of the most beautiful and peaceful Christmas time I remember.

English: Jökulsárlón, a glacial lake in Icelan...

Jökulsárlón, a glacial lake in Iceland. To the right, the mouth of the glacier Vatnajökull. Wikipedia photo

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Fireworks for James Madison’s birthday! Aurora borealis in Alaska, March 16, 2013

March 22, 2013

Fireworks for James Madison’s birthday?

Loren Holmes photo of Aurora borealis over Eureka, Alaska, March 16, 2013

Loren Holmes photograph straight up of Aurora borealis over Eureka, Alaska, on March 13, 2013. AlaskaDispatch.com

I love fireworks.  Kathryn and I have been known to drive a couple hundred miles to see a good show.  Fireworks in honor of the guy who gave us the Constitution and the First Amendment (and much more), seems a great idea to me.

But no one did it . . .

Sometimes the Sun, Moon, stars and planets conspire.

Here’s one of the best, most inspiring five minutes you’ll spend this week. Look what the Sun sent us, filmed in time-lapse glory above Eureka, Alaska, on March 16, 2013, the anniversary of James Madison’s birthday; from AlaskaDispatch.com:

A timelapse of the Aurora Borealis, Northern Lights, over Eureka, Alaska on March 16, 2013. Taken with a Canon 5D Mark III and 24mm f/1.4 and 70-200 f/2.8 lenses. Compiled from 3800 images, with exposures between 2 seconds and 30 seconds.

Loren Holmes, the photographer, provides a more poetic description of the lights he filmed, and more scientific, too, at AlaskaDispatch.com.

AlaskaDispatch.com provided a slide show of Holmes’s better photos, too.

Tip of the old scrub brush to Dr. M. P. Bumsted.

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Waiting for Comet Godot

March 14, 2013

Comet Pan-STARRS?

I just can’t see it.

The past two evenings, when it was supposed to be visible, we couldn’t find it.  Maddeningly, others have great photos of the thing.

Here’s a photo of where it was supposed to be the evening of March 12.  Nice sliver of a Moon.

A view to the west over south Grand Prairie, Texas, showing the sliver of the new Moon, but a no-show Comet Pan-STARRS, March 12, 2013.  Photo by Ed, Kathryn and Peanut.

A view to the west over south Grand Prairie, Texas, showing the sliver of the new Moon, but a no-show Comet Pan-STARRS, March 12, 2013. Photo by Ed, Kathryn and Peanut.

We watched for over an hour, from just after the Sun’s winking out in a blaze of orange (Texas dust and DFW smog).  We were shooting without a tripod, and so it was difficult to capture just how thin was the line of the Moon for a long time.  It was not a clear crescent, with mountains of the Moon providing jagged lines that glistened like a crystal glass necklace.  Longer exposures revealed the comet to other observers in other places, but not to us.  Perched as we were right on the edge of the Austin Chalk Escarpment, we were joined by a dozen or so others who hoped to see the comet, or who were just putting their BMX bikes away.

A more detailed, and grainy, shot of the Moon (with no comet):

New Moon over Grand Prairie Texas, looking for Comet Pan-STARRS, photo by Ed Darrell

Eventually the Moon stated its presence, but still no Comet Pan-STARRS, on March 12, 2013. Looking west over Grand Prairie, Texas.  (Yeah, probably would have been a much better photo if not handheld.)

Here’s a photo of where it was supposed to be last night, the evening of March 13.

Moon over Grand Prairie, no comet, 3-13-2013

On March 13, Comet Pan -STARRS rode directly underneath the Moon; it’s invisible in this longer exposure, though you can see the streaking lights of a jetliner flying out of DFW International Airport under the Moon.

It’s like waiting for Godot.  Waiting for Comet Godot.

Quoting from SamuellBeckett.net:
ESTRAGON: 
People are bloody ignorant apes.  He rises painfully, goes limping to extreme left, halts, gazes into distance off with his hand screening his eyes, turns, goes to extreme right, gazes into distance. Vladimir watches him, then goes and picks up the boot, peers into it, drops it hastily.
VLADIMIR:  Pah!He spits. Estragon moves to center, halts with his back to auditorium.
ESTRAGON:  Charming spot. (He turns, advances to front, halts facing auditorium.)
Inspiring prospects. (He turns to Vladimir.)
Let’s go.
VLADIMIR:  We can’t.
ESTRAGON:  Why not?
VLADIMIR:  We’re waiting for Godot.
ESTRAGON:  (despairingly). Ah! (Pause.) You’re sure it was here?
VLADIMIR:  What?
ESTRAGON:  That we were to wait.
VLADIMIR:  He said by the tree. (They look at the tree.) Do you see any others?
ESTRAGON:  What is it?
VLADIMIR:  I don’t know. A willow.
ESTRAGON:  Where are the leaves?
VLADIMIR:

It must be dead.

 

More:

Brian Klimowski's photo of Comet Pan-STARRS, March 12, 2013

Other photographers found Comet Pan-STARRS. This photo comes via SpaceWeather.com. ” Brian Klimowski sends this picture from the countryside near Flagstaff, Arizona . . . ‘Beautiful show this evening!’ says Klimowski. ‘I took the photo from an altitude of about 9500 feet in the San Francisco Peaks near Flagstaff. A 1-second exposure with my Canon digital camera easily revealed the comet.'” Photo details: Canon 7D, 125 mm, 1s @ F/5.6. ISO 1250

 


Mount Ranier by Milky Way light

January 28, 2013

Stunning photograph posted by National Park Service people in Mount Ranier National Park:

Mount Ranier by Milky Way light -- Dave Morrow photo, October 2012

Photographer Dave Morrow photograph of Mount Ranier and the Milky Way, from October 2012

Information from the Mount Ranier NPS site at Instagram:

Some images are just plain extraordinary — and often, the photographer has invested a great deal of time and effort to make that image happen. Photographer Dave Morrow describes the process of among this image from Mount Rainier National Park in October 2012. “I went up to Sunrise Point at Mt. Rainier last weekend with my buddy Keith. After a lame sunset, we waited for the Milky Way to come out. The placement was just perfect and the sky was pitch black!  Time to jack up the ISO and shoot some stars . . . this was one of many from the night.”

See more of Mr. Morrow’s work, here:  DaveMorrowPhotography.com

Difficult to know whether the streaks are airplanes or meteoroids.  No doubt it was a long exposure.

(Links added here.)

[Update, June 2015:  Morrow has protected his photo from linking in most places; go see this photo, and many others, at his site: http://www.davemorrowphotography.smugmug.com/]

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