At night

If you look closely you can see the shape of the moon last night, less than a half moon. It was over-exposed, sacrificed, for the stars. But as always, I hand-held this shot, rather than invest time in setting up a tri-pod, and the stars streaked into little lozenge shapes. Well, there you go. I still like what I got.

In my in-laws' garden last night, we'd just eaten a leg of lamb and other assorted deliciosities at the table just out of the picture, and we started lounging at the fire pit. There were flies but they knew where to go when the fire started. And there were flankers flying towards shoes and pant cuffs. A water-hose was in the grass nearby; it didn't need to be used.

A few minutes ago, just a few minutes after local sunset, I took this picture from our back door. I exposed for the moon so the sky is greyer and darker than it appeared to the eye. But I like it like this.

A half-hour ago I would not have been able to tell you anything about Antares other than that it is a star. But a half-hour ago I saw a red star fairly close to the Moon and wondered what it was. So I looked it up and found out that it is Antares. I also found out it is so-called because of its reddish colour, a competitor in the sky for Mars (a.k.a. Ares, right? You following? There may be a test). In my picture none of the reddishness is visible. You'll have to take my word for it. Or get out on A-deck and see for yourself. If you can zoom in you'll see two or three other stars, even one closer to the moon than Mr Chase-Mars. I don't know their names.

It's not full-full. It won't be full-full for another two days. But it's apparently 94.5% illuminated. That's close to full. And, seen through the warm evening sky as it rises just after sunset, it's very orange. This was the view from our back garden a few minutes ago.

I'm a sucker for the Moon. Any sky, any phase.

We spent a few days at our home-away-from-home. Some of that time was spent looking up at the sky. Over our clothesline, past an aeroplane and a couple of satellites, here is the Milky Way. The EXIF data says it was a thirty-second exposure. But I covered the lens after about seventeen seconds to reduce star movement somewhat.

The City has installed in our neighbourhood some speed bumps and this radar thingey. It is part of its effort to reduce dangerous and loud driving on what are otherwise quiet streets. Last night I watched the reported speeds for a few minutes and found that most cars stayed about five km/hr below the legal limit (fifty km/hr). However, most motorbikes stayed about ten above it. Some bikes travelled past the radar thingey at speeds of 75 km/hr. This fellow was staying right at the speed limit.

The Moon, some passing clouds and a (very out-of-focus) telephone wire outside our back door a few minutes ago. A bit noisy and somewhat over-sharpened around the moon, too. Oh well: I still like it.

Early this evening, while the sky was still blue, I crouched and leaned outside the back door to find Jupiter through the neighbors' trees. He was visibly accompanied by four of his moons: Callisto and Io on the left; and Europa and Gannymede on the right. The latter pair was so close together that it's hard to see them separately without looking carefully. I didn't use a tripod, though I did push my hand against the deck rail to hold the camera more steadily.

The moon tonight in our back yard: 98% full but obscured by fog, and behind the trees.

At seven o'clock this evening, with some daylight still in the sky, I could see four of Jupiter's moons. But by 10:30 this evening -- when I took this shot -- Io had moved across in front of Jupiter's disk so I could no longer see it. But the other three Galilean moons were still clearly visible -- L-R Ganymede, Europa and Callisto. To get a short-enough shutter speed to hand-hold, I put the ISO way up, to 6400. I relied on the internal stabilisation of the camera somewhat, but I also held my breath.

I have to move slowly back and forth, bouncing up and down, leaning in and out, on the back deck to get a clear view of Jupiter through branches of trees. But as the leaves get sparser, it gets easier. This was a few minutes ago. (I was not going to continue posting these Jovian Moon Shots, but each new one gets my geek blood pumping.) L-R: Europa, Io, Jupiter, Ganymede, Callisto. And, for the fotogeeks, it was at ISO1600 through the 150mm end of my zoom lens, at f/2.8 and a shutter speed of 1/30th. Handheld, but with the security of a good in-camera stabilisation system. And my breath held.

This was early Sunday evening. I had the camera leaning against a cushion on our deck rail to get the right angle.

Jupiter is very close to the moon in the sky now, just above it (in the southeastern sky hereabouts in St. John's, Newfoundland). If you can see a dark sky, this is what you'll see. The moon is bright, and there's a haze in the air here, but not enough to obscure the moons of Jupiter. If you can zoom in on this picture you can see all four of the usual characters (L-R: Callisto, Io, Europa and Ganymede, though Io and Europa are so close together they look almost like one). It doesn't matter what side you're on; when we look up, we all see the same bits of light up there.

I got up very early to see if I could see the lunar eclipse. I caught just a little of it before the moon sank behind a neighbour's house. But, better than the moon, was the gigantic fox terrier smiling at me from the neighbour's roof. Then I went back to bed.

Post-tropical storm Nicole is passing over us, bringing a little wind but a lot of rain. As her heart passed over us, both wind and rain dropped down. In that lull I went to the back door and took some pictures. Here the camera was sitting on the doorstep. The leaves are a gift from the trees, beaten down by the rain. The pumpkin's presence is just a result of me being lazy again.

Now that the leaves have all been blown off the trees above our back yard, the wider sky-view has returned. And Luna has been putting on shows of haze, a different colour each evening. Last night it was orange; tonight a bluey theme.