Moon and Jupiter

Just when I was getting back into photographing the night sky, along came the rains. And clouds. This is putting me into withdrawal. This morning just before 2:00 a.m. I woke up, went to stoke up the woodstove, and saw the moon shining in the window. Spaceweather.com told me that the moon and Jupiter would be in close conjuction, so I got dressed, grabbed the camera and headed down to the beach to take a few shots before the thick clouds came rolling back in.

Odd effect with Jupiter

I was out taking some star trail shots, with Jupiter in the picture, and when I downloaded the pics I got odd dots and arcs. I've not had this happen before, if there was some vibration in the camera, ALL of the stars in the pictures would be affected. I've cropped and enlarged the sections with Jupiter.

Encounters of the prickly kind

My latest thing to try to photograph at night is the ISS (International Space Station). Caught it tonight cutting across the Big Dipper.












Ater the ISS had passed by, I headed over to another spot to see what the stars were doing where there was a thin film of clouds, thought maybe Jupiter would be over the pines. Good thing I had my flashlight, or I might have tripped over this porcupine.

At first he (she?) took off into the cattails at the shore, and I headed over to another part of the lawn to set up the camera and tripod. After a few minutes I heard noises, it was coming towards me, making a "hmmmm hmmmm" strange nasally kind of call. It came over and sniffed the tripod leg, and when I said "Well??" it took off again. I moved about 30 feet to another spot, and saw the porkie way off in the flashlight beam. I started to imitate the noise it was making, and it came trotting over to investigate. When I snapped pictures the flash made it move back, but I kept making the noise and it kept sniffing around. You can see by the picture of porkie sniffing at my shoe how close it came.

Exploding meteor

Where did summer go??? Well, at least we're now into the season of clearer nights with a little less haze, and not too cold to stand otside for a length of time. Last night I took the camera down to the dock to play around with some long exposure shots, took a few of the moon setting, and then a few star trail shots. In one shot I managed to catch a meteor, and when I downloaded it and took a closer look at the enlargement, saw that there were bits trailing off as though it had been breaking up. Nice to catch a meteor, even nicer to catch some of the extra "action".










Wide angle shot.













Enlarged detail of the meteor.

Ringneck snake

A couple of nights ago, when I headed out the front door, I nearly stepped on a snake on the front walkway. I shone the flashlight on it and saw the ring round the neck, so scooped up the snake for a closer look. Sure enough it was a lovely little ringneck snake. These are pretty, gentle snakes, very silky to the touch, and and are quite clean, never stink. I love the bright yellow colouring on the underside. I took several pictures of this one as it slid through my fingers, then turned it loose into the foliage beside the front door so it could continue on doing what it had been doing before getting near-trampled by a tired clumsy human.

Promethea moth

About 3:00 a.m. this morning, when Tanka had to go out, I spied this moth at the windowsill of my cabin. It was cold, and I tickled it onto my finger and brought it inside for a closer look. It had a lot of spiderwebs stuck to it, I pulled those off gently with the use of a pair of tweezers. I set her in a dish where she stayed quietly til morning. I took her outside, set up the camera, tickled her onto the trunk of an old oak tree, and managed to get some pictures before she warmed up and took off into the trees.

Mantisfly

Sometimes I'm amazed what I find in our house. Today I was picking up my laundry basket, and right beside it on the wood box was a mantisfly. I ran and grabbed my bug catcher and put it into the aquarium, then set up a box with a screen to try to photograph it. It was not the most cooperative model, kept moving off the milkweed leaf I had set up for it, but I did manage to get a few shots. It's windy today, I'm hoping if things calm down and cool down after supper, I'll take it outside and see if I can get a few shots before it flies away. I was happy to find this rarely seen insect, it's only the second one I've ever found.