A way cool scene in the early morning hours today. The waning crescent moon looked gorgeous and just above it, Venus was shining brightly. The conjunction brought together the two brightest objects in the night sky with the moon seeming to smile at the distant planet. As I was on my way to work, I didn’t have much time to play but stopped and grabbed a few captures.
Meteor streaks across the Colorado skies
Perhaps we will call it #MeteorMonday? Going back to late August on a camping trip to the high country. I stuck my GoPro on top of the RV and let it record captures continuously for four hours until it ran out of battery. With light from a restroom lighting up the trees, I wasn’t sure what I would get but it turned out pretty cool.
In one of the captures was this, a meteor streaking across part of the frame. As the GoPro has a very wide-angle lens, I couldn’t crop it much but was able to do it enough to highlight the rock as it entered the atmosphere.
A “crescent sun” during the 2023 solar eclipse
As we already had plans, I couldn’t make it directly under the path of the eclipse yesterday but did manage to come close. We were attending the Grand Junction Air Show and while we waited for the show to begin, I was snapping pics of the eclipse. From there, the sun was about 90% eclipsed and when at its maximum, it was noticeable, as if a cloud had moved in front of the sun and temps seemed to cool slightly. Certainly not as impressive of an experience as during the Great American Eclipse of 2017 but still fun to see.
Pastel colored clouds at sunrise and the setting moon
With other commitments, I won’t be making many photo excursions this holiday weekend. However, I got lucky yesterday and a nice one presented itself as I went outside to drink my coffee on the patio. The rising sun had colored the few clouds that were above in beautiful reds and oranges. Right by them, the waning gibbous moon looked bright and absolutely resplendent. I really loved all the detail that is seen in the moon.
Six years ago today: The Great American Eclipse
Oh, what an amazing experience this was, one that took my breath away. When my brother and I started planning an RV trip to go to Wyoming to see the solar eclipse, I figured it would be pretty cool. I sorely underestimated the experience.
It is hard to explain what it was like but it was beyond my wildest dreams. At its maximum, the sky turned as dark as if it was dusk, temperatures plunged and it became incredibly silent. Just amazing. This image, one which I have not shared before, shows the eclipse as totality ended and the sun began to emerge from behind the moon – part of what is called the ‘diamond ring’ phase of the eclipse.
There will be another total solar eclipse visible in the United States on April 8, 2024. That one would require me to travel a long ways and that time of year there would be a greater risk of the weather preventing viewing but I have to admit to being tempted to try to see it.
Stars (and clouds) above the forest
Playing with my GoPro Hero 9 again. Trying for the Milky Way was out of the question as I knew there were lights to the south (Black Hawk). Instead, I just pointed the camera up from our campsite and figured I would see what I could get. Mother Nature, unfortunately, sent some clouds through but it still make for a cool show. The trees are lit up by lights from the campground bathroom – actually worked out well. 😉 One frame did have a meteor and another part of the Starlink satellite constellation. I will post those images in the comments. This is pretty much 4 hours compressed to 14 seconds. Taken at Colorado Parks and Wildlife Golden Gate Canyon State Park.
Video: The Milky Way in Motion
Kind of a fun little experiment from a few weeks ago. I shared a still image of this scene back then, taken with my camera, which came out pretty good. This video is a timelapse of a series of images taken with my GoPro Hero 9. Certainly it doesn’t have the capability of my “big” camera, but it didn’t do too bad. I think with some changes in the settings at the time, it could have been better. This is a series of 253 images shot over a little more than two hours played to last 13 seconds or so.
Milky Way over the VRBO
This past weekend we had a big family get-together, a Christmas present to my mom. Mom, her kids, grandkids and great grandkids all gathered for a weekend of family and fun. Our chosen location, a beautiful Vrbo west of Fairplay, Colorado.
Tucked into the forest and well away from city lights, it provided a very early morning photo opportunity. My brother and I ventured out into the blackness and trained our cameras on the Milky Way to the south. The sheer number of stars you see when you get away from the light pollution of the city is stunning, something I miss greatly when back home in suburbia.
Image taken with my usual Canon EOSR5 and my latest lens, a Canon RF15-35mm F2.8 L IS USM.
Big, bad bison bull and the full wolf moon
Going back to January for Throwback Thursday. Snow had fallen the night before, coating the landscape in white helping to set the scene. Above, the full moon was setting and getting ready to disappear behind the Rocky Mountains. A massive bison bull had splintered off from the rest of the herd and was on the move right toward me. All together, it made for a pretty cool scene.
Sunspot, baby!
Check this out! I had read that there was a massive sunspot on the sun, the biggest since 1990. Well, after work I decided to slap on the solar filter onto my camera and have a look. Sure enough there is NOAA AR 13190 as it is known by stargazers. To give a sense of scale, that massive sunspot is about five times larger than planet Earth! Crazy.
Solar activity is currently increasing as we near the height of the current solar cycle and is expected to peak in 2025. AR 3190 is so large that if it were to erupt with a solar flare, it could be an X-class event, one that if it struck the Earth could destroy electronics, shut down power grids and have devastating effects.
As you can tell, the sunspot is about to rotate out of view and away from us. An important note… Do NOT look directly at the sun to try to see this event. If you have solar eclipse glasses, those would work to allow you to safely view it.
BTW, the title of this posting is a shoutout to one of my all time favorite singers, Bob Seger , and a song of his that I absolutely love. 😉