milky way

The Milky Way, early on Canada Day

Posted on by Patrick
Milky Way above the hydro lines

I went out around mid­night to get some pho­tos of the galaxy. My spot about 15 min­utes south of town was dark and qui­et, except the occa­sion­al low­ing of cat­tle and the buzzing of mos­qui­toes. I saw a cou­ple fire­flies too.

Milky Way above the hydro lines
Milky Way above the hydro lines (unedited)Milky Way above the hydro lines
Before and after processing.

Both pho­tos: 20 sec­ond expo­sures, 11mm, f/2.8, ISO 1600. Edit­ed using GIMP.

Image processing: before and after

Posted on by Patrick

I took a cou­ple pic­tures of the Milky Way tonight, as is my wont, and decid­ed to present you with how it looked com­ing fresh out of my cam­era, and how it looks once I’ve cleaned it up. Enjoy!

Clear skies at the farm

Posted on by Patrick
The halfway tree at night

We got to the farm last night in the dark, and the skies were clear and star­ry. So, after vis­it­ing for a bit, I took my cam­era and tri­pod out in the lane.

  • The Milky Way behind a tree
    The Milky Way behind a tree 
  • The Milky Way behind a tree
    The Milky Way behind a tree 
  • The Milky Way behind a stop sign
    The Milky Way behind a stop sign
  • Jupiter and Saturn
    Jupiter and Sat­urn (if you view full size, you can see two of Jupiter’s moons)
  • Star Trails
    Star Trails (and a LOT of high­way light)

Writing Retreat 2020, day 5

Posted on by Patrick
Comet NEOWISE

Wednes­day:

  • Processed pho­tos
  • Wrote 1,000 words in the morn­ing, 1,000 in the evening
  • Biked about 6½ km
  • Kayaked for a bit more than ½ hour
  • Read a few more chap­ters in The Knight
  • Went to the cof­fee shop for some (rel­a­tive­ly) high-speed internet
  • Rejoiced that the fore­cast calls for clear skies tonight — fin­gers crossed for more comet action!
  • Mut­tered to myself when the sky was, in fact, cloudy at 10pm, 11pm, and midnight
  • Checked one last time in my pyja­mas at 1am, and saw stars
  • …and so I found a cou­ple dark spots, snapped some more pho­tos, and fell into bed at 3am
  • The comet
  • The comet and the horizon
  • I found a nice pho­to­genic tree with the Milky Way behind it

Series: Writing Retreat 2020

The entire series: Writ­ing Retreat 2020; Writ­ing Retreat 2020, Day 1 & 2; Writ­ing Retreat 2020, Day 3; Writ­ing Retreat, Day 4; Writ­ing Retreat 2020, day 5; Writ­ing Retreat 2020, Day 6; Writ­ing Retreat 2020, Day 7; Writ­ing Retreat 2020, Day 8; Writ­ing Retreat 2020, Day 9; Writ­ing Retreat 2020: The Num­bers.

Last night

Posted on by Patrick
The Milky Way

Tak­en on a side road just off High­way #10, about 15 min­utes south of my house, at about 1:30 AM.

14 pho­tos, each 25 sec­onds, 3200 ISO, 11mm, f/2.8. Stitched with Hug­in.

96 images in the time­lapse above, each one 25 sec­onds @ 11mm, f/2.8, ISO 3200. The video took almost an hour to shoot, and, at 10 frames per sec­ond, lasts about 10 seconds.

Galactic panorama

Posted on by Patrick
Star Trails

I went out last night, since it was clear, and vis­it­ed my friend Tim, who’s camp­ing this week­end at Wasagam­ing. I snapped some star trails at his camp­site (my bat­tery, almost dead, man­aged 80 shots at 10 sec­onds each).

On the way home, I pulled off the high­way about ½ a mile down a grav­el road, and tried out a panoram­ic pho­to of the Milky Way. I set my cam­era up in por­trait mode and shot 5 pho­tos, 45 sec­onds each, tilt­ing the cam­era up after each shot. The cam­era start­ed out aimed at the hori­zon and the last shot was point­ed straight up at the zenith.

I stitched the pho­tos togeth­er using Hug­in, which did a very good job of auto­mat­i­cal­ly ori­ent­ing the pho­tos and find­ing the match­es. I did­n’t have to mas­sage any­thing manually.

Le voilà:

Panorama of the galaxy
Panora­ma of the galaxy. 5 images, stitched with Hugin.

Writing Retreat 2017

Posted on by Patrick
The Office -- writing at my friends' cabin

As is rapid­ly becom­ing tra­di­tion, I spent most of the last week of July in a friend’s cab­in up at Minnedosa. (Thanks, Karen & Ed!) My goals for the week are post­ed here, and here’s how it went:

Beat sheets for the major characters in Translations

I have a com­plete out­line for the POV’s arc, which is the most crit­i­cal as it’s nar­rat­ed in the first person.

Also, I had a major epiphany about the POV char­ac­ter, one that will shake up the last ⅔ of the book.

10,000 words in Translations

I wrote 12,500 words in Trans­la­tions, the bulk of it writ­ten as I sat on the deck, pret­ty much all alone in the cot­tage area.

At least a few shots of the Milky Way

Yeah, that turned out okay.

The Galaxy

Hav­ing access to a car this year real­ly helped me get to the dark places (lit­er­al­ly) so that I could get some great pho­tos of the night sky.

Also, I sold a print of one of my pho­tos to a friend. (Thanks, Bri­anne!) Does that mean I’m a pro now?

Lots of bike riding

Well. My bike’s left ped­al arm has been com­ing loose more and more fre­quent­ly. It’s got to go into the shop. On my first ride in Minnedosa, I had to stop twice to tight­en the ped­al arm, both times on my way up a hill. So after that, feh to bike rid­ing. (At least, my bike in its cur­rent condition.)

For­tu­nate­ly, I had access to a kayak (thanks, Car­la!), so I put in about 15 km of pad­dling time, going up and down the lake.

Stretch goals

I read James S. A. Corey’s amaz­ing Leviathan Wakes, cour­tesy of my pub­lic library’s e‑book pro­gram. I’m now hooked, and need to read the rest of the Expanse saga.

I also re-read the first ⅔ of Gene Wolfe’s sub­tle and mys­te­ri­ous The Fifth Head of Cer­berus, which, I’m not gonna lie, prob­a­bly had at least a lit­tle bit to do with my afore­men­tioned epiphany. (It’s also the first Wolfe nov­el I’ve re-read, and it’s amaz­ing how much less con­fu­sion I feel, how much more I’m pick­ing up.)

And we bought a sec­ond car, which is why I could have a vehi­cle to go gal­li­van­tin’ around the coun­try­side, look­ing for dark loca­tions to get pho­tos like this:

The Galaxy

I think that went well.

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