Part-time prevaricator
The moon tonight is very full and very bright, and there’s a tiny little speck of light juuuuuust about touching it. I checked and it turns out it’s Mars.
(I realize I kind of gave it away in the title. So it goes.)
[Edit] I just realized it’s also the 50th anniversary today of the launch of Apollo 17, the last crewed mission to the moon. Here’s to the continued success of the Artemis project and the return of humans to the lunar surface.
On the evening of May 15, 2022, the Earth’s shadow fell completely across the face of the moon.
… and it happened early enough that I was still awake, so I took my camera and tripod out to the sidewalk and snapped a few dozen photos. These three are my favourites.
There wasn’t any aurora visible, but I got 20 minutes worth of Earth’s rotation under a half moon.
The sky was that weird evening colour that could be perfectly clear or could be a solid wall of cloud. But the moon showed me it wasn’t cloud.
Tonight I headed out into the countryside, planning to take some startrail photos. The data weren’t looking good for any aurora.
Some showed up all the same. (What I saw was a very faint haze; the camera sees far better in the dark than I do.)
Shot from our deck.
There’s half a moon in the sky tonight. I snapped some quick photos from my deck. It’s a bit chilly so I didn’t spend much time out there.
Nerdy details: 1/100 second exposure, ISO 100, 250mm, f/5.6, handheld. Photo was cropped and the colours tweaked a little bit in GIMP.
Tonight’s moon in a clear black sky.
Shot from my deck this evening.
Nerdy details: 1/40 second exposure, 250mm, f/5.6, ISO 800.
The clouds looked interesting, about ten minutes before sunset last night, so I grabbed my camera and went to the west edge of town. I managed to get the last sliver of sunset—see the photo above.
I also snapped some photos of the sun’s reflected light on the clouds:
…and on the moon.
