Tag: moon

Days 9 through 11.

We picked up the anchor at sunrise Monday morning and enjoyed some good sailing across Albemarle Sound and Currituck Sound.

Lunch nibblies aboard

We hit the last bridge openings before rush hour and tied up at Atlantic Yacht Basin in time to watch the local rowing club practice alongside us.

For dinner we biked to a fantastic Italian restaurant for a delicious meal ashore.

Yummmmm

Tuesday morning we caught the 7AM bridge opening at Great Bridge and followed the parade of boats and geese into the lock beyond the bridge for the one foot rise in water level between the canal and the Elizabeth River beyond it.

We reached mile marker 0 of the ICW in Norfolk and kept going on past it and into Chesapeake Bay for some more good sailing. We anchored in the Piankatank River, on the west side of Chesapeake Bay for the night.

Sunset on the Piankatank River

Wednesday we picked up anchor at sunrise again, trying to get as far north as possible before sunset.

We crossed into Maryland before noon, and raced a thunderstorm into our anchorage at the Choptank River on the east side of the bay.

We made it before the rain and high winds came, and watched the full moon rise after the storm passed.

Tomorrow, Thursday, we will arrive at our destination. Annapolis, here comes Trident and her crew!

Just a regular moon.

Wednesday morning I set my alarm for 4:30 am, got up, and looked out the window;  overcast skies and foggy.   I told myself that it was unlikely I’d get a shot of the first-in-150years-super-full-blue-blood moon.   I went back to bed without taking a step outside.

So, I don’t have a photo of that.   This, however, was taken yesterday morning while I was freezing and hiking around the woods.  The moon is pretty, most days.

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New day.

I caught a glimpse of the crescent moon this morning as the sun was coming up behind it.  Only a week ago I was watching the moon rise, just past full, over the desert.  It made me think about how Time passes and Life happens.  The James Taylor song Secret o’Life popped into my head.  Give it a listen here.  Enjoy the day.

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Blood red moon.

I woke up in the wee hours this morning to experience the lunar eclipse.  One day I may have a camera worthy of capturing such a moment, but I managed to get a few ok shots with my reliable Canon PowerShot D10.   These are 5 shots, shown in order, as the Earth’s shadow passed left to right across the surface of the Moon.  1-April3

Ace & Deuce.

Our friends Teri and Jim are visiting us this weekend – some of our good sailing buddies who moved out of state a couple years ago. We had a fun reunion party last night. Today we went to the lake and anchored out for a few fun hours. We made it back to the marina in time for a pretty sunset sky. The moon is the nearly full Cold Moon.

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Red sky at night.

We tried a new restaurant tonight. After arriving back at the house, the sky was lovely and pink. Good omen?

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A little later the crescent moon popped into view.
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And my fortune tonight:

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We shall see…

Closer to fine.

Conjunction of Jupiter and the moon.
Conjunction of Jupiter and the moon.

Tonight the sky is clear in Austin.  The gibbous moon and Jupiter appear closer tonight than they will until the year 2026.  So, I went outside tonight with my Canon PowerShot D-10 and tried a number of settings – stopping up/down, increasing shutter speed, etc, etc.   This is the shot.

Gratuitous side note:   As I was drafting this blog post, I was thinking about the fact that Jupiter and the moon will be closer tonight than they will for another decade or so… and for whatever reason a song popped into my head:  Closer to Fine by the Indigo Girls, from their album with the same name, 1989.   Don’t know why, but there it is.  I love this song, as much as I did when I heard it two dozen years ago.  Here’s the youtube link for you to enjoy, too.   If you like this, then just listen to the entire album, it’s fantastic.  Heck, listen to all the Indigo Girls’ songs.   Great vocals, great harmony, great acoustic sound.   A little factoid for you… the year after this album came out, the Indigo Girls were up for Best New Artist in the Grammy Awards, but lost out to… (wait for it) Milli Vanilli.  Sad, but true.

Conjunction, junction, what’s your function?

Jupiter, Venus, the Moon and Aldebaran.

I awoke this morning to the sound of Monte getting up and going outside.  He had been planning on watching this morning’s quadruple conjunction of the crescent Moon, Jupiter, Venus and Aldebaran.  So, I hopped out of bed too.  I grabbed my camera and he dug out the tripod.

It was 6 AM and the sun was already starting to come up.   An hour earlier would have been better, light-wise, but the event was clearly visible from our front yard.

In the shot above, Jupiter is on the top.  Venus is below, it is at its brightest this month.  If you look closely, you can see the star Aldebaran on the right side of the frame (vertically about halfway between the Moon and Venus).  There is another faint star to the bottom left of Jupiter, but I don’t know what that one is called.

It was a pretty sight.  It is always thrilling to see the dance of the moon, planets and stars.  This morning the clouds lifted and we were treated to a great view.

The blogosphere @ 35,000′.

Moon & troposphere viewed from seat 20A.

I’m on my way back home.  Typical commute.  Flight delays, short connection, scrambling for carry-on baggage space, hoping for an upgrade to that last seat in 1st class.  Bleh.   Thank goodness for the Admiral’s club.  🙂

I’ve been using the in-flight wireless on most of my business travel legs.  It helps me keep from getting behind on email and todos.

On this flight, I decided to knock off early.  Well, i *is* 6PM on a friday night!

I was taking photos out the window after we had leveled off at 35 thousand feet.  I had a nice view of the moon above the clouds, and some pretty blue sky, and then I had the brainchild … hey, i should just post it now while I’m online.  🙂

So here goes.

Have a great weekend!

Releasing my inner artiste.

A Sheila original (sort of).

Tonight Sue & I went to an art studio called Painting with a Twist.  They hold a painting class every night where everyone in the studio paints the same picture.   Oh, and you can bring your own wine and snacks to help get the creative juices flowing (that’s the twist part).  You can choose which session you want to attend by checking out their calendar and signing up ahead of time.  They have studios in many cities, check out their main website if you’re interested.  Tonight’s piece is called Moonlit Cherry Blossoms.

I know friends that have tried it, but this was my first time.  It was FUN!  The pic above is one I took of my painting after I got it home.  I look forward to trying this again.

Look out people, ARTIST COMIN’ THROUGH!!  😀

Jul 14, 2010

The moon, planets & stars, oh my!

You might want to go into a dark room to see this image.   I follow an online sky-watching site called Sky & Telescope.  Each week it points out notable things in the night sky to watch out for.   This week there is a pretty cool lining up of Mercury, Venus, Mars and Saturn, alongside the crescent moon.

So, I went out tonight on a mission to try to capture a picture of this glorious event.  I had limited success.  Mercury was not visible.  I was able to see the others.   Here is the best image I have.   Not great, but kind of cool if you think about what you’re seeing.    If you look diagonally  from top left down to bottom right you can see:  Saturn, then Mars, then Venus (brightest star to the right of the crescent moon) then below Venus to the right is Regulus.

Pretty cool, eh?!

If you look on the right side between Saturn and Mars, you’ll see the star Denebola, which is part of the constellation Leo.

This is the diagram from Sky & Telescope, if it helps.

I’m starting to look at fancy-dancy cameras now.   Not sure if that was the point of this picture-a-day project, but we’ll see what develops.  get it?  develops?   heh heh  😉

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