Sunrise/Sunset/Sky

Grey

Simple title for a simple picture for a grey day. It was pretty dreary out all day, with a grey sky and not a lot of color. That’s not to say that there isn’t a lot of beauty in a grey day. This is the view out my office window late in the afternoon when it started getting darker. Black and grey.

Orion

I don’t have much to say about this picture. It is the constellation Orion but the sky was not as clear as it was a little while earlier or again about a half hour later. I do wish we could see the stars more clearly here. Or perhaps I wish we were somewhere we could see the stars more clearly. Not really the same thing at all.

Magenta Sunset

We usually think of sunsets as being red or orange. This evening as I left work it was definitely magenta. I took a few pictures through the woods bordering my office building’s parking lot because I didn’t know how long the color would last or if I’d get another shot. After pulling out on the road, however, I was fortunate enough to be stopped by the traffic light on the corner (and how often do we consider that a blessing?). This was the view directly to my left. The first two shots I took turned out nicely. Then a truck drove between me and the sky while I was taking the third. I got one more a few minutes later in the reflection of my rear-view mirror, but that’s not worth bothering with.

Tree Silhouettes

As I left work today I took this picture of the deep blue of the evening sky with black silhouettes of trees against it. It isn’t perfectly sharp because I didn’t have a tripod for the 1 second exposure but it’s at least passably sharp.

Night Sky

After picking Dorothy up at Julia’s house this evening, I set my camera on the roof of the car, told Dorothy to sit still, and fired off a 30 second exposure. The clouds were moving fairly quickly so they have ended up blurred and covering more of the sky than was apparent when I took the picture. Also, the spinning of the earth turned each pin point star into a little line segment. I think it’s really cool that here at a latitude of 39° we’re moving at over 800 miles per hour as we spin around the earth’s axis. For course that doesn’t count the 66 thousand miles per hour we’re hurtling through space as we orbit the sun. Anyway, during a 30 second exposure the earth turns one eighth of a degree. Hopefully that doesn’t make you dizzy. If you prefer, you can think of this as a pretty picture of the night sky. That works for me.

Beaver Moon and Jupiter

The full moon in November is called the Beaver Moon. We got to see it with Jupiter above it. You cannot see it in this picture, but to the right of the moon was a very bright star Aldebaran. So bright, in fact, that until I looked it up, I assumed it was a planet, as well. I thought that the brighter object was Venus and slightly less bright was Jupiter. So I have them both wrong, although I at least thought that one was Jupiter. It was quite lovely, especially when it was first coming up over the horizon.

Night Sky

As we were putting things in the car to head home from our day of Thanksgiving I set the camera on top of the car and took a few long exposures. This is a 30 second exposure at f/4 with a 24mm lens (which is equivalent to a 38mm lens on a 35mm film camera). It was taken at about 8:15 PM. Can you tell which direction I’m facing?

Moon Through the Trees

Let’s face it, my life is not all that well suited to this “take a picture every day” thing. I go to work, I sit in an office, I go home. There often isn’t a lot to take pictures of. Somehow I’m mostly through my second year and have managed to get a picture every day, but some days it is a bit forced. Today is one of those days. As I came out of the office, I say the crescent moon through the trees. Actually, the prettiest part was the deep blue color of the sky, but that hasn’t really come through in the picture.

Anyway, I offer you, “Moon Through the Trees.”

Clouds

I don’t know what it is but sometimes when I look at clouds, their shapes make music to me. Unfortunately, I cannot translate that into something anyone else can share, but at least I get to enjoy it myself. I guess it’s the rhythm of the repeating pattern that triggers it in my brain. These are musical clouds. Do you hear it?

Blue Sky

Yesterday I asked for blue sky, today we got some. It wasn’t a clear blue sky but there was enough to make a pair of kitten britches, as we used to say. Odd saying, that. I wonder what the world of Google might have to tell us. Hmm. Here’s what I found in The Sailor’s Word-Book: An Alphabetical Digest of Nautical Terms, Including Some More Especially Military and Scientific, But Useful to Seamen; As Well As Archaisms of Early Voyagers, Etc. by the late Admiral William Henry Smyth, K.S.F., D.C.L., &c., published in 1867.

DUTCHMAN’S BREECHES. The patch of blue sky often seen when a gale is breaking, is said to be, however small, “enough to make a pair of breeches for a Dutchman.” Others assign the habiliment to a Welshman, but give no authority for the assumption.

Sunrise

It’s our week to drive the carpool and as we left this morning it looked like I had missed a wonderful sunrise. There was a little pink left in the sky but not enough to make me run for my camera. Getting a good sunrise in our neighborhood is a bit hard, anyway, because there are so many trees. When we had picked up everyone and arrived at the school, I found that with the lower horizon there, because of the open area behind the school (i.e. the soccer field), the sunrise had not entirely finished giving us a nice display. This is actually five vertical images, stitched together to make one horizontal image.

Sunset

This isn’t necessarily a sunset to win any awards but it’s still pretty. We haven’t had a lot of good sunsets lately, at least not that I’ve noticed, so I was happy to have this one. When I first spotted it, the sun was still up and the picture would have been better if I had gotten it like that. By the time we found a place to pull over and then walked 100 yards to a good vantage point, the sun was gone and this is what we were left with.

Double Rainbow

We had a brief but strong rain shower this afternoon and then the sun came out, so we were treated to this beautiful rainbow.

Blue Sky and Puffy Clouds

What beautiful weather we’re having. Today the high temperature barely reached 80°F. The sky was extra blue and was filled with fluffy white clouds, fair weather cumulus. This was taken while sitting at a traffic light on the way home from work.

Moon and Clouds at Sunset

I really would like to have a good long lens to get great moon and sunset pictures but tonight it actually worked best to have only a moderate telephoto with me, as I wanted to get the colorful clouds in the picture as well.

Night Reflections

We picked up Dorothy from her first driver’s ed class this evening (be afraid, be very afraid). From there we were driving through town, just a little after sunset, and the reflections on this building were nice. Dorothy commented on what her teacher would say about taking pictures while driving. I was stopped at a traffic light and had plenty of time, I assure you.

Rainbow

As the sun was getting ready to set this evening I happened to notice how it was lighting up the tops of the trees in the back yard. The lower parts of the trees were dark but the tops were a beautiful, bright green. We all went out back to enjoy the colors and then it started raining. It wasn’t a heavy rain but just enough to let you know it was there. We moved to the front yard to see if there would be a rainbow and sure enough, it appeared. It wasn’t a particularly intense rainbow — the rain wasn’t strong enough for that — but it was there. It’s in the upper right, just above the trees, in case you can’t see it right away. The roses in the bottom of the picture are ‘Perle d’Or’.

Venus in Transit Across the Sun

Like a lot of people, I was excited about the transit of Venus across the face of the sun. Knowing that the chances of me living to be 157 are pretty slim, I figured that this was my one chance to see it. When I woke up this morning and it was mostly cloudy, I thought, well, you never know what the sky will look like in twelve hours. As it turned out, the clouds got heavier as the day wore on and I had pretty much given up hope of seeing it. When I got home I decided to take some pictures in the yard and while I was doing that, the sun peeked through the clouds for less than two minutes. Since I had my camera in my hand, as well as a tripod, I was able to move out from under the trees and get a few pictures before the clouds covered it again. Of course it was too bright and I was working too fast to really see what I was doing. I just set the camera to an exposure of 1/8000 second at f/32 and this is what I got. It’s not all that sharp and I’m sure we’ll be able to download pictures that are much better but I took this one, so I’m happy. You probably won’t be able to see it until you click on the image to enlarge it. Venus is just to the right of 12:00 just under the upper edge of the sun. It only started its transit a little after 6:00 local time so it hadn’t gotten very far by 6:39, when this picture was taken.

Reflected Sky

I asked a friend at work for a ride to pick up my car from the shop this afternoon. I was outside a couple minutes before she was and I took a few pictures while I waited. The sky was a beautiful, brilliant blue and the green on the trees complemented it wonderfully. Then I noticed the reflection of the sky and trees in her black SUV. I love the richness of the colors in this picture. It’s nice that she keeps her car so clean.