A Sikhote-Alin Meteorite discovered in Brackettville...... inside my mailbox.

I seem to talk about Bob at Blackholes and Astrostuff every other blog now. Which is fine with me! Ten days ago he held a Celestial Image Race, the first person to send him notice of someone's birthday occurring that week and send him a current celestial image would win a Sikhote-Alin Meteorite from his own private collection. I won I won! First race I've ever won, I guarantee.

I received the meteorite in the mail Saturday, thank you Bob! It's awesome! I'm shocked by the weight of it. We had family in this weekend and everybody got to oooh and ahhh over it.

The following images of the meteorite were snapped by Bob using his Celestron LCD Digital Microscope. Pretty, isn't it? And so cool that he can do that.






On Bob's Blog, there's a very informative (and wayyy retro) video about the Sikhote-Alin Meteorite. I've embedded it here for your viewing pleasure. It's quite interesting.





I used my camera's macro features to show you the meteorite as I see it, no micro images from me. Oh, and by the way, I used my Styrofoam plate diffuser for these macro shots. It worked great. The first image shows the meteorite next to a pair of Miley Cyrus 3D glasses in order to give you an idea of its size. Bob sent me those fly shades, by the way. To enlarge images, just click on them.





















The meteorite wasn't the only surprise waiting for me in our post office box on Saturday. I had a package from my friend Bo-Yin in Taipei! She's an artist and a seamstress and had sewn me a couple of tarot bags. You can see more of her whimsical sewing creations on her blog. I feel bad, I promised to make her some Mountain Laurel seed bracelets and have yet to do it. I'd better get a move on that! Thank you, Bo-Yin! They're DARLING! I am delighted to have them. Click on any image to enlarge it.




























The bag with the robed woman just kept opening and opening and opening and I was delighted to find the many ways Bo-Yin had drawn her as she makes her way up from one corner of the cloth to the other. First she lights herself a candle to guide her path. Halfway up she seems to enjoy an icy latte then tosses the cup aside. When she reaches the top of her climb she lights up a star in the sky. Absolutely adorable! Bo-Yin's Very First Blog Entry shows the original drawing and she talks about how the drawing came to be.

Moon and Venus over Brackettville

Canon S3 IS with the Canon TC-DC58B Teleconverter Lens
Shooting Mode: Manual
Tv (Shutter Speed): 2
Av (Aperture Value): 8.0
ISO Speed: 400

As usual, I wouldn't have known about this conjunction if Bob of Blackholes and Astrostuff hadn't told me. A thin layer of clouds kept this from being a sharper image. But Bob's got some FANTASTIC moon shots in his most recent blog entry, do check it out if you love looking at the moon. His recent solar shots are worth checking out too, absolutely awe inspiring.

I know I am behind on everybody's blogs, I haven't been online much lately. I look forward to catching up with you all very soon!

Hey Diddle Diddle, The Moon Jumps Over The Bull

Once again, Bob Johnson at Blackholes and Astrostuff clued me in to a way cool celestial event. Tonight the moon was due for a conjunction and even an occultation with/of the Pleiades. Woot! Thank you, Bob! I'd be oblivious without you! I don't know if there was an occultation or not, I don't know the Pleiades well enough to know if some of them were eclipsed by the moon as it, um, conjuncted with them. Bob will know. Check his blog soon, if he had no clouds he'll have blogged the heck out of this event.

And, unless I am mistaken, I got it! And I might be mistaken. I'm hoping Bob comments here and says, "Oh, yes, Genie, that's the Pleiades there next to the moon. You got it."

Hey, Dad, look what I did! Cool, huh? Too bad you can't see it in Leander. Oh, well, at least you have take-out.



I loved EarthSky.Org's description of this event, "The Moon Jumps Over The Bull." You can read all about that play on an old nursery rhyme at EarthSky.Org. To really see the stars of the Pleiades, you should enlarge these images by clicking on them. Otherwise, well, they aren't so impressive.













YOU try picking a favorite one or two! I couldn't, not considering how excited I was to have caught a group of stars AND the moon together in one shot! Well, in 175 shots, that is to say. I am amazed that my camera could see the Pleiades at all next to the bright bright moon. I couldn't even see them near the moon through my nocs tonight. Once again, my camera's new tele-converter lens surprised me by not being able to focus on the stars at full zoom. Perhaps I should try it out of town where the stars are much brighter--maybe the lens will have an easier time with them then.

Since I couldn't pick just one or two, I decided to put a bunch of them in a slideshow. These are unedited. I hope, providing you even care to, that you can see them well enough.



You can fast forward through the slideshow by clicking the far right button underneath it. Just click to see the next image without having to wait for the widget to take you through it.

My conjunction pix are viewable on the CNN iReport page.

Venus, Neptune, Moon, Jupiter, and Mercury over Kinney County

According to Bob, tonight was the night to see Venus (high and bright!), Neptune, The Moon, Jupiter, and Mercury all together in the sky at the same time. I saw them all! I saw Mercury only briefly as the clouds were really in the way but my camera got it!

You can read all about tonight's planetary gathering at EarthSky.Org.

Click images to enlarge.

Above: Sunset as seen from Tularosa Road north of Brackettville. Upper left is Venus, center is the Moon.

I hoped to be able spot Neptune and I wasn't disappointed. Through the binoculars I could see another planet (a bright light in the sky that wasn't twinkling) under Venus so I took several shots in hopes of capturing it. After getting the pix on my puter, I see that the camera picked up several bright spots under La Luna. I don't know if any of them are Neptune but one of them is bound to be since I could see it so easily with the nocs. I'm hoping Bob can tell me for sure.

I was lucky enough to see Neptune because I was far enough out of town not to have my view of the sky disrupted by city light.

Above: This was my attempt at getting Neptune. One of those two light specks under Venus might be Neptune. I think it's the top speck. The lower right bright object in the clouds is the Moon.

I was out on my beloved Tularosa Road (a bit north of Brackettville) to shoot tonight. Once the sun was good and gone, the Milky Way was clear and bright. It's such a great place to watch the night sky.

The whole time I was on the side of the hill I'd picked to shoot from on Tularosa Road, some critter was behind me snuffling around in the cactus and brush. I tried to take its photo but maybe it was just a noisy rat because try as I might, I never could find it. He kept spooking me out there in the dark. It was really annoying! I don't mind rats so much, it was the idea that it might be a skunk that had me worried.

Above: Upper left is Venus. Center leftish is the Moon. Under the moon in descending order are Jupiter and Mercury. Or so I think.

Above: My best shot of Jupiter and Mercury. Click the image to see them better. The brightest bit is the moon of course.

Luna.

2008 Lunar Perigee over Brackettville

Images enlarge with a click. And some are even worth the trouble.




Thanks yet again to Blackholes and Astrostuff because while I'd have probably popped out tonight to peek at the full moon and have been delighted by my moon shadow, I'd not have known what a special moon it was without Bob's blog. Well, Bob first, and then several emails from friends who know I'm interested in things like the moon coming as close to the Earth as it will be for another 8 years. Read all about it at EarthSky.Org.

In brief:
Extra close moons happen when the full moon coincides with the moon’s closest point to Earth for the month, an event called ‘perigee’ by astronomers.



But when a full moon coincides with perigee, the sun, Earth and moon make a line in space. The moon’s orbit stretches closer to Earth. So the coincidence of perigee and full moon brings the moon closer to Earth than at any other phase. By the way, the sun’s varying distance also influences the moon’s distance. Because we’re closest to the sun around New Year’s Day, the closest full moon perigees always occur at the beginning or the end of the year.

Joining me for the moonrise at St. Mary Magdalene's cemetery tonight was the doe in the photo and montage below. Notice how all the photos of her are saturated with yellow/gold. I didn't have time to adjust my camera for her. She was bathed in the light from the setting sun. I'm not sure I could have corrected much for that fabulous horizontal light. Actually, there were quite a few deer about. They huffed at me until well after dark. Some cows were trying to get home too and it took them awhile to gather up the courage to race by me which is funny considering how far from me they were.

I did turn the camera around briefly to shoot what was going on behind me and tried to catch Jupiter and Venus--you can just barely see Venus.



And, here it is, the full moon rising at perigee--well, a couple of hours after its absolute closest point to earth--but still! Don DiLego's "Ghost" seemed appropriate for shots taken at a cemetery. I know some of them are quite blurry, sorry, the light is changing so rapidly at that time of day that it's hard to adjust the exposure quickly enough to keep up with the shifting light. The sunlight is dimming fast and the moonlight is increasing even faster. Tricky shooting for a camera dummy like myself.

But wait, there's more! Bob mentioned sun dogs and moon halos in His Last Blog Entry and I realized, hey, I could probably get that with my camera. Perhaps not well but that's not the point. Wouldn't you know that right after I finished this blog entry and finally finished putting my perigee pix all over the net (yes, my elbows ache like crazy and the outsides of my hands are going numb) that I popped back outside to see the moon one last time and, WOW, there was the most enormous halo around the moon. Woot! It took up such a huge portion of the sky that my camera couldn't even get it into frame. You wouldn't know it by these photos, but I swear it was pretty.

The photo below was shot with a higher exposure--I put it here to try and show you the rainbow colors of the halo.

Who's the coolest? Bob!

In the mail today I received my, like, totally rad Hannah Montana/Miley Cyrus 3D Glasses from Bob, blog owner of Blackholes and Astrostuff. And how did I win such favor from Bob the astro pro? I submitted my humble photo of the Moon, Venus, Jupiter conjunction. It's not like I won anything, not like Last Time. Click his link in the first sentence to see conjunction pix from some of Bob's readers.

Bob is so cool to encourage little spacelets like myself. His astronomical knowledge (double entendre fully intended) and his ability to document celestial events blow me away. If you want to know what's going on above your head, just keep your eye on Bob Johnson's Blog.

Oh, and in case you are wondering why on Earth Bob would send these to people, well, it's so they can go to sites like THIS and see NASA's 3D images in all their intended glory. I'm all but blind in one eye and can't see 3D, but hubby will be home any second and while I make his dinner he'll get to scope out 3D views of Mars while wearing my fly new shades.

Moon, Jupiter, and Venus Conjunction--next showing, 2052

Before I get to the conjunction, I just want to mention that I've been out of town since last Wednesday. I had a fantastic visit with family and am only just now catching up with email. I stopped reading and composing long enough to run out and shoot the conjunction tonight, though. I'll be catching up with everybody's blogs this week. Can't wait to see what y'all have been up to!

Thanks to Blackholes and Astrostuff I was alerted to tonight's Moon/Venus/Jupiter conjunction--it won't occur again for 44 years. My photos are terrible but I don't care. I'm just happy that I was aware of the coming conjunction. Thanks to Bob, I spent the last several nights watching the planets get (seemingly) closer in the sky. While visiting my Dad and Mamman Claudette for Thanksgiving I pointed out Jupiter and Venus low on the horizon and Dad raced to get his telescope but it had been so long since he'd used it that none of the right pieces were attached for what we were trying to view and the planets dropped before we could get the scope properly set up. That's okay, we tried! And just being even somewhat aware and willing to experience what's going on in the universe around you is something, as far as I'm concerned.

Pops lives in Austin where you're lucky to see any stars at all in the night sky. But Venus and Jupiter are very hard to miss right now as they are so bright, so close, and so easily spotted on the horizon at and after sunset. For a while (Bob could tell me exactly for how long) you can see them as the sun is setting and for a few hours after.

Above: That white streak going by the moon and two planets was a commercial jet zipping through the sky--click the image to enlarge it and see what I'm talking about. You might have to strain your eyes a bit to see though.

Above: Even though my conjunction photos, well, suck, I am still proud of the fact that I captured a little Earthshine on the moon. A click will enlarge the image. Leonardo Da Vinci was the first to figure out what Earthshine was (more or less, he didn't have it exactly right but he was close enough) and that's why it's sometimes known as Da Vinci Glow. Earthshine is also known as "ashen glow" or "the old moon in the new moon's arms."

Read more about the conjunction at EarthSky.org or check Blackholes and Astrostuff because Bob got some great photos. His blog is worth a visit anytime, regardless.

Almost Full Moon at the Brackettville Cemetery

The skies have been relatively clear at moonrise for the last couple of nights so I've been going to the cemetery, all of three blocks away, because it has the clearest view of the east in town. I've been late for the moonrise each night which has been just as well because of clouds on the horizon each night. I'm hoping for a very clear horizon at moonrise sometime this week as I'm determined to get a really great moonrise shot--Bob Johnson has me inspired (and seething with jealousy).

I can't hope to come close to what he captures, but that's okay. I just want to see what I can do.

Keep in mind that I don't have a telephoto lens--just the 12x zoom that comes with my camera.

Above: I couldn't resist trying to shoot the moon through one of the letters in the Masonic Cemetery's iron gate. It's not amazing or anything, but it was fun trying to do it. I only got the one clear shot, I couldn't get the camera to focus on the moon through a letter again after this.

I think that might be an owl flying by in the above photo. The owls seem to like hanging out at the cemetery.

In the Shadow of the Moon

My photo entry to Bob Johnson's Daytime Crescent Moon Contest.

Bob Johnson at Blackholes and Astrostuff held a Find and Photograph the Daytime Crescent Moon Contest--click the linky to see the winning photographs.

My entry wasn't particularly remarkable. If Laughlin air force jets hadn't just happened to be zooming around our skies (and into frame) that evening I wouldn't have even submitted my shot.

I don't have a telephoto lens for my camera and can't get the best shots of anything as distant as zooming planes or the moon. Also, it didn't occur to me to do anything artistic with the photo (not sure that I have the skills to have done something interesting with this shot anyway) like the other entrants did but, still, Bob put me in second place with two other winners whose shots were really quite remarkable and I am anxiously awaiting my prize!

What do I get for placing second? A dvd copy of Ron Howard's In the Shadow of the Moon. WOOT! I can hardly wait! THANK YOU BOB!

First place winner in Bob's contest is Living Infinitely. His prize? 50 pair of Hanna Montana/Miley Cyrus 3D glasses. Yup, you read me right.

My co-second place winners were Nature Shadows and Dreams and Idaho Photo, both of whom will also be receiving In the Shadow of the Moon.

Speaking of the moon and shadows, late yesterday afternoon my friend Jean and I drove out to Tularosa Road. She showed me the most beautiful spot out there--a place I didn't even know I could go. I was blown away. As long as I've been going out there (because of Jean, or I wouldn't have known about it) I never knew that I could just turn onto this little dirt road and drive right up to the creek where the sycamore trees (Jean showed me what those are yesterday) are abundant. We were losing the light fast so I didn't get a whole lot of photos taken, but it was gorgeous out there! We even got cold. COLD! It was in the high 70's yesterday afternoon and we were both delighted to be chilled as the sun fell.

Moon behind a sycamore

A tributary to the West Nueces Creek? Or perhaps it's the West Nueces itself, I'm not sure.

The two landscape shots are good examples of photos that are great for artists who need a reference to work from but unremarkable for a photographer. An artist can take these ho-hum scenes/photos, combine them with her impressions and perceptions, and turn them into amazing pieces of art.

It's interesting going out to shoot with a painter. I was telling her that I never understood until I started learning about photography why some things simply can't be photographed--they must be painted to be communicated. She pointed out that, as an artist, she had learned that there are some things that just can't be painted, they have to be photographed.

And because I'm all fired up about the moon today after my big win, I ran out to the cemetery to shoot the moonrise. Too many clouds to shoot it while was low enough on the horizon to be magnified, oh well.