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.

These were my candidates for an amateur photo contest with the theme "arches."

I joined an Amateur Photography Contest on Facebook. You can check out their past winners right HERE ON BLOGGER. Each week there is a new theme. This week's theme is "arches." Scoring is based on the quality of the photo and on how well it suits the theme. Here are the "arches" shots I got today. I've got too busy a week to go shoot some more original arches like my the arches on my niece and nephew's precious feet or to make arches out of penny structures and shoot that.

I already chose the toilet arch and the tree with the long reaching "arms" with its "elbows" resting on the ground.

Too bad I don't have more time. I'll be in San Antonio all day tomorrow. Don't you know they have some fun architecture there? I could have gotten some really fly arches.

Above: This awesome tree has two long, spindly branches that arch down to the ground. To me, it looks like the tree's elbows are resting on the ground. This tree resides on the hill near the Fort Clark Springs spring-fed pool. It's a lovely pool.

Above: This tree forms the oddest arch over this little road that goes down to some picnic areas on the far side of the Fort Clark Springs pool.

Above: This was my favorite "arches" themed shot. The arched window sits above the door to an outside bathroom at the Post Theater on Fort Clark Springs.

Above: This is the same arched tree in the second shot from a different angle.

Above: Same tree as in the first shot.

Above: A lovely arched gateway to a private residence on Fort Clark Springs.

Above and below: An ongoing restoration project on Fort Clark Springs.

I finally whined enough and got a tele-converter lens for my camera!

Fortunately I read enough reviews on the Canon TC-DC58B 1.5x converter lens (think zoom lens) not to get my hopes up too high. I knew it would be little more than a "bump" for my camera's 12x zoom capability. That's okay with me! The investment wasn't outrageous at about $95 with s/h.

Below: It's my first somewhat clear shot of the Pleiades. Keep in mind, it's only the brightest stars I can see through my viewfinder or on the camera's screen. The Pleiades are not especially bright so I have to point and hope. And point and hope and check and re-point and check and focus and repoint and so on and so forth.

At full focus, the stars were blurry, but if I drew back with the zoom the stars came into focus. If you look closely you'll see that it's a circle of stars surrounded by black. This is because that when the tele-converter isn't at full zoom, you end up shooting the inside of the barrel of the lens. This might be kind of cool for some things--with a little creative editing that is.

The Pleiades are the small cluster of stars in the lower right portion of the shot. I swear it's there, just click the image. You'll see.

Remaining on my S3 wish list is the WC-DC58A which is a wide-angle conversion lens; a macro lens; and a fish-eye lens. And some dang lens caps to fit everything plus an extra adapter or two to save time. And an assistant to carry all this junk for me and keep my lenses clean while I'm out shooting. Yeah, I need a caddy. And a very nice camera bag. Thankfully, I have a photojournalist vest. I'll be putting that to more and more serious use (I hope).

What's up on our Brackettville farm?

It's nice in southwest Texas right now. The days are the perfect temperature, high 60's to low 70's. The nights stay above freezing, sometimes in the 50's. But we haven't seen precipitation in a long long time. It's like a desert here. It's dry and dusty. Everything is coated with dust. No, not dust. Powder!
Blog editor's note: It's 39 degrees and misty today (Tuesday, Jan. 27) with an expected low of 30 tonight.

The problem with no rain is no food for our animals. No rain means no grass, no clover, no legumes, no nothing. So when the cows or the goats see us coming, they chase after us. They assume we have bags and bags of feed with us. I never carry feed. I might have to start though. Being hounded by hungry goats must be something like being hounded by hungry paparazzi. They're relentless, aggressive, pushy, and rude.

Below: The goats had caught up with us and seemed ravenous.They were so riled up from the chase that a couple of them expressed their anxiety by butting heads. You can see them, near center, as their head-butting begins.

Below: The headbutting is really half-hearted. Just nervous energy really.

Below: The two quit their squabble quickly, more intent on food than proving superiority over each other. They both look over at me and one begins to bray. Hysterical.

Below: Can you believe the dust they've kicked up running towards us?

Below: Funny that just a few feet away from that rabble of goats and that dusty haze is this placid tank full of fresh water.

Below: We were walking along the creek when we spooked the cows as they were coming to drink. If we'd been in the car they'd have come running. Car+man=Food. Man Alone=Something to be suspicious of.

Below: how cute is this calf? I wanted to cuddle her!

Below: The guys had this bit of camo cover draped over a deer blind which was, oddly, set into the back of an old Jeep/Mule thing. It had an interesting swirling pattern to it, I couldn't resist swirling it a tiny bit more in Photoshop

Above: I don't know if it's the lack of food or what, but lots of mommas seem to be abandoning babies. All the goats are dropping kids right now. Three have come home with us so far, only two have survived. They're so terribly cute. Nasty, filthy, dumb as dirt, but cute cute cute. I'd rather their mothers kept them. Taking care of baby goats is a real pain.

Goodbye to Ben Cutshall

I knew of Ben Cutshall through His Flickr Photostream which I found quite by accident while looking through Flickr for astrophotography shots. It wasn't until he died that I found out who he really was. I feel like I've really missed out. He was a photojournalist, and a damned good one.

Horses, Cows, and the 2009 Lunar Perigee over Brackettville

Above: The horses aren't ours but they hang out on our place. They are Jumper and Stetson and I hardly know them. They're very skittish but they stick somewhat close to the cows. They came running when they realized we were feeding the cattle this evening.

Feeding the cattle anything but treats is a relatively new thing for us--our grasses held out for a long while but this long drought has really kicked our butts and we're having to buy feed. Hopefully we'll have our irrigation system set up in another month or so, at least part of it, and then we won't have to feed anymore. It's SO expensive. And it defeats the purpose of having a grass farm.

Above: #50 giving my camera a good sniff.

Below: Bob of Blackholes and Astrostuff kindly left me a comment yesterday to alert me to tonight's perigee. Thank you Bob! Thank you also for the new, my third, pair of Hannah Montanna/Miley Cyrus 3D Glasses. They came in the mail today! Sweet!

Above: Such a cloudy horizon. I had begun to think I wouldn't get to see the moon at all. It finally began to play peek-a-boo with us through the clouds.

The big beautiful moon over Brackettville.

I've taken several shots of it in the last two hours trying to get one clear shot but I can't. Without a tele-converter lens, my camera just can't quite see it through the thin, cloudy veil overhead. Yet it's as bright as dawn outside. You know that sort of gray/blue light before you can see the sun's color in the morning? That's what it looks like outside. I half expect the sun to leap over the horizon when I look out the window and see that light.

Because of the clouds I also have no hope of shooting Pollux and Castor tonight--they are the two brightest stars in constellation Gemini which is right where the moon appears, from Earth, to be nestled tonight. You can read all about that HERE.

Below: a couple of extra farm pix from today. The first is Wes being followed by all the cows. Sometimes some of them are so focused on following him for food that they don't stop to eat what he's already set out. The second is of our newest additions. These two still have umbilical cords attached--although I don't think you can see them in the photo.

A foggy Brackettville morning.

Click images to enlarge.




I was up all night and probably would have gone to bed around dawn but I saw that it was foggy. I wanted to try and take advantage of the dawn light through the fog. 200 photos later I had nothing to show for it. Yet I couldn't bear not to keep SOMETHING from the morning so I saved the sunrise shot above and the shots of this curious doe in the Brackettville cemetery below. She couldn't quite decide what I was.

How we started the New Year in Brackettville and on Fort Clark Springs.

At 11:30 or so last night I went to where my husband's band was playing so I could give him a kiss at midnight. Thus began my New Year.

After ringing in the New Year with kisses and many hugs, I stayed to take a few pix. The gig was on Fort Clark Springs, a gated community across the highway from Brackettville.

Fort Clark Springs is a great place to live if you're on a fixed income. The cost of living is low, there's a par 9 that's free to the residents and an 18-hole with low rates, especially if you're a resident. There's a nice, big, spring-fed pool that stays at 72 degrees year round. Fort Clark Springs is an ideal place for retirement. As a result, parties on the Fort tend to wrap up pretty early. By the time I arrived there weren't so many people left, but they were dancing up a storm!

Above are the members of 32 Miles. From left to right: Hubby a.k.a. Wes (rhythm, lead guitar, backup vocals), Mike (bass guitar, backup vocals), Cindy (lead vocals), and David (percussion, backup vocals). Notice what looks like dust on David's cymbals? Nope, not dust. See below.

Above: I don't know what they do in other states but in Texas, if there's a dance, there's corn meal on the floor. Someone always shows up with a bag of cornmeal which gets spread around the dance floor before the dancing begins. I think it has something to do with making two-stepping easier. This particular building is the Post Theater. It's a historical building with terrible lighting, no room backstage for performers, and lots of rickety floorboards. You may remember me complaining about the lighting in this building when I blogged Alash Ensemble's Fort Clark performance.

Every song last night brought dancers to the floor and the better the beat, the more they stomped. STOMPED! That old floor shook so much that I kept having flashbacks to the few years I spent living in Bakersfield, California. Imagine all that vibrating wood with its coating of corn meal which the dancers had, by the time I arrived, pulverized into a fine powder. I didn't take a single photo with the flash that wasn't full of "orbs." If I were among those who believed that all orbs in photos were spirits, then I'd have sworn up and down that the Post Theater was full of ghosts last night.

At the bottom of this entry you can see the Texas Hill Country Reporter video clip of Fort Clark Springs.

Above: We enjoyed a New Year's Day dinner with hubby's family out on my mother in law's farm. Fried turkey, yea! Terrible photo, yes, but the guys had only pulled it out long enough to check it for doneness and it was a 13 pound lump of molten HEAT. No time to mess around with it to get a good shot. Fried turkey is pure deliciousness. The skin is crispity crunchity and the inside is moist and delectable. Once the turkey was done and set on the table, I was too hungry to care about photos. I've blogged my turkey frying tips HERE if you wanna know more.

Below: They lit a couple of little ground spinners in the shape paper tanks. We've been under drought conditions here for months and months. You have to be a real idiot to light any serious fireworks right now. So here's my one and only photo of fireworks since I began this blog. Pretty pathetic, eh?

Below: Behind the house the moon was setting. It was so beautiful, I don't get to see it set very often but out on the farm there is a relatively clear view to the west. When I saw that there was Earthshine on the moon I raced inside for my camera and tripod but only got one shot before that fantastic light on the moon's night side was no longer visible to us.

So that's how Wes and I started the New Year. 2009 has been good to us so far.

New Year's Clouds over Uvalde

Happy New Year!

I was at the Oasis Outback in Uvalde this evening buying Wes some broadhead blade replacements. There's only four more days left in the season for him to shoot a buck, wish him luck! Oasis' parking lot seemed as good a place as any to take one of my last photos for 2008.

No, there's no real point in enlarging this image, but you can do it with a click.


In the sky tonight, this last night of 2008, there was a conjunction with Jupiter and Mercury as well as a conjunction with Venus and the Moon. Clouds prevented my being able to see Jupiter and Mercury but the Moon and Venus were intermittently visible through the clouds. You can read about the conjunctions at EarthSky.Org.

My plan was to drive out to Tularosa Road again to shoot the conjunctions but I had to go into Uvalde this evening (42 miles east of Brackettville) because one can't buy thre gallons of peanut oil in Brackettville. We need the oil because we're frying a turkey on New Year's Day, woot, fried turkey! I can hardly wait!

Because I knew I'd be in Uvalde during tonight's conjunctions I took my camera and tripod. But I forgot the head plate! NO! That means I couldn't actually attach the camera to the tripod. Oh, well. The tripod was still useful as it at least gave me something to sort of rest the camera on while I held it as still as I could. Not having the head plate prevented me from shooting the remarkable Christmas lights on The Square in Uvalde though. Dang. Maybe next year.

As you can see, I didn't get the best shot ever of the Venus/Luna conjunction. And, as I said, Jupiter/Mercury were impossible to see due to clouds. Still, it gave me an excuse to publish one last blog entry for the year.

Goodbye 2008! Hello 2009! Speaking of which, I have to go get tarted up a bit so I can go kiss Wes at midnight. His band is playing on the Fort tonight. I don't usually go to gigs, not my thing, but he's only minutes away. Best to start the New Year right. With a kiss!

I wish us all a fantastic 2009.

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.