Night of the Perseids

 I tried again. With limited success. I was able to do better in a different location. But, as would be the case, nature failed to cooperate. I got some better images of the Milky Way. But, I didn't catch a single meteor in my images. Save for a short trail at the very bottom of one image. Not even worth posting.

So here's one decent image I caught of the Milky Way. Pretty cool to think that the white-ish haze is really lots and lots and lots of really distant stars. Not too much different than our own Sun. Except that those stars are so, so far away that the light they emitted hundreds or even thousands of years ago is just NOW reaching us. So, traveling at the speed of light, that light is only NOW reaching us. 

So, when we look up at the night sky, we are actually seeing history. We are are not seeing the way the universe is today. We are actually looking back in time. I find that kind of awesome when I stop and think about it. 

Alright. Enough mind blowing for the moment. Here's the image I took of the Milky Way.

To see the complete image, you need to open it up by clicking on it.

A few days later, I decided to invest in an equatorial mount clock drive. I will be able to align the axis of the drive unit with the polar axis of the Earth. Then, I will be able to have my camera track the stars across the sky as the planet rotates. 

This will keep the view of the sky for the camera stationary within the frame. I'll be able to make long exposures without any blurring of the stars. And, I will be able to make multiple exposures of the same patch of the sky and then, digitally, layer them together when I do my editing. 

I have high hopes for this endeavor.

Astrophotography anyone?

 On Saturday night the 5th of August, I drove up to Montebello Ridge off Page Mill Road. I tried taking a few images of the night sky in hopes of seeing the Perseid Meteor shower. This was about a week before the predicted peak, but I was still optimistic. Perhaps, overly optimistic. Because I didn't see a single meteor in the two hours I was in that location.

I tried doing a few time exposures and I got mixed results. The one thing that did surprise me was that I was able to actually see the milky way from this close to the Bay Area. I guess the sky was clear enough and the light pollution was low enough that I could easily make it out as a sort of light thin cloudy trail across the sky. In fact, I first thought it was just a thin trail of clouds. 

I opened an app on my phone called Sky Safari and the app put up a display of the stars according to my actual location and which way I pointed the back of the phone. I could easily pick out the names of the stars, constellations, and planets by aligning the display with the points of light in the sky I could see. The app played a soothing music in the background as I amused myself with the display. 

Below is a five minute exposure I made on that night.

My plan is to try again from a different location. About 1.8 miles further West. That will be over the ridge and I shouldn't have as much light pollution from the Bay Area. Of course, wishing is not the same as having. So I'll just have to see how it goes.

I'm becoming less than optimistic about the future

 I know things change over time. I won't start saying those stereotypical phrases one expects to hear from an old person. Something like, "Back in my day." Or, "This younger generation is ruining things."

Nope. Not going to do that. It is my belief that the current state of affairs is primarily due to the contributions of my generation. I remember how the internet was going to be a terrific thing. It was going to democratize the spreading of information. No longer would oppressive governments stifle the truth about what was really going on if that truth contradicted what that government wanted the general public to know.

Now, the internet has become both a wealth of information and a cesspool of disinformation. All at the same time. It is possible to do a search and actually learn something you may not have already known. Or, you could fall down the proverbial rabbit hole of one-sided political views or outright fabrication of information. Constructed in such a way as to provide confirmation bias to support such ideologies.

Combine that with a large swath of the electorate who are both gullible and unwilling to accept accurate information as truth, if it conflicts with their staunch preset beliefs or idologies. Then they elect into office individuals who are either no more able to sort fact from fiction than the electorate or they are so self-motivated that they play upon the beliefs of whatever demographic numbers can keep or put them into office.

In short, a phrase comes to mind. The blind leading the blind. 

Experimenting with some image editing software.

 Recently, I have been questioned about providing some assistance with using a DSLR camera with interchangeable lenses. Also, about what type of image editing software I use. To date, I have not yet been available to make any recommendations about the use of a DSLR. 

So I recently collected a small group of my more recent images and I "pushed" them through PhotoShop Elements. In some of the images, I altered the appearance ever so slightly. Just enough to "enhance" them from the way I had originally presented them. In other images, I went over the top by altering the colors, and the contrast, or by applying different PSE image filters. Just to see how abstract I could make the image appear.

You may notice I seem to have a fascination with water, water droplets, or just the reflections on the surface of the water.

Here is a short collection of those images. Clicking on an image will expand all the images.