Tuesday (18-January-2022) — New Jersey

Wintertime Backyard Nature in New Jersey.

Birds of the day viewed at the birdfeeder and in the backyard: Mourning Dove, Red-bellied Woodpecker, Downy Woodpecker, Blue Jay, Black-capped Chickadee, Tufted Titmouse, House Finch, Dark-eyed Junco, White-throated Sparrow, Common Grackle, Northern Cardinal.


Birds of the day. Individual images in the slideshow are available in my PhotoShelter Gallery.


Birds of the day. Individual images in the slideshow are available in my PhotoShelter Gallery.


Birds of the day. Individual images in the slideshow are available in my PhotoShelter Gallery.


Birds of the day. Individual images in the slideshow are available in my PhotoShelter Gallery.

While taking the trash out, I noticed that the moon was nearly full. Actually one day after the full moon. Since the sky was clear, I also set cameras up to do some star trails. There definitely are more jets flying than one and two years ago. Also a couple of meteor trails. A couple of notes using the Leica Q2 monochrome for composite star trail images. The ISO needs to be 100 and the exposure time no greater than 4 seconds, otherwise a second dark (shutter closed) image is taken and subtracted to remove sensor noise. Also, I wish the camera had an option to connect an external power source so I could take longer sequences.

full moon. (David J Mathre)
Full Moon. Image taken with a Leica SL2 camera and Sigma 150-600 mm sport lens (ISO 100, 600 mm, f/8, 1/1000 sec). (David J Mathre)
Star Trails. (David J Mathre)
Star and Jet Trails looking South. Composite of 273 images [19:00 – 21:15] taken with a Leica SL2 camera and Loawa 9 mm f/5.6 W-Dreamer lens (ISO 100, 9 mm, f/5.6, 30 sec). Raw images processed with Capture One Pro, and the composite generated using PhotoShop (statistics, maximum). (David J Mathre)
Star Trails. (David J Mathre)
Star and Jet Trails looking South. Composite of 1276 [18:00 – 19:40] images taken with a Leica Q2 monochrome camera with a 28 mm f/1.7 lens. (ISO 100, 28 mm, f/2, 4 sec). Raw images processed with Capture One Pro, and the composite generated using PhotoShop (scripts, statistics, maximum). (David J Mathre)
Star Trails. (David J Mathre)
Star and Jet Trails looking South. Composite of 1520 [20:33 – 22:40] images taken with a Leica Q2 monochrome camera with a 28 mm f/1.7 lens. (ISO 100, 28 mm, f/2, 4 sec). Raw images processed with Capture One Pro, and the composite generated using PhotoShop (scripts, statistics, maximum). (David J Mathre)
Star Trails. (David J Mathre)
Star and Jet Trails looking South. Composite of 1520 [22:59 – 01:06] images taken with a Leica Q2 monochrome camera with a 28 mm f/1.7 lens. (ISO 100, 28 mm, f/2, 4 sec). Raw images processed with Capture One Pro, and the composite generated using PhotoShop (scripts, statistics, maximum). (David J Mathre)

Day 2 of the Bok Choi seeds sprouting time-lapse videos. First video, images taken every 1 minute for 13 hours 36 minutes then displayed at 12 frames/second. The second video images taken every 1 minute for 5 hours, then displayed at 12 frames/second.

Daily Electric Energy Used (95.7 kWh) from Sense. Daily Solar Electric Energy Produced (22.7 kWh) from Sense and SolSystems. Some sun and a bit warmer outside so the resistance heaters were not needed, but the Geothermal HVAC system was on most of the day. Deficit of 73.0 kWh.