David's Images of the Day Photoblog
Views of the land around the world
Five-Years Ago Today. Indoor Hydroponic Snapdragon Flower. (15-December-2019, New Jersey).
The trolls were keeping watch for drones overnight. The sky was partly cloudy, and it was cold out. Conditions were not good for the telescopes being out for the night. The composite image was taken through a back door window looking south. If you click on the image, you can access a larger (11656 x 6556 pixel) view. Over a four-hour period, there were lots of jet trails, maybe three Geminid meteor trails, and some car lights. No drones were observed.
Eleven-Years Ago Today. Birdbath and statue covered with snow. (10-Dec-2013, New Jersey).
The fog persisted into the afternoon, and it remained cloudy overnight. The telescopes had the day off. I took the Leica Q2-monochrome out for a walkabout to capture the dreary mood. The patch of Cattails next to the pond has increased in size now that the pond has been enlarged. They were struggling during the drought but now should be self-seeding for next year. For the individual Cattail, I used the macro/closeup feature on the Leica Q2 camera.
I recently mowed the back wildflower meadow in preparation for seeding. This year I am going to try seeding in the winter after it snows. I don’t plan to rototill or plow this year. I may put out some slow-release fertilizer. This will allow the wildflower seeds to be exposed to the cold for several months before germinating. The risk will be the birds and mice thinking I put the seed out for them. If it works, I should have a jump on an early flowering season next spring.
Six-Years Ago Today. Pillar of Light at Sunrise. Composite of 6 images taken with a Leica CL camera. (08-Dec-2018, New Jersey).
The comet is getting fainter and the tail much shorter. The magnitude is now 10.1. The first image is a composite of 31 images (5 min 10 sec) and the second one is a composite of 254 images (42 min 20 sec). In the second image there is some movement of the comet head. Also, the comet is moving into a region of the sky with part of the milky way in the background (many more faint stars).
Seventeen Years-Ago Today. Big Thompson River, Moraine Park, Rocky Mountain National Park, Colorado. (02-Dec-2007)
On Wednesday, Sunspot AR3848 sent a powerful solar flare directly toward earth. Based on the intensity and length of the coronal mass ejections (CME), NOAA and NASA forecasted that it could cause a severe G-4 class geomagnetic storm, with the possibility of auroras being visible further south than usual. The CME arrived on Thursday generating multiple alerts.
I went outside a little after 7 PM to possibly set up a camera to capture the Northern Lights. I don’t have a good view of the horizon to the north and hoped to see something above the trees. I wasn’t expecting anything this early as it was just dark out. To my amazement the sky looking north was bright red, and when I looked to the east and then south saw the typical aurora green. The display was everywhere, even straight up. It was much brighter than I expected, easily visible to the eye, not just with a digital camera. I wasn’t sure which direction to point the camera. I ended up setting up several cameras with wide angle lenses pointing different directions, including one with a fisheye lens with a 180° view pointing straight up. Each camera was set to take images every 30 seconds (30 second exposure, f/8, ISO 1600). Even though I missed some of the initial brightest display, I left the cameras out for several more hours. They did come back several times. I used the images to create the following time lapse videos.
