David's Images of the Day Photoblog
Views of nature and the natural world. Plants, animals, and wildlife from around the world.
Nine-Years Ago Today. “Signed” Claude Monet oil painting “Path Through the Corn at Pourville” in my cabin on the 8th deck of the MV World Odyssey. (18-Jan-2016, Semester at Sea).
A local cat has figured out that it fits under the front gate. The cat does several rounds each day and night hunting for field mice and rats. The fox has become too big to fit under the gate, and the cat knows it. The fence is doing a good job of keeping the deer outside of the yard.
Nine-Years Ago Today. Brown Booby catches a Flying Fish for Lunch. From the deck of the MV World Odyssey while crossing the Pacific Ocean. (14-Jan-2016, Semester at Sea).
Today, while looking at the sunspots (we are at or near the solar maximum) I captured images of a jets transiting the sun. This was with a Vespera Classic automated telescope fitted with a solar filter.
Slideshow of Jets Passing in Front of the Sun. Individual images are available in my PhotoShelter Gallery.
The forecast for the night was clouds until near midnight. The waining gibbous moon is getting brighter (99% illuminated). I programed the “Plan my Night” sequences on the Vespera telescopes to wait until after midnight before starting to observe some deep sky observation targets in parts of the sky away from the moon. I also set up a Nikon D9 camera with a 8-15 mm fisheye lens to take a sequence of images of the night sky with the full Vespera family of telescopes in the foreground. These images were then used to create the following time-lapse video. It looks like I could have programed telescopes to start observing a bit earlier. One of the telescopes, the Vespera 2 shut down early when its battery charge went below 5%. This happened despite being plugged into a USB-C power source. I am not sure if there was a problem with the USB-C connection, or if the battery was not getting charged because the outside temperature was below 32°F/0°C. The telescopes automatically close before the sun rises. The time-lapse video is best viewed in the dark and expanded to full scale. Images captured by the telescopes to follow.
Nine-Years Ago Today. Sunset from the deck of the MV World Odyssey. Semester at Sea. (07-Jan-2016, Pacific Ocean)
We had a couple of inches of snow yesterday. This morning, I went on a walkabout looking for animal tracks in the snow. I found bird, cat, fox, and rabbit tracks. I was especially interested in finding where the gaps in the deer fence were. In the past some of the larger critters (raccoons and possums) have enlarged these holes to the point where the deer finally got through. In those spots I needed to install a bottom section of plastic-coated wire fence to close the gaps. First a video of where a neighborhood cat gets under the front gate. She has used this as a way to escape being chased by a fox.
Animal Tracks in the Snow. Individual images in the slideshow are available in my PhotoShelter Gallery.
Animal tracks in the snow used to identify holes in the fence. Individual images in the slideshow are available in my PhotoShelter Gallery.
The night sky started cloud free. I wanted to have the telescopes out but wasn’t really sure how long the sky would remain clear. I set up a Nikon Z9 camera with a 8-15 mm fisheye lens pointed SSE to monitor the sky. Settings for the camera were 15 mm, ISO 800, f/11, and 120 second exposures using the intervalometer with a 4 second delay between exposures. Composites were created using PhotoShop (scripts, statistics, maximum). First image, the sky was relatively clear for the Vespera Pro telescopes to observe the moon. Second image, an 8-minute segment with a meteor trail. Third image, the sky was relatively clear for the Vespera Pro telescopes to observe M42, the Orion nebula. Fourth image, the full night showing lots of clouds passing. I’ve also included a slideshow with 28-minute star trail segments for the night. At the end there is time-lapse video of the night sky.
Star trails slideshow. Individual images are available in my PhotoShelter gallery.
Nine-Years Ago Today. Semester at Sea passenger working on a watercolor painting on the deck of the MV World Odyssey. (06-Jan-2016, Pacific Ocean)
We didn’t get much snow. Mostly the winter weather was further south, frustrating January 6th protestors in Washington, D.C. In the following time-lapse video, let me know how many birds you can identify, and how many deer you can see in the far background. The deer are outside of the deer fence.
Nine-Years Ago Today. Seagull with the MV World Odyssey docked at the San Diego Harbor. One day before the 2016 Spring Semester at Sea Voyage would sail. (04-Jan-2016, California).
Just before this video, a rabbit was observed running away. After I mowed down the wildflower meadow, the field is pretty barren.
