David's Images of the Day Photoblog
The raccoon eats an apple without going into the trap. Need to try again, but with the food tied down so the critter needs to enter the trap.
Daily Electric Energy Used (53.8 kWh) from Sense Home Energy Monitor and Daily Solar Electric Energy Produced (74.3 kWh) from SolSystems and Locus Energy. Lots of sun (some clouds). A surplus of 20.5 kWh.
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First Night Fireworks in St. Petersburg. My brother and I went down to Vinoy park to view the early fireworks display. I set up two cameras [Fuji X-T3 camera with a 8-16 mm f/2.8 lens (ISO 200, 8 mm, f/8, 8 sec) and Leica CL camera with a 18 mm lens (ISO 100, 18 mm, f/8, 8 sec)] and a Garmin VIRB-360 time-lapse camera to record the show. The early fireworks display was only 5 minutes long. I think the show just before midnight is longer, but I needed to get up early to start on my way back to New Jersey.
Click on the above image to access my PhotoShelter gallery with the individual images in the following slideshow.
Click on the above image to access my PhotoShelter gallery with the individual images in the following slideshow.
Daily Electric Energy Used (36.4 kWh) from Sense and Daily Solar Electric Energy Produced (13.4 kWh) from SolSystems and Locus Energy. A deficit of 22.9 kWh. Most of the hydroponic gardens were off or only on for fewer hours. Also, the thermostat for the Geothermal heater and hybrid heat pump hot water heater were set for vacation mode.
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Another clear night and I set up three cameras. Two to record firefly trails, and the other to record the nighttime sky for star trails. I still need to do some testing, but it seems that the Nikon sensors do a better job with low light images (less sensor noise). And among the Nikon sensors, the D810a camera does better with exposures over 30 seconds. In addition to the star trails, I also did a time-lapse video of the night sky.
For the second night in a row the sky was clear so again I set up two cameras. This time using lessons learned from yesterday. One for firefly trails (Nikon D810a camera and 200 mm f/2 lens), and one for star trails looking north (Nikon D850 camera and 19 mm f/4 PC-E lens). This time the focus point for the firefly trails was moved back, and the orientation changed to portrait. I like this better than last night. For the star trails image I rotated the camera to north to get the circle around the north star. The star trail images really needs to be viewed on a large high-resolution monitor. I also made a time-lapse video (five hours compressed to 20 seconds) of the night sky. This is best viewed on a high-resolution monitor in a dark room. The Big Dipper pointing to the north star was one of the first things I learned about the night sky. One note post processing is with these high-resolution cameras it took me all day to do the processing, even with my fastest computer with a video processor (Microsoft Surface Book II Pro).
Individual images from the slide show can be viewed here.
The sky was clear so I set up two cameras. One for firefly trails (Nikon D810a and 200 mm f/2 lens), and one for star trails looking south (Nikon D850 and 19 mm f/4 PC-E lens). The focus point for the firefly image should have been further back. This is my first star trails image with the high-resolution Nikon D850 camera (8256 x 5505 pixel — 45 MP sensor). The image really needs to be viewed on a large high-resolution monitor. I focused the camera using live view using a magnified bright star. I need to figure out how to do the same thing with the firefly images. I also made a time-lapse video (five hours compressed to 20 seconds) of the night sky. This is best viewed on a high-resolution monitor in a dark room. The brightest object that shows up in the early morning is Mars.
Individual images from the slide show can be viewed here.