Sunday, December 30, 2012

It's a subsidized nonrenewable resource people!

And it's running out! Here is the proof that it's affecting us in our every day lives right now! That helium just leaks out of the balloons (or your silly high pitched voice) up into the atmosphere and doesn't stop till it has escaped into space where the solar winds whisk it away. When are we going to come to our senses and switch to a renewable resource like hydrogen for our Harry the dragon and birthday balloons?!


Thursday, December 27, 2012

YAY!

We came across this fine patch of grass and thank you note on our normal walk yesterday.

In case you couldn't read it +

And what we found the next day.

And here we go again but in 3D! So get those red/blue glasses out.









Tuesday, December 25, 2012

Not all toys had a good holiday

I felt bad for this little dirty, squished, sad, lonely and lost teddy on the side of the road. Poor little guy. Did I ever mention I had a bed full of stuffed animals friends till I was in my early 20s? I still have them all in a big bag and get sad from time to time when I go an visit them. I have a few of my favorites on the shelves in the bedroom now. A few of them are in about the same shape as this little guy though they do have company almost every night and get dusted off semi-regularly. tmi?

Monday, December 24, 2012

it just spoke to me

We all see faces in things. Some times I take pictures of them. I had heard the term before but had to look up what this is called. It's called pareidolia. I love pareidolia.

Saturday, December 22, 2012

What does it mean?!

It's an SF double rainbow!

Friday, December 14, 2012

Went out for a cool shower

Last night was the peak of the Geminid Meteor shower so I hopped back on the roof where it was cool and damp and took a bunch of pictures and here is what I ended up with.
 There are about 20 meteors in there. Some are pretty faint. I think all but one are from the Geminids. There is that one in the lower section that looks to be from a different radiant.

Here is a cropped of the section I like the most. Didn't get any as good as Owen's shooting star from last night but I sure did catch a bunch. Also saw a whole lot more than I managed to capture. It was fun!

Wednesday, December 12, 2012

Caught a Falling Star for Owen

Went out on the roof and caught a falling star and made a wish for my new nephew, Owen, who was born yesterday.
I'm pretty sure this is a Geminid. This is a cropped image as I was using an 8mm lens.

Here is the full image. That's Orion up there at the top and Jupiter about 1/4 of the way down from the top. That was by far the brightest meteor I saw tonight but there were a lot of meteors to be seen. I was probably on the roof for an hour or two and saw at least 30-50 with about 10-15 of them being pretty good. And that's in a light polluted city. I bet the view from darker skies is pretty fun.

Monday, December 10, 2012

And Andromeda Again

Giving Andromeda yet another try. This time I used a dew heater to keep my lens from fogging up.
I stacked 117 images for a total of about 22min of exposure. I think this one has a tad more detail than the last version. Not bad for a roof top in San Francisco. I need to get somewhere dark and try this again.

Friday, December 07, 2012

Andromeda from the roof

It's been raining for the better part of the week but the skies cleared up a little so I took my portable astrophotography rig out for another test. Took a picture of Andromeda.
This might be the best image I have taken of Andromeda so far. I did have a fair number of problems tonight. I think the biggest being my lens fogged up. I think this is causing a big bright spot in my images which I managed to clean up a little in photoshop. This is about 8min of exposure. It was cold and wet on our roof tonight so I didn't last to long. Still I'm pretty happy with the results I'm getting with my new portable rig so far.