Moon Set Meets Sun Rise

Monday morning, a couple days past the full super moon, I caught this moon set directly in the crack between the Cathedral Spires in Yosemite Valley. Partly from information from +Jeffrey Sullivan's advice on his Yosemite Walk last weekend and partly through shear dumb luck :D

Taken from the south side of Cook's Meadow. The moon was initially several degrees higher and way off to the left when we set up. I mentioned to my partner on the shoot how awesome it would be if the moon would set right in the crack but it was way off to the side. However it proceeded to come down at an almost 45 degree angle, passing almost entirely behind the left spire and down into the middle of the crack.

#yosemitewalk2012 #sullivanwalk

Aw heck, I haven't posted in over a week, and since #waterfalwednesday  is
trending.. here's another one. :)

Upper Yosemite falls with a misty rainbow. Taken at night! Under the light of a superfull moon.

#yosemitewalk2012  

I guess I'll share my photo of Mount Laural and Mount Morrison over Big Alkalai Lake for #panopoker  : Mountans :)

Taken in september, pretty much no snow and all but the big lake were dried up.

For #waterfallwednesday I have Yosemite Falls from Cook's Meadow at dawn.

#yosemitewalk2012 #sullivanwalk #yosemite #yosemitenationalpark

Lack of anything specific to upload tonight so I added an astro pic to my Astrophotography section...

Object Description:This one shot is a mother-load. First and most glaringly is Alnitak (or Zeta Orionis) the left most star on Orion's belt. Below that is the Flame Nebula (NGC2024), this is an emission nebula that is powered by Alnitak. To the right of that is a smaller blue/white reflection nebula NGC2023. Below that is a smaller reflection nebula IC435. Then there is the most obvious and famous nebula, the Horsehead (B33). Illuminating the background for the horse's head is IC434 a large emission Nebula. (I hope I got all that right!)

L 23x200 Sec RGB 8x200 Sec each
Scope: StellarVue SV80s+0.8x reducer
Camera: ST-2000 with AstroDon LRGB filters at -10C

Saturday evening, the night of the fullest full moon of the next century, moonlight comes blasing into the valley like a sun as dozens of photographers across the river warm up their cameras for the ensuing moon bow shots of the Upper Yosemite Falls behind me!

Yosemite Valley, Half Dome on the left.

#yosemitewalk2012 #sullivanwalk #yosemite #halfdome #nightphotography

An entry for #flowerfriday !

I have no idea what this is :D But it was awsome :)

Edit: +LaDonna Pride +Gheorghe Chesler Identified it as a Passion Flower :) Thanks!

Taken some time ago at Quail Botanical Gardens, Encinitas, California

#flowerphotography #flower

An infrequent re-share. My apologies to those that saw it last weekend, but I wanted to get into the #barntuesday photo theme today and this is one of... well maybe the only barn picture that I have :D

It also fits into the #tuesdecay theme as well with the dilapidated old barn, overgrown culvert and rotting fence line.

This is the Daley Ranch Barn on the Daley Ranch preserve in Escondido California.

#barn #decay

My Moon over Bridal Veil Falls shot from last Friday :)

Tried to keep the moon tamed down, again using my ND filter when shooting and then layring in bracketed shots...

#yosemitewalk2012 #sullivanwalk

Perfect Paradise

My submission for #floralfriday is a perfect Bird of Paradise flower from my sunny back yard.

#flower #floralphotography

Venus Transit #4739281

Hehe, here is my "Me Too" Venus Transit shot. I didn;t make it out to someplace to get a sunset version with something nice in the foreground unfortuantely.

I took this with my D7000 with an ND8 filter stacked with an 87a IR filter. I then had plasma cutter goggles on for looking through the lens.

400mm+1.4 teleconverter on an DX sensor == 840mm effective FL.

1/5000th f/10 ISO 100

For #waterfalwednesday I present a double mistbow at Vernal Falls Yosemite Valley.

#yosemitewalk2012 #sullivanwalk #yosemite #waterfall #waterfallsofcalifornia

#WildlifeWednesday

A pair of Osprey nesting on a Mono Lake Tufa.

One of them has just done a perfect vertical liftoff in the 35 MPH wind that is whipping the lake into an angry froth. Bits of the still under construction nest flying off in the wind. The lake is brilliant green due to a spring time algae bloom (and a Cir Polar filter)

My first upload from last weekends amazing #yosemitewalk2012 put on by the much talented and Nice Guy +Jeffrey Sullivan

Four days of driving, hiking and photographing Yosemite Valley from 4am to midnight or later every day. Physically and mentally challenging at times, but with great company and scenery that brought tears to ones eyes...

This is Bridal Veil Falls at sunset.

#sullivanwalk

I've decided to submit this photo to the Plus One Collection 2012.
Details of the project can be found here:
https://plus.google.com/?gpsrc=gplp0#+PlusOneCollection/posts

Background:
This picture was taken during the last "Supermoon" moon rise in Yosemite Valley May, 2012. You are standing at the edge of a large vernal pool across which is Half Dome on the left and the base of Glacier Point on the right. Just a few minutes ago the valley was almost pitch black except for the car headlights illuminating the tree trunks as they drove by, but as the moon crested the valley rim it lit up like it was suddenly daylight again!

Technical:
Nikon D7000, 18mm, f3.5, 30 seconds at ISO 400

#PlusOneCollection2012

I'll sneak this one in for #treetuesday Taken last weekend at Yosemite. The Black Oaks were just filling out with a new crop of bright lime green leaves that looked illuminated in the sun or the shade.

#yosemitewalk2012 #sullivanwalk

Looking across Yosemite village, Curry Village etc towards Yosemite falls from Glacier Point as the 2012 Super Moon works it's light into the valley.

The lights show clearly how much development there is in the valley. Though impressively, while you are down below, it is generally not visible from most areas.

To the right, three late night climbers can bee seen scaling the cliffs. Possibly Washington Column?

#yosemitewalk2012 #sullivanwalk

I am re-uploading this photo into my astro gallery since we can't yet move them and because it's #longexposurethursday and because it sort of fits into a discussion that +Darryl Van Gaal brought up today about a category of photographs that get called "Fake" a lot.

This is a single shot with my D7000, 20 seconds, 18mm, f3.5 ISO 3200. Not even an exposure blend.

I did use my true blue PS astro photo developing skills to "expland' the gamma of the milky way and coax out the subtle coloration it contains without increasing (and in fact reducing) noise along the way, as well as flattening the exposure of the sky using layered adjustments.

This shot actually looks particularly faked to me (or I can see how someone might think it was) due to the rather abrupt cutoff of the Milky Way as it hits the brightness of the fading sunset. But of course it was that very brightness that was out competing the rest of the Milky Way for room on mysensor wells :)

Definately. Not. Faked. :)

#longexposure #longexposurephotography #astrophotography

After the storm...

It rained for a good 24 hours and got everything soaking wet, everything was dark and richly colored, it even filled the culvert with water. I got rained on a couple times while on this hike, but when the sun peeked through the colors were vibrant. I don't think I've ever seen better conditions for taking this photograh.

It was a good day to get outside :)

My entry for #birdpoker Hummingbirds by +Phil Armishaw

I got this pic while leasurely hiking around Daley Ranch last Saturday. I wasn't set up for birds, I was mainly taking landscape and a few flower pictures. But while I was photographing a highly decayed fence post nereby this humming bird flew in and I quickly picked up the camera still on the tripod and started shooting like crazy. Luckily I had my 18-200 lens on at the time.

Amazingly a couple of them came out really nice, though the other one has no background at all, but from a different angle the head is all yellow and orange, no red to speak of.

I have no idea what kind this is. If anyone can school me I'll update the post :)

Trying something for #architexturetuesday  

I'm not much of an architecture photographer but I enjoyed the challenge of photographing indoors at the Hearst "Castle". This is the indoor pool under the tennis courts. As with the inside of the main house, the lighting is VERY dark inside with extremely bright light from outside.

Processed as a single image "HDR" since tripods were not allowed. I did use a mono pod (allowed) and took many exposures, then picked the one that allowed the most balanced light and dark recovery.

This image was taken with a 10 mm lens and.. it's still not wide enough :)

#architecture   #hearstcastle

For #flowingwaterfriday  

I took this image going up the Mist trail to Vernal Falls. The wacky-shack view comes courtesy of a 18mm lens :)

I took the shot for the mainly for the mist which rockets from the falls below up the side of the ravine and arches over back to the falls. Like sideways rain up the hill from here.

To the right are a few of the 600 or so Mordor like, rough cut, wet, slippery stone steps, that take you up to the top of the falls.

#waterfall   #yosemite   #yosemitewalk2012   #vernalfalls  

Here is a pano I made from Cook's Meadow on Saturday evening with Moonbow and everything :)

North side of Yosemite Valley from Yosemite Point on the right, Upper Yosemite falls all the way to El Capitan way on the left.

Pardon the royal hack job that G+ did to the upload :/

#yosemitewalk2012 #sullivanwalk

A litle late to be posting maybe, but I got one for #wildlifewednesday :)

A Brown Pelican poses nicely for a fraction of a second while preeening in the Childrens Pool area of LaJolla.

Out of the shot you Heerman's Gull! Ah well... :)

This was the moon set about 15 minutes before it settled between the spires. Still pretty much the Blue Hour! Can see how far sideways it traveled too...

#yosemitewalk2012 #sullivanwalk

Another photowalk shot.

So much color. I'm a sucker for color!

#sd429

This is my Organ @ 10mm I took from the stage during last weekends Balboa Park photowalk.

(Had some trouble with my album and accidentally deleted the last post, sorry for the 2-fer :/) Sorry +russ vallelunga I accidentally deleted your post :(

#sd429 #pipeorgan

First for today: My version of the "Half Dome at Sunset with Reflection" shot :)

As I said earlier, not as well framed :/ I should shoot wider more. I frame in camera a bit too much, then I'm left wit nowhere to go in post.

I punched the colors up a bit to compensate, I should be ashamed :D

#yosemitewalk2012 #sullivanwalk

Another shot of the Salton Sea.

Dead trees and I don't know what across a salt flat left by the receeding lake level. A strong wind kicking up a salt storm completes the faded scene.

I keep missing the themes lately. Is this #tuesdecay or #TreeTuesday by any chance?

Something for #floralfriday .

When I say "Something" I mean "Something" because I don't know what this is :D

#flowerfriday #flower #flowerphotography

Photo of the nearly full moon I took last night. Maximized color and detail while retaining as much naturlaness as possible. It's easy to go too far (and I frequently do :D) 

Photo is cropped to 1:1 as shot. Hand held 400MM lens on DX sensor. Rest of the details in the EXIF data. (Check out the full sized version!)

#astrophotography   #moon  

For the wildly trending #wildlifewednesday  by +Mike Spinak!

Freshly molted Elephant Seal youngsters sleeping in the sun.

Heh I'm going to sneak this into #elephantwednesday  too hee hee :D

#seal   #pinniped  

My entry for #whateverwednesday :)

I'm not generaly a big fan of ooverkill photoshop filtering, but I was playing around with a picture of an oak tree trunk that was strangled by Poison Oak vines and I happened across this rather pleasing pattern. Used several levels layers to tweak the color and make some distracting noisy areas fade away.

Might make a good repeating pattern for some semi-gothy wrapping paper. It looks all girly and pink but the imgry is of Poison Oak :D. Or maybe the cover lining on a hand bound book of love and death by poisoning... :)

My submission for #wildlifewednesday by +Mike Spinak

A female Harbor Seal trys to scramble up a sloping rock face to get out of the water. Slippery seaweed at the bottom had her sliding back in several times as she tried desperately to push herself out of the water with her powerful tail flippers.

Finally she made it far enough up to hump her way up to the top and everyone cheered :)

#seal #pinniped

For #SkySunday

Sunset at Minaret Overlook.

Hello Spring!

A wild "wild flower" I caught last weekend on a hike on a beautiful spring day.

Not really a wild flower, but this one escaped from someones yard into the actual wild...

Uploaded especially for #flowerfriday and congrads on making it to the trending list!

For #treetuesday ...

An oak lined pathway (Covered with dead oak leaves) on a trail near my house.

Nothing super special, but it illustrates the symbiotic nature of the Oak Tree and the Poison Oak. They are very frequently found growing togeather.

ALL of the green growth lining both sides of the path is fresh spring growth Poison Oak. It's vine like tendrils reaching out to brush the leg, arm or face of any hiker/biker that strays too close to the edge of the path.

P.S. So annoyed at how badly compressed the new G+ stream images are.. :(

And now: Upper Yosemite Falls with (small) Moonbow and Reflection

This was taken a bit late for this position, several of the people that were staking out this prime spot had left so I swooped infor some vernal pool reflection scraps :)

The moonbow was small but had a long purple tail at this point. After this shot I moved down to Cook's Meadow and the moonbow was still going strong there. WIll post a pic later...

#yosemitewalk2012 #sullivanwalk #waterfallwednesday

A series of photos exploring the pattern of erosion and intricate detail of the explosed shale in the intertidal zome along the california coast south of Morrow Bay.

It's more artistic than I just made it sound! :D

This set was photographed in somewhat of a hurry and my coastal establishing shots are a little weak, but how does it look from start to end as a series?

#coastline   #shale   #californiacoast  

Last night had great clouds, was hoping for a nice sunset. I headed up to Daley Ranch and climbed up to the top of one of the ridges and waited. (Well I photographed plants and what not all the way up).

Found this little micro meadow of new hay grass still disheveled from the rain earlier and waited... and waited for a while after this shot. No color appeared though, but I was pleased with the way this came out anyway :)

For #birdpoker "Hiding" by +Phil Armishaw

I posted another image of this juvenile Red Tail some time ago, so instead of a repost, here's another view of him(Her?).

Hopefully it qualifies for "Hiding" as he was chased here by two Mouring Doves (of all things) onto this dead Mimosa branch foliage of whatever that is in the background. Screeching all the way. Initially his attention was held by looking out for the Doves so I was able to sneak out onto the patio without him noticing... until now!

I tried staying still and sneaking back inside but his eyes were locked on me good and finally decided I was scarier that the Doves ad flew off again.

#birdphotography #birds

I've got a lot of images for #macromonday lined up, but I chose this one because I took it just yesterday on the most beautiful spring like day in my backyard. :)

#macrophotography #macrophoto #macrophotographie #macro

Another astrophoto for today.

M42 "Orion" Nebula and neighboring points of interest. This is the central "star" in Orions sword.

Shot with an 80 mm apochromatic telescope and ST-2000 monochrome astro camera at -20C

Exposures (in seconds) were:
Luminance: 10x200 + 10x60 + 10x10
Red: 10x200 + 10x60
Green: 10x200 + 10x60
Blue: 10x200 + 10x60

Been slow for me lately. Sorry about being quiet. Job and housework and not been out with my camera in about 6 weeks now :(

Actually looks like a lot of my photographers streams are being a bit quiet lately. Summer doldrums?

Here is a picture from my #yosemitewalk2012  trip. A lot of our little group is staking out a vernal pool reflection spot for the upcoming lunar mistbows later in the evening. Halfdome in sunset orange in the background.

I didn't have a spot on the walkway so I want to the other side of the meadow and took a picture of the moon rising behind this scene instead and it turned out to be one of the best pictures I got on the trip :)

  #sullivanwalk   #Yosemite  

Simultaniously for #lighthousethursday  and #thirstythursday  :)

The lighthouse at Piedraas Blancas along the southern california coast. Spring growth and wild flowers cover the sandstone table that makes up the shoreline.

The air was typically thick with moisture BUT miraculously not completely fogged in! :) It was a beautiful day for hiking along the coast...

A very loosly classified #wildlifewednesday :)

"Hmmmm, I wonder which of these floweres hasn't already been picked over by 100 bees before me..."

A second Bee picture from last weekend with its wings shimmering in motion. Sadly, the main subject is a bit too attached to the foreground. Maybe I'll try to recapture it this weekend...

#insects #insectphotography

#MoonMonday

The moon has color?!?

To tell you thr truth, I don't know if it does or not at this scale. I DO know that it has local color, as in different colored rocks and sediment, including your normal reds and oranges here and there having read accounts from astronaughts. But of course overall it's stark grey from the earths POV..

I took this picture (with some difficulty) using a monochrome camera with a filter wheel. I had to hand warp/align each color plane due to the terrible atmospheric warping between each exposure.

When Maxing out the color saturation, there appears to be areas of color differentiation that are not accidental or based on brightness or other RGB conversion area. As if they really do exist. I'm talking about the mare areas in the lower left of the image, not the rainboing areas in the upper right, that is certainly due to a limited set ot bright levels across the RGB planes.

Here's a challenge for anyone with a color astro camera and scope. Take a good picture of the moon and crank up the color saturation and see if you get a similar pattern (Be sure to levels your initial image to a resonable neutral grey to start, otherwise youll end up with a wildly blue or green moon instead :D

This could still be an artifact of my attempt to properly levels the image, or maybe the color is really there? Who can confirm? :)

+Astrophotography 101 group

Wildlife Wednesday eh?

Here's an older picture of an Elephant seal at Ano Nuevo Point in California for the occasion :) Either a newly molted female or a several months old pup. I forget which.

Up close and personal with a gritty Hornbill.

Uploaded for #squirrelsaturday

A ground squirrel uses a rock to peer over the top of the thick red grassland of this pasture on Laguna Mountain, Ca.

Foggy Day at the Lake

I took a hike at Daley Ranch yesterday in the low clouds and drizzle for a bit of foul weather practice. (Or how to make the best of the situation). Was a bit more than I bargained for as well because I brought the wrong lens fo rthe camera. Wanted the 18-200 and brought the 10-24. Made doing closeups interesting... :)

For this image I desaturated the color some which only affected the foreground, balancing the chroma overall.

Most pictures look better larger, but this one especially so with the almost invisible duck moving across the lake in the middle of the picture.

For #SpiderSunday...

Up close an personal with the common ol' Orb Weaver. A pair of top mounted eyes stare back at my astronomically huge macro lens.

First upload for the #SD429 Photowalk today!

It's pretty hard to find a scene in Balboa Park that contains 100% plant life. No cars, people, ropes, electric lines, buildings or one of a million signs :D (Not that the buildings aren't fantastic or anything)

Sure was nice meeting everyone today, wish we could have spent a little more time more or less in the same place :D Just too many places and subjects to draw everyone apart.

My offering for #floralfriday and #flowerfriday

Also my offering for the Yosemite Walk 2012 Dogwood bloom contest! (Which +Swee Oh already won of course :D)

Dogwood blooms with the Merced river and red reeds in the background

#yosemitewalk2012 #flowerphotography

Ok this is #SongbirdSaturday and a Coot isn't nearly a songbird. But then I'm not sure if this is either. It was too generic for me to identify. But it's probably more likely than the Coot I just posted :D

Took this picture of an Americaln Kestral down by the lake today. Followed him/her from tree to tree as he/she was chasing off other larger birds around the area. Sadly I didn't get any usable flight shots. But I was pleased with this one.

#astronomy #astrophoto

Up close and personal with the Seven Sisters.

LRGB 20x200sec L 10x200Sec RGB
Scope: StellarVue SV80s+0.8x Reducer
Camera: ST-2000XM+CFW-10+Astrodon LRGB filters @ -15C

Ok, here's a joke shot. Well the joke was on me I guess :D I've never seen so many lens flares in any picture I have ever taken before :D

Extreme Lens Flare to the Max!
or
Botched Sunrise at Tunnel View

#yosemitewalk2012

Ok this one is a real submission for:
#panopoker +Barry Blanchard +Mike Spinak Theme: Abstract

Taken with a polarising filter at a cloud directly overhead and JUST covering the sun. Was extremely bright so was stopped down and at fairly high altitude (about 10k) thus the extremely dark and contrasty sky. I added some saturation and some sharpness to bring out the colors more but the colors are real...

Ok, I've finished off my album with 6 new (and final) shots from the #SD429 Photowalk!

Though the sky was cloudy, there was no shorage of interesting subjects or people :)

Looking forward to the next one! Till next time...

Lot's of great flower pictures today for #floralfriday  ! I took this one this last weekend along the coastline. Once again I don;t know what it is! A very low ground hugguing plant with large flowers. Wach flower is protected by five "fingers" that come out from the base. Kind of like a hand and a little creepy looking before/after it blossoms :D

For #portraittuesday (sort of)

My friend here and I were photographing Half Dome from Glacier Point during blue hour when I turned to see him set up on a ridge behind me with venus in the background. I asked him to stand still for 3 seconds to get this shot. Even at full res he's razor sharp :)

#yosemitewalk2012

Resharing this Great Blue Heron for #birdpoker : Wingspans by +Phil Armishaw

Though I already conceed defeat by several other remarkable shots from earlier today :)

#WildlifeWednsday

Not much, a happy looking little Pika with bedding? Dinner?

Too bad about the rock in the foreground darn it...

Backlit Forest

Turning around from taking a picture of El Capitan in the early morning was this amazingly illuminated scene. I just love backlighting on plants. It's very hard to photograph well though and this is only so-so, but just good enough to give a hint of the amazing scene it was.

#yosemitewalk2012 #sullivanwalk

A dandelion passed by on my stream with a comment declaring that today was #dandelionday

Nothing too special to add but I did just get this random Dandelion shot a couple days ago and now it has a place in the world :)

Another shot from the animal park outting from last weekend. A portrait of a secretary bird. So called because it looks like it has pens stuck in it it's hairdoo. (Though moreso when its feathers are more erect than they is in this shot)

For #macromonday  a blister beetle on a Cholla blossom in the Borrego Desert. Sorry guy, not quite open for buisness yet!

#borregosprings   #macro   #flowerphotography   #insectphotography  

For #TuesDecay I present the Bodie funeral parlor in creepy black and white.

Though there is a coffin or two front and center, that picture hanging on the wall creeps me out the most actually :) Or maybe it's just the frame.. the way it's made and how it hangs on the wall...

Something for #SilhouettesOnThursday or maybe #ThirstyThursday.

I already uploaded one Mono Lake silhouette but here is a new one... :)

There was some discussion about Ha in astrophotography today, so that inspired me to post this image of the Rosette nebula.

This image is mostly comprised of a 2.5 hours of 6nm wide Ha exposure using a narrow band filter. The Ha (as is typical) is used for the red channel. 2 hours of OIII was added in the green/blue channels to fill out the color. The colors are a bit saturated due to the use of the narrow band filters.

The exposures were done on a camera that has no color filters on the pixels, that is a monochrome sensor so you get the full resolution for each color channel that you decide to shoot for a particular target with no wavelength limits other than the natural sensor sensitivity. A -30C cooler is also used to lower the noise floor drastically. Ha is dim and even a 5 minute exposure you are competeing about 50/50 with sensor noise. At -10 or -20C the noise much much lower than the signal.

The neat thing about this image and many others like it is that you can take this picture in the middle of a city where you can barely pick out the stars (like I did here). The narrow filtering cuts right though most of the light pollution and allows some spectacular imaging most anywhere you want it.

#astrophotography #astro

On a hike at Daley Ranch yesterday with +Alexander S. Kunz. He had his wide angle and I had my Macro. Two diferent views of the preserve :)

Another entry from my #yosemitewalk2012 with +Jeffrey Sullivan

A super-wide pano of Yosemite Valley from Glacier Point. Covering Yosemite Falls on the left and Half Dome on the right with Yosemite Village directly below. This image shows a large portion of the glacier path through the valley.

Be sure to enlarge this image (and your browser if necessary) to see the whole thing :)

#sullivanwalk #yosemite #yosemitenationalpark

It's #wildlifewednesday  !

Even generally cute animals can be a bit disturbing up close as this drooling, ragged furred female Harbor Seal demonstrates :)

#wildlifephotography   #pinniped

A bit of an abstract for my astro gallery...

Some light cloud cover over the full moon was producing a ring of irridescence.

I waited till the moon was covered to tame it's 1000:1 brightness ratio to the clouds.

Finally some uncontrolled liberties with the saturation and vibrance for finishing.

The actual colors are kind of interesting, though a normal moonbow on a waterfall seems to contain all the normal colors of the spectrum, whenever I've seen this type if lunar irridescence, it's always very heavy on the oranges with little to no blue/green.

Springtime in Borrego. Little Blair Valley (Incidentally the location I do 90% of my astrophotography)

There is a raging winter storm with snow and hail off to my left providing some nice shadowing. Almost got in a weather related accident on the way home over the moutnains that day...

Great time to be out in the desert, but having to drive over a mountain range to get there is decidedly unplesent sometimes.

For #MonochromeMonday I present the Casa Del Prado building in Balboa Park taken in Infrared.

Rhyolite, NV

#FungusFriday #FungalFriday

A macro of a micro fungus with ant for scale.

Blister Beetle in Borrego.

When the flowers bloom in the desert, so does the insect population. These guys cruise around about chest height and at walking pace between the flower bushes. I've yet to find out first hand how they get their name. Knock on wood...

A request from +Nimesh Patel for my 2005 M51 supernova image.
I mentioned that I had just randomly imaged this on 2005-06-30 and some days later read that a supernova had been discovered on 2005-06-29. I went back to the image and sure enough, there it was :D

Look closely, there are at least 3 small galaxies in the background. Always fun finding little unexpected gems :)

Exposure: 30x120Sec L 10x120Sec RGB
Scope: LX200-10in @ f4
Camera: ST-402ME @ -10C

#astrophotography #astronomy

There is something about a long shadow that just screams Southwest Desert to me. Well I suppose this shot could have been taken anywhere, but it was taken in the middle of the dry lake in Little Blair Valley, Borrego California.

For #WildlifeWednesday I have a Canadian Goose overlooking a rookery of Harbor Seals at sunset.

Heh.. I probably would not have uploaded this but there have been several like it today for #powerlinefriday !

I took it mainly for the amazing amount of bendiness to the tower as the lines take a 90 degree turn here.

Sadly I should have done a more artful alighnment of the lines to make it a "good" photo.

These ol bones are still sore from last weeks trip. Mainly upper body, I keep in shape but the addition of a 12-13 lb day pack for several hours a day used muscles heretofore unknown...

I'm sort of hack processing my Sierra images to see what I have... An example below. Lots of ups and downs in the image making department. My on-the-fly composing skills are still well below where I'd like them. I need to get out more!

Another sierra trip photo. This time at Mono Lake at 5am, to the eye it was still night, even the stars are still out in the shot.

Have to admit that this looks just a a TEENY bit like a shot that +Mike Spinak posted a few weeks ago :)

(How to you get peoples names to be links anyway?!?)

Mono Lake is a hugely popular subject and there are tons of great photos taken there, but in reality is can be a frustrating place to get a composed shot. All the structures (tufa) are so utterly random, trying to find something balanced can take some doing.

I took about 30 shots around this time period and I THOUGHT I was composing a lot of them nicely, but in the end this was the only one that really came togeather when I got back home.

Out of 100+ more shots there was only one other later in the dawn that I was pleased with as well...

For +Mike Spinak 's #wildlifewednesday  ...

That looks... comfortable?

A freshly molted Elephant Seal juvenile wedges himself into cracks in the reef at low tide.

(I won't bother the folks at elephantwednesday this week :D)

#pinniped   #elephantseal

Was going to maybe save this for a #panopoker but decided to upload it for #desertsandday by #Tuan Le instead.

This is the great sand dune at Great Sand Dunes Naptional Park in Colorado. The dunes are the tallest in the US and maybe the highest too at 8200+ feet, then raising 750 feet above that.

There are no trees to speak of, just high desert chaparelle, the dunes and a couple of 14k mountain peaks.

This was september, the seasonal river that flows in front of the dunes was dry and little to no snow on the mountains but it was a beautiful sight.

This picture (a two shot pano) was taken with my now ancient Olympus 2100 2 MP camera. Color was generally not too good. JPG only so lots of blown out highlights. It's fun to go back and try to "save" some of those old shots. This one came out pretty well overall! For web display anyway :)

Mount Morrison and Laural Mountain over Big Alkalai Lake.

This mountain pair makes up one of the more interesting views of the complex geology of the Sieras visible from the main highway (395).

In honor of Monochrome Monday...

I mentioned somewhere that I was not a HUGE fan of black and white images unless there was a big reason FOR them to be black and white.

One good reason is to get rid of color when it distracts from the texture of a scene.

Here, these lanterns were all different colors and there was differing colored paint on the walls. Converting to black and white here allows the textures of the wood and the shapes and textures of the lanterns to come through all that color "noise".

Sorry for being quiet. Work overload and a small trip to Morrow Bay. I'm sure I missed a ton of great stuff!

A quick shot for #wildlifewednesday  A Fawn I shot near Morrow Bay in late sunset. It was out with it's mother and another Doe and Fawn.

Submission for #macromonday

A hunting spider lays in wait forthe enevitable polinating insect to come along... Flower is a jumping Cholla in bloom. Borrego California.

#macro #macrophotography #insectphotography

A Great Blue Heron flies past at the Salton Sea Test Base.

Starting off my astrophotography gallery with this picture of the waxing crescent moon. Hard fighting atmospheric distortion when this low on the horizon. 1/100th F6.5 @ 2000MM

I used a Hydrogen alpha filter (similar to an IR filter, VERY narrow far red bandpass) to add some contrast and remove light pollution due to being close to the horizon.

Complete image is a composite of three different shots, combining the least distorted areas of each of the three best of 10 shots.

I took this picture of the full Earth setting over a crater rim on our last trip to the moon. We had the best weather that trip...

Actually this is the top of "Obsidian Dome" in the eastern Sierras. It's a large dome, the outside of which is a thick layer of obsidian but up on top/inside it is all pummice. So very little grows on pummice.

I don't usualy do this kind of thing but the scene looked so much like a lunar crater to me when I got home I blotted out the sky and pasted a picture of the earth from an Apollo Mission to complete the scene ;)

+Barry Blanchard Mentioned the Salton Sea "Sand" being made up of fish bones...

I happen to have just taken this picture that shows that indeed large areas of the shoreline are made up of lots and lots of fish bones. Along with a heaping helping of old barnacle shells and crusty salt nodules.

And below that is frequently a foot of soft gooey mud mud if you tred too heavily :)

The milkyway about an hour after sunset. Just a tad bit of orange glow visible after 30 seconds of exposure.

I used a bit of my astrophoto developing skills on the sky to gently flatten the exposure and bring out detail without being overcontrasty. I was surprised to find three reflection nebulas in the mix!

I converted several shots on this trip to Black and White. A large number of them "suffered" from extremely low contrast due to the huge amount of blowing dust and salt in the air.

Below is a shot of Obsidian Butte from the Red Hill "marina". The area between me and the little hill used to be under water, the Salton Sea off to the right, but has been left dry as the sea is shrinking. It is now a huge salt flat that strong winds were driving a salt cloud over.

A little something for #treetuesday  ...

A small coastal Live Oak tree already covered with Spanish Moss holds its newly budding leaves out out to the sun.

For #TreeTuesday

This little pine sapling is going to have a hard go at life. Pumice has zero nutrients and the very few trees growing in this large pumice dome are stunted sickly looking things.

Poor thing.