I should have known not to get my hopes up while driving westward home from work. I so wanted to see Mercury (something I’ve never observed with the naked eye, a camera, binoculars or a telescope) and a tiny sliver of a new Moon – both within five degrees of each other. I had hyped myself up earlier in the day thanks to a blurb from Sky & Telescope. The sun kept teasing me, peaking out between the clouds just enough to make me squint as I dodge traffic and dropped off my vanpool riders.
The first thing I did when I arrived home was to call my father and ask him if he knew of a hill with an unobstructed view to the western horizon within fifteen or twenty minutes driving distance of my house in Lansing. He delayed his response, since he needed to put up some wood cutting and splitting equipment, but promised to call me back in five or ten minutes.
Terry, my completely awesome husband, already had dinner ready. He prepared the most amazing steak fajitas, with perfectly grilled red onions and red peppers. I so wanted to eat more of them, but restrained myself so I could savor the leftovers another day.
I checked over my camera equipment and secured it in my camera backpack. I collapsed the tripod. I stowed the gear in the back of the van and said farewell to Terry and the dogs. I pulled out of the driveway and stopped at the Fawn Valley stop sign. The decision point. I surveyed the western sky and decided my best bet to capture the most of what was left of the sunset would be from Mt. Muncie Cemetery.
Ash Wednesday Sunset (click photo to see entire album)
About five minutes later, I had my camera on my tripod just west of the large Stillings monument (a circular plot with the cemetery access road encircling it). I took a few photos, experimenting with different aperture settings, letting the Canon decide how long to exposure through the shutter. I left the AWB setting to cloudy since, obviously, the landscape before me consisted mostly of clouds.
I called my dad back, since he hadn’t returned my call and discovered he was driving down the center of Leavenworth County on County Road 5, personally investigating sites he thought might have worked for observing Mercury and the Moon (had there been no clouds). I sighed, not meaning for him to waste his gas driving all over county back roads. I told him I was at Mt. Muncie and he said he was on the way. I continued to take a few photos, but for the most part, both the sunset and my prospects for observing the conjunction seemed an exercise in futility. Dad arrived and we chatted for a few minutes, eventually spying both Venus and Jupiter through the thinner clouds above us. I packed up the photographic equipment, showing dad the nice camera backpack Terry had bought me last year. I had offered to let him use it during an upcoming trip he was planning.
Sunrise Today
I woke up to another gloomy day this morning. On the bright side, it’s my mother’s birthday (and I finally remembered to mail her birthday card yesterday). On the dark side (and it was dark when I thought about it), today is trash day in Lansing and the first time for us to use our new trash and recycling bins. Terry, being the wonderful husband he always is, had already dealt with both the trash (taking it out of the old trash can and placing it in the new one) and recycling. Since it was spitting rain at 5:30 this morning, I was even more grateful than normal. I left my camera and tripod in the back of the van overnight, so I had ready access to my camera this morning during the commute, just in case the sunrise surprised me. Until Daylight Savings kicks in, the sun just starts to turn clouds pink and orange when I pick up my last rider near the Kansas Speedway. My final opportunity to take a photo until I reach my destination near the Country Club Plaza. The sunrise disappointed me this morning, just like the sunset did last night. More gray, with a glimmer of gold, but completely lacking in pinks and oranges.
I love sunsets and sunrises. They can be dramatic and inspiring. They can start my day off gloriously and finish my day with calm reflection and peace. For my twenty-sixth installment to my ‘Thirty Days of Thankfulness‘ I wish to express my admiration and anticipation for the edges of the day: dawn and dusk.
When you look at the moon, except when it’s new or full, you can clearly see the terminator that separates the day (light) side from the night (dark) side. As inhabitants of the Earth we can’t see our own terminator without the aid of an orbiting satellite or shuttle. But we do experience this astronomical phenomenon twice a day.
On Earth, the terminator is a circular line with a diameter that is approximately that of the Earth. The terminator passes through any point on the Earth’s surface twice a day, once at sunrise and once at sunset, apart from polar regions where this only occurs when the point is not experiencing midnight sun or polar night.
I try to keep my camera (or any camera including my cell phone’s crappy one) with me, either in my car or in my purse, just in case I spy a particularly interesting or beautiful sunrise or sunset. This time of year, I’m tortured on weekdays with gorgeous dawns and dusks. Not tortured, really, but frustrated because I’m busy driving to work and can’t take a few minutes to capture the scene. At other times of the year, I can make it home in time to stage a session to photograph the sunset from a prime location.
I only saw one sunrise during our trip to North Texas. As we were leaving Denton, just a few miles north on I-35, for the first time in days, the skies were clear and I was awake and alert and outside to see the first kiss of the sun break over the southeastern horizon.
My brother, me, my grandmother and my cousin (Photo taken by my father, developed and printed in his darkroom in the 70s)
On my seventh day of ‘Thirty Days of Thankfulness‘ I am thankful for cameras and photography. I was exposed to photographic equipment (in more ways the one) from an early age. My father had a dark room and quite a bit of photographic gear. He did weddings and local school functions (for Homecoming and the prom) and helped out the yearbook staff with snapshots from sporting events and music department concerts. I learned to take direction (how to tilt my head, where to focus my eyes) at an early age. Naturally, I inherited this fascination with capturing electromagnetic radiation.
Second Generation Shutterbug
I am a poor excuse for a photographer, even an amateur one. I like to think I have a good eye for spotting a great photograph, I just don’t always have the right equipment with me, or remember how to use said photographic equipment to it’s fullest potential. I really have no excuse, considering I am a second generation shutterbug. For years, I’ve heard stories from my dad and uncle about my grandfather’s photographic exploits before, during and after WWII. I sent them each an e-mail requesting more detailed information and they gladly provided the following tidbits:
My father told me my grandfather, Ralph, became a photographer while attending Leavenworth High School during the 1930s. He also worked and learned from a local Leavenworth camera shop and portrait studio called Star Studio. My uncle added that photography during the 30s was still an arcane, complicated and a very hands-on hobby/profession.
Even with film purchased from commercial sources, photographic developing and printing (separate processes) involved the precise mixing of chemicals and control of temperature and humidity to develop and fix the image on the film, and to develop and fix the image on the paper. Both processes—plus the actual exposure of the photo-sensitive paper to the projected image from the developed film—required rigorous control of environmental conditions. Ralph took pictures for the Leavenworth High School year book. In 1937, Ralph won statewide (Kansas) honors as the top (or one of the top) science students in public high schools.
Both my dad and uncle confirmed that after graduating, Ralph also worked for the local newspaper, the Leavenworth Times as well as continuing at Star Studio. Some of his work appeared in the paper.
Ralph Andrea, WWII Army Photographer
My father remembers Ralph being stationed in the Pacific, specifically, New Guinea, during WWII as photo support of air corp operations. For a short time, Ralph stayed in Japan as part of the Occupation forces. During the Cold War, Ralph returned to active duty in the Air Force for Korea, but conducted his work from here in the U.S. Ralph stayed in the Air Force until retirement in 1968, being stationed to various sites around the world, working as tech and photo resource.
My dad remembered Ralph’s equipment best. Ralph had several cameras including a 4×5 Speed Graphic; an Argus C3, an early 35mm; and, he did some early color work during WWII, before the film was available to the public. Ralph held a patent on a modification to the old flash bulb to keep them from going off when in close proximity to radar equipment.
My uncle relates more detailed information regarding Ralph’s military service: With the onset of World War Two, Ralph volunteered for duty in the US Army Air Corps, enlisting at Sherman Field on Fort Leavenworth. Because of his experience with highly technical photography, he was elected for further training both as a photographer and as an officer (despite his not having a college education).
Ralph resting his arm on his Speed Graphic camera
During World War Two, photography units, such as Ralph’s in the Pacific theater of war, performed all the various functions of photography. They took the pictures: aerial photography was in its infancy, ground combat photography, plus the more traditional documenting of people and events. They developed the film and prints, and they also interpreted the aerial reconnaissance pictures. Ralph was the supply officer of his small unit, which included responsibility for maintaining the necessary chemicals as well as support for their mobile, air-conditioned dark room tents.
After World War Two, Ralph earned a bachelor’s degree in engineering at the University of Kansas, followed by a master’s in photographic engineering at Boston University. His Air Force work included collaboration with General George W. Goddard, the “father” of modern aerial reconnaissance, developing concepts and systems for both air-breathing and satellite reconnaissance.
In his later years with the United States Air Force, Ralph worked at the Defense Intelligence Agency, Headquarters USAF and HQ Air Force Systems Command to identify and procure future reconnaissance systems. During that time, Ralph was involved in the development of computerized systems to record and transmit photographic systems. He retired in 1968, before the advent of micro-computers which revolutionized the capture and processing of images but his work brought the USAF to the cusp of exploiting those digital systems as they developed.
I wish to express my deep gratitude to my father and uncle who provided, at the drop of a hat, the scanned photographs and commentary for this section.
Family Vacation Slideshows
My dad took us (mom, my brother and I) all over the continental United States, following his brother’s military migrations and also to visit my mother’s relatives in Montana and the Pacific Northwest. Consequently, before I had graduated from high school, I’d been to all but three of the lower 48 states and at least two Canadian provinces. We visited nearly every National Park, massive hydroelectric dams, a few nuclear power plants, a meteor crater, caves, mountains, deserts, a rain forest and historical sites from coast to coast. Once we returned home, and the slides were returned from the developer, we’d gather with local friends and family for a re-cap slideshow of our latest vacation adventure.
Annual Christmas Card Family Photo
My mom, me, my dad, and my brother (circa Christmas 1974)
Every fall, my dad would gather us together in the kitchen or the living, which he had converted temporarily to a portrait studio, complete with tripods, flash units, reflectors and light meters, to take that year’s family photo to be used as our family Christmas card. My cousin, Wendell, still follows this tradition, although with a Star Wars-ian twist some years. I prefer to create a Christmas letter or newsletter, similar to a blog post, where I can include more than one photo, and usually of a more casual nature (as I prefer candids to posed snapshots). At the risk of dating myself (more than I already have), to the left you’ll see the Andrea Family Christmas Card from 1974.
Recording My Own Family
Rachelle 'climbing the mountain' that was our storm shelter.
Film still ruled the day when both my kids were born in the mid to late 80s, so photos of my fledgling family are scarcer but all the more precious. I used mostly disposable cameras, since I didn’t own a single-lens reflex (SLR) camera. Once my kids started participating in sports and music, I invested my limited funds in a camcorder and now I have boxes and boxes of VHS-C videotapes in my basement. Whether or not I ever get them converted to digital format remains to be seen. By the time my children reached high school, I made the leap to digital video and photography. Now, instead of magnetic tape storage, I’m archiving family memories to DVD. I upload some of these videos to my infrequently used YouTube channel.
Sunrise, Sunset
Sunrise (Mar 2011)
I always seem to be in my car or the van when a spectacular sunrise or sunset occurs. So I’m reduced to the capabilities of the embedded camera in my cell phone which has a lens smaller than the eraser on a pencil. Occasionally, though, I’m prepared (or I forgot and left all my photographic equipment in the trunk of my car) and I plan a session from a local park or cemetery. My library has an east facing window, so I can catch the sunrise in the late fall and winter while sipping on my freshly steeped tea. I captured the sunrise to the left from that room in early March of this year. Sunsets are more difficult from my home, because it sits lower than K-7/US-73 to my west and on the other side of the highway is a large hill. So sunsets usually mean packing up everything and hopping in the car to West Mary Street, near the new Elementary School, or to Mount Muncie or Mount Calvary Cemeteries.
Astrophotography – My Final Frontier
Crescent Moon (Apr 2011)
I hope to merge two of my favorite hobbies once I retire: Astronomy and Photography. By then, I also hope to have moved to a location with darker night skies, a higher altitude and minimal obstructions (no close large trees, streetlights or hills). For now, I make do with an occasionally moon shot using either my telescope or just the telephoto lens and a tripod. Someday I plan to photograph Jupiter, Saturn, a galaxy and a nebula.
I stepped outside just before 9:00 pm to let the dogs out and shocked myself with the sight of actual stars, something I haven’t seen in weeks (it seems) with the unrelenting cloud cover, rain and thunderstorms plaguing the Heart of America this month. I grabbed my camera and tripod and setup just east of my mailbox, hoping to capture photographic evidence of the overwhelming light pollution saturating my neighborhood.
Bambi Court Due North (from in front of my mailbox)
Not only does everyone on my court leave every outside light on, they feel compelled to illuminate their driveways, fences, sidewalks, trees, boats, etc., etc. The clouds in the above picture are actually illuminated by the glow from the Lansing Correctional Facility (just a half mile north of my neighborhood).
Turning around 180 degrees on the tripod, and flipping the camera 90 degrees to the horizontal, I snapped a shot of my new ‘bright night light’ recently installed at the corner of Bambi Court and Fawn Valley:
New 'Bright Night Light' (Installed at the corner of Fawn Valley & Bambi Court)
Again, the neighbors to my south, on the south side of Fawn Valley, seem to be in competition with the Bambi Court Extreme Illumination Foundation.
I could barely see the handle of the big dipper, so I thought I’d try experimenting with long exposures using the Pentax K100D. There was no wind where I was standing, even though I could see the thin wispy clouds moving casually from west to east across the backdrop of the Big and Little Dippers. I set the camera to Shutter Priority Mode and selected a six second exposure for a half dozen shots of the northwestern, north and northeastern skies. The most dramatic shot, after autocorrecting with basic photo editing software (and I apologize for the greenness of the resulting photo), follows:
Bits of Ursa Minor and Draco (behind the clouds)
I packed up the camera and tripod and thought about heading to bed. I tried to read more from the Backyard Astronomer’s Guide but gave up around ten o’clock. I got up to let the dogs out one final time and, as I always do, I looked up when I stepped outside. I always look up. The clouds had cleared away more and I could clearly see the Big and Little Dippers from my back patio. I grabbed the tripod and camera again for some more experimental shots using an exposure of fifteen seconds. The following two photos show Ursa Minor and Major in one shot:
Ursa Minor and Major (Polaris is at 1 o'clock compared to the tree sillouette bottom center)Ursa Major and Minor
Now I’m not sure what to do today. All week long, the weatherman has been predicting doom and gloom for today, including sleet and snow. I had planned to start a fire in the fireplace and bake pies, bread and experiment with a chicken pot pie recipe I found last week.
But if the sunrise (click on photo to see the rest of the album) is any indication of what the rest of the day will be like, do I really want to be confined another weekend in my house? Perhaps the dogs would like to visit the dog park today? If nothing else, I’ll take Apollo on a longer walk this evening. Roxy and I walked before the sunrise, when it was still only 24 degrees.
I woke up to the second day of March with significantly more sleep than I got for the first day. And, a stunning sunrise evolved over the course of my commute from home to Kansas City, Missouri:
Sunrise Wed 2 Mar 2011 over Kansas City, Missouri skyline
I enjoyed my cran-raspberry white chocolate scone (baked Sunday morning) with two cups of average tea (just Lipton for easy prep) while cleaning up log files before monitoring MOSS 2007 crawl a large content source. At least I have no meetings scheduled for today.
I’m looking forward to a short walk at lunch to take advantage of Planet Sub‘s double punch day. This evening, I’ll take a long walk with Roxy during Wolfguard‘s practice.
Ah, the joys of tax preparation season and gathering all the necessary documentation for filing an itemized return, especially when some of your offspring don’t answer their cell phones and may never check or respond to their voice-mail messages.
And the things my husband says when I gather the appropriate information and return his call to relate said information:
“Would there happen to be a pen up here?” meaning the kitchen table.
“I have no idea. I was a secretary for years and have no desire to be one again. I keep mine in my purse.” my reply.
“Well, I only have two places to keep a pen on me, and neither one of them pleasant.” his reply which sparked images that may scar me for the rest of my life.
While speaking to one of my offspring’s significant others, I learned all of them (my offspring and their better halves) are involved in indoor soccer leagues. I feel so left out of the loop. I adamantly requested photos and updates at the first opportunity.
I despair of ever catching up on my group reads. I have at least two left over from February, bleeding over into March. I may drop everything so I can read the newly released (yesterday and in the mail to me right now via pre-order from Barnes & Nobel) The Wise Man’s Fear. The rest of my current reads pile can be found here.
And I’ve been asked to lead the discussion in two different groups, the first on Willis’ Doomsday Book and the second on Jemisin’s The Hundred Thousand Kingdoms. As if I needed anything else to do.
I look forward to my Friday evening commutes home. Especially with the phenomenal weather this week … highs in the 60s and 70s, calm winds, clear or nearly clear skies. Even though we experienced a blizzard a few days ago, now this! I began to wish I’d brought my camera with me to work on Friday as we drove westward. My cell phone can not do justice to the beauty my eye beheld:
I-435 and K-5 looking southwest at 5:00 pm Friday
In fact, after taking the photograph above (and sending it via SMS to Facebook and Twitpic), I called my hubby and told him I needed my SLR camera as soon as I got home. I believed a great sunset was in the making. True to my word, I rushed in the door, grabbed my SD card from Terry’s computer, snatched up the tripod, transferred the tipod adaptor from my videocamera to my SLR, inserted fresh batteries and raced to the Bonneville with only about ten minutes to spare before the sun touched the western horizon.
My first thought was to find a location, free of tall trees, tall houses and preferably on a hill. I wound my way through the neighborhood behind my house finally reaching Lost 80 Park on East Mary Street in Lansing, only to discover the gates tightly chained and locked. I continued east on Mary and took a left at K-5, winding my way past the prison, the Lansing water works and finally reaching Mount Muncie Cemetery with just moments to spare. The entrance to the cemetery included a circle drive up and to the right of the main entrance, overlooking the small industrial park located behind the old Rusy Eck Ford dealership. Nothing between me and the western horizon but a couple of small powerlines (in the foreground) and clear air.
I quickly setup the tripod, attached the camera, leaving the zoom lens attached, made some adjustments to it’s setup (AWB set to cloudy, two second shutter delay, shutter priority and manual focus) and began taking a series of shots, experimenting with different shutter speeds (beginning at 1/90th of a second and working my way down over the course of twenty minutes to as low as 1/8th of a second). This album contains the entire series of forty-six shots. But the shots below are a couple of my favorites from that series:
Sunset from Mount Muncie Cemetery, Leavenworth, Kansas on Friday, 18 Feb 2011Sunset (northwest) from Mount Munce Cemetary, Leavenworth, Kansas on Friday, 18 Feb 2011
I returned home, even though I would have liked to wait for moon rise, which I knew would occur within an hour or so, since yesterday was a full moon. But, most cemeteries prefer people to go home after dark, except for the residents of course.
Just as Terry and I began eating some pizza (and while his Chocolate Pecan Pie baked), my father arrived unexpectedly to return a DVD and a couple of portraits I had asked him to digitize for me. He commented as he came through the front door that the moon and clouds looked spectacular. As you can imagine, I grabbed the tripod and camera to snap a few more photos, with limited success. I’ve got more research to do with respect to photographing the full moon. This was a passable attempt:
Almost Full Moon with Clouds Friday Evening, 18 Feb 2011
I had hoped to awaken early, load up the equipment and journey eastward to Wynandotte County Lake Park to catch a reflective sunrise, but I stayed up to late watching Star Trek VI and overslept. In way I’m glad I overslept, as I awoke to complete cloud cover and the threat of rain. So, rather than being a shutterbug today, I will crochet, clear off my DVR and maybe read a book or two.
According to today’s post at Earthsky, the second full moon of the year, which usually falls in February, can be referred to as the Snow Moon, the Wind Moon, the Blackbear Moon or the Hunger Moon.
I took advantage of the unseasonably warm weather today (74 degrees), I setup the telescope and attached the Pentax K100D to it for a couple of full moon snapshots:
Snow Moon Feb 2011
I also took a quick look at the brightest star in the sky … Sirius (no photos yet, still need to have the tracking gears repaired on the Meade).
My husband’s Valentine’s card to me (courtesy of Hallmark) brought tears to my eyes and warmth to my heart. The printed saying touched me, but his handwritten note sent me soaring:
Maybe someday I’ll find the perfect words to tell ou how much you mean to me … I know I’d like to spend forever trying
I mean this from the bottom of my heart. I would love to spend another twenty-five years with you.
Love, Terry
My card pales in comparison, talking about being empty nesters and finally reaching the ‘someday’ dreams we’d had on hold for so long. And the scarf I’m crocheting is but half finished.
I did at least have my hair done, bought a couple new shirts and a new pair of pumps for our date Saturday night. Even though the wait at Red Lobster on Barry Road approached an hour, we had a wonderful dining experience, trying a couple of flavorful appetizers (the bruschetta was outstanding as well as the pan-seared crab cakes). We split the Admiral’s Feast because we each like half of the offerings (Terry loves clams and shrimp, and I love scallops and flounder). For dessert, I got the decadent Chocolate Wave (a four-layer chocolate cake with vanilla ice cream) and Terry took home a strawberry cheesecake.
Speaking of cheesecake, I made my first one today. Not being a fan of cheese (just ask anyone in my family … I despise cheese), but knowing that Terry loves that particular dessert, I bought a no-bake cherry cheesecake mix to attempt. Three easy steps later, and several hours in the refrigerator, I hope the cheesecake is delicious for him.
I took a few more sunrise photos this weekend, but I’m still disappointed in my efforts. I’ve done some search, found a few good blog postings about digital photography with some great tips on dealing with the unique challenges of the digital medium. I hope next weekend’s efforts will bear better fruit. Here’s one of the better shots from this morning’s sunrise:
Sunday Sunrise with Contrails
And so ends one of our 25th Valentines weekends. Since I met Terry in 1983, and we got back together in 1985, there is no ‘hard and fast’ 25th for Valentine’s Day. There is, however, a rock solid date for our 25th wedding anniversary, which occurs in less than three months, on May Day, Sunday May 1st, 2011. We are still deciding where to go for that auspicious occasion. We visited the Peppercorn Duck Club on our 15th and the Savoy Grill (if I remember correctly) on our 20th. Last year we enjoyed Avalon in Weston, and would like to return there as well. I thought of returning to the Peppercorn, but we still have time to decide. Anyone have any other suggestions?
I should have known not to get my hopes up while driving westward home from work. I so wanted to see Mercury (something I’ve never observed with the naked eye, a camera, binoculars or a telescope) and a tiny sliver of a new Moon – both within five degrees of each other. I had hyped myself up earlier in the day thanks to a blurb from Sky & Telescope. The sun kept teasing me, peaking out between the clouds just enough to make me squint as I dodge traffic and dropped off my vanpool riders.
