March went out softly, like a fluffy puffy lamb yesterday. I took a series of photographs from my front step landing via the tripod. Except for the first couple of photos and the last three (which aren’t of the sunrise at all), I didn’t change the position of the camera for probably a half an hour.
I set the AWB to the Cloudy setting, remembered to turn the AutoFocus back on and took a couple of initial photos to get oriented.
This sunrise didn’t evolve into anything stunning or spectacular. Still, not the worst sunrise I’ve ever photographed.
I sat on the front steps, reading the last few pages of Wild Swans, a book I started in early to mid March and the final book I had chosen to read for “Destination: Anywhere” – the Kansas City Public Library‘s Adult Winter Reading program for 2012. I would read a few paragraphs or a page, and then get up and snap a photo. The morning atmosphere soothed and calmed me, relaxing me so much while I read, that I nearly forgot about the sunrise.
Once I realized the clouds and sun were not going to do anything amazing, I took a few photos of my neighbors’ flowering trees. I returned the camera and tripod inside and finished the book just a few minutes later.
March may have left like a lamb, but Mars still hangs in the sky at night smack dab in the middle of Leo, the Lion. I’m looking forward to more planetary observing in April.
I only caught Venus and Jupiter twice this week with my camera. Between a day trip to Chicago and occasional sporadic thunderstorms, I only caught them Monday and Thursday nights.
The best shot from Monday night included this closeup of the Moon and Venus:
The only other remotely astronomical activity I did this week involved a short trip across the Missouri River to Parkville. My dad and I drove over to window shop at the HMS Beagle store. Due to a wrenched back, I had to cut our visit short, but I did purchase a nearly waterproof “Guide to the Stars” star-wheel for Terry to use when he visits the hot tub after midnight. I also picked up a laminated map of the moon, which I left with dad, along with my scope, at his house.
I spent a lazy Sunday writing blog entries and emails, reading an ebook and watching the best bits of an old movie (Hatari! from 1962). I kept one eye on the clock and the other one on the sun because I did not want to miss the opportunity to photograph the conjunction between Jupiter and the Crescent Moon (the moon passed within three degrees of Jupiter last night). I had witnessed a similar conjunction last month when I went hunting for Mercury and caught it.
I had read earlier in the day that you can sometimes see Jupiter before the sun sets with your naked eye. I could easily see the moon and Venus before sunset, but try as I might I could not discern Jupiter amidst the twilight glare, even though the skies were exceptionally clear, free of clouds and haze and the wind seemed calm or non-existent. I switched my camera from it’s normal lens to the telephoto and took closeups of the moon in the hopes that I would later be able to find Jupiter once I downloaded the photos. I proved that theory this morning with the following photo:
First Glimpse of Jupiter and the crescent Moon (bisected by a power line)
I spent the next hour taking the occasional snapshot of the triangular conjunction and several planes that flew near or through the area. To view most of the photos (the ones worthy of uploading) in an album (or a slideshow), click on this link.
I packed up the camera and tripod at about half past eight and traipsed back inside. I returned to my library and finished my ebook just a minute shy of ten o’clock. I needed to charge my Nook Color, which required descending downstairs again. Since I was up and halfway to the band room, I decided to drag the camera and tripod back outside in an attempt to photograph the constellation Leo and the visiting Mars. I had to switch back to the normal lens as I could not get the entire constellation in the field of view available through the telephoto. I took three or four snapshots of Leo and Mars, but I could not see the stars very well through the viewfinder or the preview display on the back of the camera. I just had to cross my fingers and hope that my efforts had captured enough of the stars to clearly see the outline of Leo. The best of the photos turned out to be the three second exposure shown here:
Mars in Leo (Sun 25 Mar 2012)
This is the same photograph edited to add lines to outline Leo and a label for Mars:
Venus, Jupiter and New Crescent Moon (Fri 23 Mar 2012)
I left work Friday afternoon in a pouring rain. Nothing unusual in the grand scheme of things. It is late March and Spring had sprung this week, which usually brings rain. An entire week of rain, in fact. I had hoped, against all evidence to the contrary, that the rain would let up earlier in the day on Friday. I resigned myself to retrieving my vanpool riders and slogging through rain drenched traffic for the next hour. I wanted to participate in my astronomy club‘s Messier Marathon, but just didn’t think the effort would equal the returns. I would have to pack up all of my astronomical observing equipment (telescope, tripod, eyepieces, control device, cables, portable battery, sky charts, observing aids, red flashlight, chair, some kind of table, etc) and then drive over an hour to the dark sky site way south near Butler, Missouri. Early indications from other club members reported the dark sky site field was very wet and since I don’t own a four-wheel drive truck or SUV, I decided to stay in Lansing.
I had permission from my city council representative to contact the Chief of Police to make arrangements to use one of the city parks after dark. I hesitated to bother the police. That is a huge hassle to overcome, for me anyway. And I still needed to re-train my telescope’s Alt/Az drives before packing them up, since that process requires daylight and a terrestrial object to focus upon. Clouds still scudded across the sky while I set the telescope up outside on the lower back patio. I trained the drives for five or ten minutes and then powered down the telescope until later in the evening.
Venus, Jupiter and the Crescent Moon
After watching a couple of episodes of Jeopardy and squeezing in my exercise routine (and making my legs wobbly and rubbery by trying a longer version of one of the higher intensity activities), I slipped back outside to see how many stars were visible at just a few minutes past eight o’clock. I spied the small sliver of a new crescent moon hovering just over my neighbor’s roof so I grabbed my camera (already on it’s tripod) and took a few photos (two of which I am including in this post). I even got Terry outside long enough to witness the new moon and point out how much higher Venus has gotten over Jupiter in a week since the last time I photographed the pair of them.
By the time I finished snapping a few photographs, I had enough bright stars to attempt an alignment of the telescope with my newly retrained drives. The Autostar easy alignment selected Sirius in Canis Major as the first star in the alignment process. After I found and centered the Dog Star, the next stop on the alignment workflow became Capella in the constellation Auriga, another easily spotted star in the evening sky. The Autostar reported a successful alignment so now for the first real test of the retrained drives. I instructed the device to find Jupiter. Surprise! The telescope found Jupiter on the first try! I did have to recenter Jupiter and it’s four glorious moons in the eyepiece, but I did not have to use either of my finder scopes. I inserted a 2x barlowe and a 26mm eyepiece and could clearly see the cloud striations on Jupiter. I could even see a hint of color. I again pulled Terry out to the telescope to take a look at the gas giant and its beautiful alignment of moons.
Next stop on my pre-Messier tour became Venus. Again the Autostar found our sister planet successfully. I only had to re-center the very bright planet in my eyepiece. I should have put a filter on the eyepiece, because even at only half-full, Venus almost hurt my eyes to look at. I felt confident enough in the telescopes alignment and the retrained drives to begin my mini-Messier Marathon.
M74 spiral galaxy
My Messier Marathon Observer’s Form lists the objects in a ‘best viewed in this order’ arrangement. I knew I would not be able to observe the first two items on the list, due to the nature of my site. My house rests in a valley, behind a large hill to my west. In addition, I have several tall trees in my backyard, as do my neighbors to the west and north. Thanks to the highway just a couple of blocks to my west, I have ample ambiance (aka light pollution) and nearly all my neighbors must be afraid of the dark because they insist on illuminating nearly all exterior surfaces of their residences. Still, I told the Autostar to go find M77, a spiral galaxy also known as Cetus A. Unfortunately, the telescope came to rest pointing northwest, through at least three trees. I moved on to the next item, M74, another spiral galaxy in the constellation Pisces. But again, I saw only trees. A shame, really, as I would love to see that beautiful spiral galaxy (shown in photo above and to the left).
Andromeda Galaxy (M31) as well as M32 (another galaxy)
The next three stops on the observation list also happened to be galaxies, including the famous Andromeda galaxy, designated as M31 on the Messier list of objects. Since the telescope did not move appreciable away from the area of M77 and M74, I again couldn’t see the stars for the forest. Yet another galaxy I desperately want to observe, so to ease the pain of defeat, I’ll provide another image of that marvelous gem. The image above and to the right also includes M32, one of the other two galaxies I couldn’t observe.
Pleiades (M45)
I began using my Sky & Telescope Pocket Sky Atlas to assist me in locating Messier objects that I could actually view in my limited sky scape. The Pocket Sky Atlas‘s last pages contains an index of Messier objects and the star chart they appear on. I skimmed through the list of the next few objects and determined that M45 could be seen with the naked eyes. The Pleiades is an open star cluster. I still told the telescope to go find it and spent a few minutes marveling at the cluster of bright stars peering back at me through the eyepiece. Finally, I got to check off one of the 110 objects on my Messier Marathon Observer’s Form, writing 8:42 p.m. in the blank provided.
The next two objects I found easily included M42 and M43, both found in Orion’s sword and more commonly known as the Great Orion Nebulae and De Marian’s Nebula (really part of the other one or an extension of it). I wrote 9:07 p.m. in the blanks on my form.
Beehive Cluster (M44)
I spent the next thirty to forty minutes trying to track down several objects I should have been able to find since they were south or directly overhead. I could not find the Crab Nebula (M1) and began to suspect I had messed up the alignment on the telescope. I had nudged a tripod leg more than once, so I reverted the Autostar to star mode and went searching for Rigel, Betelgeuse, Sirius and Capella again to retune the alignment. After that, I was successful in viewing several star clusters, including M44 (aka the Beehive Cluster), M48 and M50 (between 9:45 and 9:51 p.m.).
Supernova SN 2012aw (pointed at by arrow) is located in the outer arm of the barred spiral galaxy M95 in Leo. Greek amateur Anthony Ayiomamitis obtained this view on March 20th from his home outside of Athens. Image from Sky & Telescope article.
I got even more excited when I spied M95 on the list just two below M44. This spiral galaxy gained fame this past week by spouting a supernova. My earlier research also showed that Mars was just a few degrees away from M95. So I took a few minutes to realign the telescope and enjoy the ruddy beauty of the fourth planet in our solar system. Then I went on the hunt for M95. I spent many frustrating minutes attempting to find the elusive spiral galaxy but to no avail. The skies above Lansing are just not dark enough for my small telescope. It can’t gather enough light and my aging eyes can’t ever seem to get acclimated to the annoying and obscuring local ground illumination to spot such a faint (9.7 in magnitude) object. By a quarter after ten, I decided enough was enough.
And, for some unknown reason, the telescope had twice decided to go off on a tangent, causing the altitude drive to run off for no reason and would not stop when I entered commands into the Autostar. Hmmm. There must be a bug in the latest firmware I downloaded last week. I should probably hook the laptop up to it today and see if a ‘fix’ has been made available from Meade.
I enjoyed my mini-marathon of Messier objects and learned quite a bit about my abilities and the capabilities of my amateur astronomy equipment. Tonight I will attend the monthly meeting of the Astronomical Society of Kansas City and tomorrow I will probably head south to Powell Observatory for a training session on the club’s large telescope. By Monday, I should have purged my system of all astronomical cravings, at least until the next new moon.
For the past week, weather permitting, I took a series of photographs from my backyard during the early evening. I tried to get the tripod and camera positioned in roughly the same spot. I also tried to remember to take the photos at about the same time, during the eight o’clock hour. I believe I was more or less successful. The following are the best of the bunch in the progression of the mid-March 2012 Venus Jupiter Conjunction:
Jupiter (upper left) Venus (lower right) on Fri 03/09/2012Jupiter (upper left) Venus (lower right) Sat 03/10/2012Jupiter (left) Venus (right) as close as they get on Monday evening 03/12/2012Venus (right) pulling away from Jupiter (left) Tues 03/13/2012Venus (right) rising above Jupiter (left) Wed 03/14/2012Jupiter (left) falling, Venus (right) rising on Thursday, the Ides of March, 03/15/2012
I could not have asked for a more beautiful or perfect day yesterday (weather-wise). Crystal clear light blue skies and a light wind out of the southeast I believe. I kept my fingers crossed most of the day. Mid-afternoon I decided to call my father to see if he was interested in joining my Mercury hunting party. I left him a voice-mail and went back to housecleaning for a couple more hours. At five o’clock, I still hadn’t heard from him and tried calling him one more time. He answered on the fourth ring. He’d been splitting wood all day (not surprising) and hadn’t heard his phone ring or felt it vibrate and had not listened to my voice-mail. I told him my game plan and that while I didn’t have a specific spot in mind, I planned to leave my house at a quarter to six and start driving west from Lansing in search of a hill with an unobstructed view to the western horizon. He didn’t know if he could make it, but he would call me once he got back home, retrieved his binoculars and got in his car.
Setting Sun (Sat 25 Feb 2012)
I took a slightly different path westward, eventually turning south on 187th street and finding a nice wide long pasture with a gravel road field entrance (and no gate) on top of a ridge with an unobstructed view of the entire horizon (not just the western one). I had about five minutes to setup my camera and tripod before the sun kissed the horizon. I took maybe three of our photos before my dad called my cell phone. I told him where I was and he knew exactly the spot I described and headed directly to me. He arrived just after the sunset and we began scanning the horizon with his binoculars, noting several water towers, silos and a very tall microwave communication tower silhouetted against the red orange glow of the sunset.
Just After Sunset (Sat 25 Feb 2012)
I told him we had at least thirty minutes before we would be able to see Mercury. At that point, we could already see Venus and the Moon, both of them very bright and visible before the sunset. Jupiter became visible to the naked eye about twenty or twenty-five minutes after the sunset.
Jupiter, Venus and the Moon visible first.
Using my father’s binoculars, we could see Jupiter’s four moons, although it was very difficult keeping the binoculars steady enough to see much detail. Even though the wind was out of the south or southeast, it still cut through our jackets. We used the van as a windbreak and dad got a blanket out of his car and we used that to help protect the camera from the wind when I started taking longer exposures. Mercury became visible to our naked eyes about twenty or fifteen minutes before seven o’clock. I took three shots, only one of which wasn’t blurry or streaked.
First Glimpse of Mercury
I spent the remaining twenty minutes trying to capture all four of the visible objects in a single shot. Here are two of the best of the set of photos I took:
Jupiter, Venus, Mercury and the Moon (Sat 25 Feb 2012)Three Planets and a Baby Moon
When you click on any of the photos above and are taken to my Flickr site, you can further click into the photo to get a larger better view and then further increase the size (even unto the original) by right clicking on it and using this pop-up menu:
Since we were both freezing by this time, I packed up the camera geer and headed back home. Dad thanked me for the invitation and he headed north back to Leavenworth. We can both check off Mercury from our observing goals.
I got home early Friday. I had to wear my sunglasses for the drive home, always a good sign when you want to do some planet hunting soon after sunset. Since I had more than an hour before the sun would set, I put my latest Netflix BluRay in the player (one of the final two Nebular nominations I hadn’t seen yet) and began watching some strange British science fiction teenage alien mashup (more on that later in a separate review post). I almost watched too long when I realized, at about ten ’til six, that the sun was setting and some clouds had creeped up on the west/northwestern horizon. The camera backpack and tripod were already in the van, so I just grabbed my the keys and took off, telling Terry I’d be back after awhile.
New Moon Southwest Style
I crossed K-7/US-73, taking 4-H Road west and continue west and southwest until I ended up on a gravel road on a hilltop in a field with an almost unobstructed view to the western horizon. The sunset, which had looked promising (see photo above), fizzled as the clouds continued to encroach from the northwest. I trudged out into the pasture and setup my tripod and attached the camera to it. I took a few sunset photos, none of which really did anything for me, except the one to the right, which included the moon (but not much of the horizon since I had the telephoto lens attached and the field of view was a bit restricted). I had only thrown on a sweater in my rush out of the house, so my fingers kept losing feeling when I needed them most to make adjustments to the camera. While there wasn’t much of a wind, what there was chilled rapidly as the light faded with the setting sun.
New Moon and Venus
Before much longer, though, I could easily spot Venus about five degrees above (and to the left) of the two day old moon. I surprised myself when I extracted the photos from the memory card this morning. When I looked closely at Venus (in the photo above), I actually captured a star-burst thanks to my aperture setting for that shot.
But the most difficult shot to capture last evening was a combination of Jupiter, Venus and the New Moon – all together in one shot. I barely got them squeezed into the field of view with the telephoto and twisted the tripod into an odd angle to capture this wonderful photo:
Jupiter, Venus and the two day old Moon
The clouds never cleared along the western horizon, so I did not have an opportunity to see Mercury. If the sky remains clear today and into this evening (and I have hopes of that happening), I will have yet another opportunity this evening to view Mercury, together with Venus, Jupiter and the New Moon.
If you live in the Northern Hemisphere, and are blessed with an unobstructed western horizon and clear skies, look for the planet Mercury as dusk gives way to nightfall. Look for Mercury to appear near the sunset point on the horizon some 40 to 60 minutes after sundown. Or if you have binoculars, try catching Mercury 30 minutes (or less) after the sun goes down.
Jupiter and Venus help guide you to Mercury, the solar system’s innermost planet. Draw an imaginary line from the right side of Jupiter and past the left side of Venus to spot Mercury near the horizon. But don’t tarry when searching for Mercury. At present, this world sets just a bit over one hour after sunset at mid-northern latitudes.
At about fifteen minutes to seven, I packed up the camera equipment and headed back to the van. The clouds from the north had snuck up on me, so much so that I could see the orange of the prison lights glowing from their low hanging bellies. I retraced my drive back home. I looked up as I got out of the van and was surprised to note that the clouds had almost completely obscured Juptier and Venus, although the sliver of the New Moon still shone bright. By the time I finished dinner and the movie, though, all I could see out the back patio door were the orange glowing low hanging clouds.
I woke up to a brand new day and a crystal clear dawn. Less than twelve hours, now, until I can hunt for Mercury again.
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.
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.
![Jupiter (left) Venus (right) as close as they get on Monday evening 03/12/2012](http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7060/6840794134_1463c32dac_z.jpg" width="640" height="426" alt="IMGP2421"></a>)
