Mike,

No matter how cold it gets, and no matter how much it snows in NE or CO, there is always one place that’s colder and snowier — Antarctica, where these pictures of a “Frozen Wave” were taken. One wild-eyed blogger claims that these show an ocean wave that punctured the sea ice and froze solid.  That may be what it looks like, but it is probably part of a glacier poking up through the sea ice. If anyone finds out an accurate attribution for these amazing pictures, please let me know.

–rakkity

Michael,

Some of us are still not jaded by good lunar eclipse pictures–see this one.

Admittedly, it’s not a “purist’s” (no digital fiddling) picture, but few of them are these days. It’s a combination of a telescopic view (showing Jennifer’s stars) and a filtered camera shot.

–rakkity

***************

I’m tacking this photo onto rak’s post. I thought it was one of my better shots, but it was over exposed compared to what we were all looking at so I didn’t post it. Taken at about 10 PM.

Mike,

It was misty, but we could see the moon being eclipsed. The mists took away the color, so it looked grey to the eye, and even through binocs.In my picture from our front yard (attached) without any fiddling of the saturation of the digital data, the moon is clearly red .  The moon is at one side of the shadow umbra, so it looks like a crescent.  I couldn’t see the moon through my viewfinder, and had to guess at the centering, so I couldn’t zoom.  What you see in the picture is what you get with a 4-sec exposure and no zoom near the time of maximum eclipse.

I’m sure there will be some glorious pix on the web later tonight.

–rakkity

Mike,

It was misty, but we could see the moon being eclipsed. The mists took away the color, so it looked grey to the eye, and even through binocs.In my picture from our front yard (attached) without any fiddling of the saturation of the digital data, the moon is clearly red .  The moon is at one side of the shadow umbra, so it looks like a crescent.  I couldn’t see the moon through my viewfinder, and had to guess at the centering, so I couldn’t zoom.  What you see in the picture is what you get with a 4-sec exposure and no zoom near the time of maximum eclipse.

I’m sure there will be some glorious pix on the web later tonight.

–rakkity

Michael,

According to the Acton web page, it’s clear right now. Tomorrow is supposed to be mostly cloudy, with clearing on Thursday. With luck you might be able to watch the lunar eclipse Wednesday night.
Out here in the west, it will be visible at dusk, but in the eastern US, you’ll see it around 10 pm.

–rakkity

Michael,

In case you have some time to be spared between shots of colorful vegetables, take a look at some of these strange photos of odd earthly objects seen from space.

For your next backyard project, maybe you and Matt can construct something unusual that can be seen from space, and that will find its way into the Google Earthly Odd Object database.  Like the largest green lime in the world–with a purple background?

–rakkity

Michael,

In case you have some time to be spared between shots of colorful vegetables, take a look at some of these strange photos of odd earthly objects seen from space.

For your next backyard project, maybe you and Matt can construct something unusual that can be seen from space, and that will find its way into the Google Earthly Odd Object database.  Like the largest green lime in the world–with a purple background?

–rakkity

 

Michael,

This afternoon Beth and I went for a walk around Boulder’s Walden Ponds (yes I know Massachusetts has that name trademarked. Sorry.), and we were studying the Canada Geese that thrive there. At first glance, one of the geese seemed to have a ribbon around its neck.  But no, it appeared to be a can missing both ends.  How did that poor goose get a can around its neck? Either it’s some bizarre biological marker, or the goose stuck its head into a can on the ground and found that the only way it could get the dang thing off its head was to keep pushing and pushing until it was around its neck.  At least, that’s my guess as to what happened.

The goose doesn’t appear to be troubled by its new garb, and it has a mate, who hasn’t given up on him/her because of a strange neck.

–rakkity

Mike,

I just got a new monitor, and with the increased acreage staring me in the face, I was moved to replace my desktop with a spectacular photo I took last November of the Beartooth Boys in the Indian Peaks Wilderness.

–rakkity

Mike,

I just got a new monitor, and with the increased acreage staring me in the face, I was moved to replace my desktop with a spectacular photo I took last November of the Beartooth Boys in the Indian Peaks Wilderness.

–rakkity

Hi Mike,

You early risers can catch a  nice venus-jupiter conjunction. Tomorrow before sunrise will, strictly speaking, be about 2 days post-conjunction, but it still should be a pretty sight.  If you can’t get down low enough in the sky, you might catch the slim crescent moon drifting by orange Antares. Look to the east before sunrise tomorrow.

We’ve got a clear eastern horizon here in Boulder, so I’m hoping to wake up tomorrow morning about 6 am to see this.

–rakkity

Michael,

On hearing that he is an 8th cousin of Dick Cheney, Barack Obama said, tongue in cheek, “Every family has a black sheep.”

Lynne Cheney tells about the relationship.

The details of the ancestry were written up in the Bowie Blade News:

An interesting side note–the place where Obama’s and Cheney’s common ancestor, Mareen Duvall, lived was the Marietta Mansion near Bowie, MD. Our daughter Katie worked there for many years as a docent, but I don’t think anyone at the Mansion, including her, knew about this curious relationship until now.

Obama himself knew that some of his white ancestors owned slaves, but not the exact “tortured, tangled” history.

–rakkity