Halley's Comet

I mentioned in the Huber Woods post about viewing Halley's Comet. That got me to dig out some of my old photos (hard copies from olden times when I used film!).

And I found eight  3.5" x 5" prints in an envelope. Fortunately there were notes on the back, "Halley's Comet, 12/8/85".

I scanned three, of which this was the best (after a bit of work in Photoshop to clean things up).

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Note I didn't say "good". The comet is that fuzzy dot dead center. I think these were my first attempts at astrophotography. And if I recall correctly I used a Minolta SR 101 camera, with a Vivitar 70-210mm lens. I have no idea as to what film, ASA (what ISO was called back then), f-stop, or shutter speed I used. If I took notes they are long gone. Nor do I have the negatives.

The camera was mounted atop a Celestron Super C8 telescope, which itself was fork mounted on a equatorial wedge. My first big purchase after graduating from college. It was that or IBM PC. I went back and forth on this for several months as I saved up for it, pouring over magazine ads in Sky & Telescope and Scientific American.  I'm glad I went with the scope. It would be years before I bought my first computer, a Mac 512KE. I still have both the scope and the computer, both in working order (the scope has held up better).

The Maze

Mythical No More

In July 2018 we visited Waterton Lakes National Park in Alberta, Canada with my sister and her family. And I saw this: a momma Brown Bear and her three cubs. It was actually the second bear siting of the trip as we saw a lone bear on the first day of our visit to Glacier National Park in Montana.

In both cases as we were driving through the respective parks we came upon cars pulled over to the side of the road. So of course we joined them. The first time, in Glacier, I was not able to get my camera out in time (we had yet to get to our lodgings and I had to dig through the luggage; rookie mistake). The second time I had the camera at the ready, but a park ranger came along and chased both us and the bears away. And this was the only shot I managed.

But I saw them.

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I've been to Yosemite, multiple times, where folks had pics on their cellphones of bears outside my hotel. I've camped in glacier (an previous trip) and went hiking all over; the only bear seen by the group was one dad saw walk across the visitor center parking lot as he waited for us to return from a hike. And there was the time I was in the second car when the first car saw a bear cross the road. And so on.

I've been in bear country plenty of times and it seemed everyone but me saw the bear. "You just missed it"; "It was here this morning"; "It was just around the bend back there"; I heard again and again. I started to consider bears in the same category as unicorns and dragons. Mythical beasts.

But that's no longer the case. I saw them.

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And on the way back to Glacier from Waterton we were in two cars, with me driving the second. And the first car stopped for seemingly no reason. There was a reason, a Mountain Lion was crossing the road in front of them.

But this time I wasn't that guy.  I saw the cat as it crossed as well.

I saw it.

Super Blood Wolf Moon Lunar Eclipse

A Super Moon is when a Full Moon occurs at the point in its orbit when the it is closest to Earth. A Blood Moon is when the Moon turns a coppery color during a lunar eclipse. And the first Full Moon of the year is called the Wolf Moon.

And this lunar trifecta occurred on the night into morning of January 20-21, 2019.

Which just happened to coincide with the first arctic blast of the season. Temperatures were in the teens Fahrenheit, with howling winds resulting in a wind chill well into minus territory.

It was cold.

It was worth it.

And I didn't have it so bad as I set up my imaging rig on my deck, no more than five feet from the door to the warmth inside. And I took advantage of said warmth frequently.

This shot was taken shortly after totality as I had focusing issues with my big lens*. The upper left edge now outside the Umbra. The blue color along that edge is real. The coppery red color is similar to the red glow see at sunrise and sunset. And is in fact the light from all the sunrises and sunsets around the world, refracted by the Earth's atmosphere toward the Moon. But ozone scatters out the red light, leaving the bluer wavelengths. You can read more about it here at Space Weather (scroll down).

Bigafy Me!

This is an image at totality. Actually, it is two images combined. One, a thirty second exposure for the stars. The second a one second exposure so as to capture the color of the Moon (it is washed out in the thirty second image). Be sure to bigafy the image to see the stars, including the Beehive cluster, aka M44, an open cluster, below and to the left of the Moon.

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Image courtesy Patty Rehn

Yours truly layered up yet still freezing due to the wind chill. It was cold!

Maybe I should have zipped up?

(I had just unzipped the coat to get out my reading glasses when Patty decided she wanted a photo. I zipped back up shortly thereafter. I'm not that stupid. Keyword "that"; I was out in 20 below wind chills after all.)

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* I was smart enough to have two cameras at the ready. One with a Canon 50 mm lens which was used for the second image. And the other with a Sigma 150-600 mm lens. This lens has a setting which limits the focus distance, narrowing the range the lens needs to seek focus speeding up the process. Quite useful when photographing wildlife. But not so good for focusing at infinity for astronomical subjects. And in the cold and dark it took me a while to figure out why I couldn't focus on the moon. So maybe the qualifier "that" is unwarranted above.

More Wandering

After my hike at Huber Woods I headed to Atlantic Highlands, the town I grew up in, to pick up some library books being held for my dad. Along the way I visited the Mount Mitchell Scenic Overlook.

The dark peninsula is Sandy Hook unit of Gateway National Recreation Area, and that's New York City in the distance.

Mt. Mitchell is the highest point on the coast from Maine to the Yucatan in Mexico. But at 266' above sea level it's not much of "mount" in my opinion (and as it is my blog that's the only opinion which matters).

It is also the site of Monmouth County's 9/11 Memorial, remembering those Monmouth County residents who lost their lives in the terrorist attacks.

Weekend Wanderings ... Huber Woods

I am again spending time at my parent's place while dad recovers from his injury. A solo wanderer thus was I once more. This time Huber Woods was my destination.

The park was established in 1974 with a gift to Monmouth County of 118 (or was it 103?) acres of farm land overlooking the Navesink River, from the family of Hans and Catherine Huber. The park has since grown to 381 acres with additional donations and acquisitions.

My first visit to the park was in 1986 when I set up my telescope in this field and my mom and I observed Halley's Comet. It was not quite so cloudy on that visit.

This time I parked in a new since then section of the park and wandered the trails up to that field.

Unlike previous wanders this time I did see some non-avian wildlife (I saw some birds too).

On the way up was this Eastern Grey Squirrel, one of two I spotted. And on the way back down a White-tailed Deer, to distant for a photo. Not much but I'll take it.

At the top was the building which was the Huber's home and is now the environmental center noted on the sign. It didn't open until ten so I sauntered on by.

All along the trails there was evidence of the property's former life as a working farm.

Old fence posts slowly being reclaimed be mother nature.

And fences not far behind.

The trail or trails I was following led through the woods and though I had a map I was never quite sure exactly where I was.

No matter, I was in no rush and enjoying the morning. And I wasn't the only one as I encountered several other folks also out for a early AM stroll.

But eventually I found myself on a road. Hmmm ... that's wasn't right. Starting up hill I soon spotted the trail down the slope in the woods. Good thing all the leaves were on the ground.

Unlike the prior wanderings, I encountered no water features. And the one barrier was easily detoured around.

There is something about a walk in the woods that settles one's mind and raises one's spirits.

Thank you.

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Local notes: Michael Huber, namesake of the Michael Huber Prairie Warbler Preserve, located five miles from our place, is the son of Hans and Catherine. And Franklin Parker, of Franklin Parker Preserve fame, was Michael's brother in law.

Thanks again.

Yard Critter of the Week - Springtail

Springtail.

Also known as "Snow Fleas".

Here is a real crappy picture of one that I found in our yard. It is right smack dab in the middle of the image below.

When I was out taking pictures of the Needle Ice in the yard I was inadvertently taking pictures of this critter as well. But I didn't notice it at the time. Not until I was looking at the images on my computer, quickly switching between images to compare them, did I notice movement between the images. So I zoomed in.

The image above is a crop of the section with the Springtail. Below are images showing just how small this critter is. It is the same image twice, with the second image having been processed to spotlight the location of the Springtail; it is at the top of the Needle Ice where the right pine needle meets the ice.

Once upon a time, Springtails were considered insects. But this is no longer the case as they have soft bodies, no wings, and internal mouth parts whereas insects have hard bodies, wings, and external mouth parts.

They've been around a long time, the oldest fossil being 400 million years old. Today they are found pretty much everywhere, from the top of Mt Everest to 6500 feet underground in a cave.

It is estimated that in suitable habitat there are 100,000 individuals per square meter. That's a lot.

But they are so small it's no surprise they go unnoticed.

The only time most people notice them is when the are active on snow, the dark bodies contrasting against the white snow. Which is where the "snow flea" moniker originates.

Be sure to check out this gallery, for much better pictures than mine.

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Thanks to Steve Mason and John Maxwell for identifying the type of critter this is. I sent them an email with the subject line, "Impossible Insect ID", which turned out to be both true as Springtails are not insects and false as they both told me what it was.

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You can find all of the Yard Critter posts listed here.