Deer in Bloomfield!

We are in NJ right now to get a VNS implant to help control Sandra's seizures. Got here just in time for the COVID-19 adventure. 

We're staying right next to the Brookdale Christian Church on Broad street in Bloomfield. We saw some deer behind the church the other day. Probably because of the reduced human activity around here.

Early Bird Special

If the sky is clear around 5:30 Wednesday morning, you'll be able to see the moon together with Mars, Saturn and Jupiter.

Here are two images from Stellarium planetarium software.

One shows what it will look like on Bonaire and the other what it will look like in north Jersey. The moon and planets will be higher in the sky on Bonaire.

Thursday Moon and Venus

The Moon has moved up past Venus tonight.

They appear quite striking together in the evening sky.

Moon and Venus, Wed. Feb. 26

Here is what the Moon and Venus looked like Wednesday evening, here on Bonaire. 

Thursday night, the Moon will be a bit to the upper left of Venus. It should look quite nice if the skies are clear.

Moon and Venus

Sandra and I went out Monday evening to look for the teeny tiny Moon, but there was a cloud bank right in front of where the Moon should be. 

We went out Tuesday night and saw the tiny Moon and Venus. 

The Moon will still be below Venus Wednesday night, but closer to Venus than it was on Tuesday. 

The Moon will be even closer to Venus, at the upper left of Venus (as seen on Bonaire anyway) on Thursday evening.

Moon and Planets - Feb. 20

There were lots of clouds this morning, but I got a few chances to see Mars, Jupiter, Saturn and the Moon.

I didn't see the stars of Sagittarius with my naked eye, but they were visible when I was focusing in Live View and in the picture.

Moon and Planets - Feb. 18-20

The Moon and planets are going to be worth looking at this week. On Tuesday morning (Feb. 18) the Moon is quite near Mars. In fact, for places to west of Bonaire, the Moon will pass right in front of Mars while it is still dark out.


If I were to have my telescope out here on Bonaire, which I probably won't, I could probably see the Moon blot out Mars from 09:10 to 09:13 Tuesday morning. Mars would then emerge from the shadowed side of the Moon about an hour later. The timing will most likely be different in other places. 


On Wednesday morning, the Moon will be near Jupiter.


On Thursday morning, the Moon will be near Saturn. If you use the Moon to nail down the location of these three planets this week, you'll be able to follow their progress across the sky all through the spring and summer.


It was cloudy here on Bonaire this morning. I'm hoping for at least one clear morning on Tue, Wed. or Thur. this week!

Green Flash Season

January and February are green flash season here on Bonaire. During one January, back during the last millennium, when we were living on the seaside, we saw a green flash 17 evenings in a row.

The green flash has been putting on a good show this year too. Here is a brief video clip from last night. I thought that I had the camera on manual video mode, but it turns out that it wasn't. So the first part is a bit underexposed and the last part is a bit over exposed. But one can see a good bit of green none the less.

Venus and Neptune Conjunction

The Moon and Venus were a beautiful sight in the western sky this evening. It would have made an awesome picture with the right foreground. I reluctantly gave it a pass. 

 

BECAUSE Venus and Neptune were in conjunction this evening. Neptune was a bit to the lower right of Venus, think 5 o'clock if you are in the States. 

 

Of course, at magnitude 7.9, Neptune is 60,000 times dimmer than -4.1 magnitude Venus! I just barely barely detected Neptune with averted vision in 20x80 binoculars set up on a solid parallelogram mount. Neptune was considerably easier to spot last summer when Bud Gillan and I saw it low in the east from Red Slave.

 

I think the sky wasn't quite as clear tonight, and the glare from Venus wasn't helping. I was too lazy to set up a telescope and was glad to get a glimpse in the binoculars.

 

But, Neptune is easy to see in an image I made with my trusty Nikon P1000 camera. Venus is in the middle. The mag 4.2 star Phi Aquarii is above Venus, and Neptune is below Venus. Phi Aquarii was very easy to spot in the binoculars. :)

 

The other picture is the moon, also shot with the P1000.

 

Starry Starry Saturday Night

The skies were really clear and dark last night. It was the kind of that I would head down south to see the LMC.  But since I got a good picture of that a few years ago, I ventured to a friend's kunuku part way between Kralenkijk and Rincon and looked at the northern and eastern skies.

The views were gorgeous. Here are a few pictures I shot with an 85mm lens. One shows the Pleiades and the California nebula. One shows Cassiopeia, the M shape. And one shows Auriga.

I labeled some of the clusters and nebulae that one can observe with binoculars or a telescope.

You'll want to view them at full size.

Super Skinny Moon

Jan 25.  Sandra and I saw a super skinny teeny tiny Moon tonight. Mercury was to the Moon's lower right and just barely fit within the same binocular field of view as the Moon.

After we located them in the binoculars, we also located them with the naked eye.

Moon, Mars, Antares

It was clear Sunday morning at 6am and we saw the Moon, Mars and Antares.

On Monday morning, the Moon will move down by Mars and Antares.

The Moon, Mars and Antares will be putting on a show for all you early birds this coming weekend.


Red Mars and red-ish Antares will be getting closer and closer together, and then the Moon joins the show on Sunday and Monday mornings.
You should be able to see the changing positions of Mars and Antares each morning by Friday for sure.


Here is a link to an animation that I saw on Space.com


https://cdn.mos.cms.futurecdn.net/kwnYBish4hW5WTewbR9ZqE-650-80.gif?fbclid=IwAR0w69acz3ql-9rc5Bl_ZUyo9Gds9nCWlwXgGaiANlMiT3VlbsB6Nb8V92g

Amazon Smile reminder

If you are ordering any last minute Christmas gifts on Amazon, don't forget that you can use smile.amazon.com to have a percentage of your order cost go to a charity like Trans World Radio.  As of November,  AmazonSmile has contributed $5,726.66 to TWR and over $156 million to all the charities in the program.

Space Station and the Moon

The Moon was five hours from full Wednesday evening, when the International Space Station passed right in front of it, as seen from Bonaire.

Here is a short video - the space station moves from left to right across the middle of the Moon - don't blink!

There is plenty of room for improvement, but at this stage of the game, I'm happy to have captured it at all. The Moon was still pretty low in the sky and the Bonaire winds bounced the camera around quite a bit.

If you can click on it to see it full size, it will be easier to see the space station.

Andromeda Galaxy

I don't think I ever posted this picture before.

It is the M33 galaxy in Andromeda.

I shot it in November, eight years ago!

16x20" Bonaire Canvas Prints

I saw a good sale on canvas prints, so I printed out a few of my Bonaire photos to see how they would come out. They came out quite nicely.  The flamingo one, and the towers and stars one have proven to be the most popular.

Moon, Venus, Mercury and Spica

There was a skinny Moon tonight. If you are on Bonaire, it is gone. If you are to the west of us, you might still get to see it.

Below the Moon, down towards the horizon, was Venus. To the left of the Moon, almost to the out of focus tree branch in the picture, was Mercury, and to the lower left of Mercury was the star Spica.

I can see Venus and Mercury in the thumbnail image, but you'll need to click on to see Spica I think.

Thursday Gotomeer Pano

Friday dawned with some nice wind coming from the "correct" direction. It isn't exactly windy by Bonaire standards, but it feels refreshing. Thursday morning was still pretty calm. Here is a pano I shot at Gotomeer with a real camera, while I was waiting for the sun to come out from behind a ginormous cloud, and light up the flamingos. It looks to me that for Facebook sized images, the phone does just as well as the camera, but I always have big-ish prints in the back of my mind... and then one can see the difference. I did finally shoot a bunch of flamingo pictures, but I haven't looked at them yet.

Flamingo Video from my Bike

I shot this from my bike on Tuesday morning.  You can see my front tire at the end of the clip.