Sunset Video

Here is a two minute clip of the sun setting over the ocean.  There is a teeny tiny green flash at the end.  It looks best at 1080P and full screen.

Sunset - Moonrise

 

Sandra and I journeyed  to the southernmost point of Bonaire Monday evening to watch the Sun set and the Moon rise within a few minutes of each other. 

 

Here are a some shots of the sunset.

 

Sunset - Moonrise II

The Sun set around 18:41 and the Moon rose at 18:44 on Monday evening.

Sandra and I went out to Red Slave to enjoy the show.  We both were also capturing the scene with cameras.

Here are a few pictures of the Moonrise by the Willemstoren lighthouse.

 

Sunset Through a Telescope

Tyler and Tim were at the TWR transmitter site again last night. They are working on a super duper sunset time lapse. I got them situated and then drove over to the Sorobon road and shot a picture of the sun setting behind a tower as seen through a Mead ETX 90 telescope. According to Google Maps, i was 1.28 miles from the tower. (2.07 km)

 

That green rim at the top of the sun is not chromatic aberration from the lens, because a mirror telescope doesn't produce chromatic aberration. The green rim at the top and red rim at the bottom is the atmosphere acting like a prism and refracting the sunlight. This is basically where the green flash comes from. The green part of the Sun's image sets last.

 

Evening at the TWR Bonaire TX Site

 

 

I was out at the TWR Bonaire transmitter site last night to check out the sunset.

Tyler Gates, from the TWR office in NC is here shooting video and hoping to get a sunset time lapse at the transmitter site. So was hanging out there too.

I came up with a crummy time lapse, but got a couple interesting photos.

One of the sun setting right next to a tower, and one of the moonlit scene after it got fully dark.

Aerial Views of Bonaire 2016

Back around 2006, before there were affordable drones, I had a wonderful time flying around the island  in the flying club's plane with TWR missionary Ernie Franke, and shooting a bunch of pictures from the air.  You can find some of the shots on the blog.

Then in 2013, Susan Davis, at InfoBonaire, alerted me to some new aerial views of Bonaire.  These images were actually serving as an innovative advertising tool, but I loved seeing Bonaire from the unique aerial perspectives.  You can see our house on the right side of the Hato-North image, for example.

Recently, Paul Donahue, the man behind the Aerial Views of Bonaire visited us at the TWR office.  He shared how he came up with the concept and tested it in his home stomping grounds on the Gulf Coast of Florida.  Back before the Internet, these aerial views were printed on big posters and displayed around town, so to speak.  His business, Resort Graphics International, has really taken off since then (yes that's a pun) with great aerial imagery of quite a number of resort areas around Florida and the Caribbean.

Besides providing a unique advertising portal for a limited number of paying customers, Paul also donates some links on the Aerial Views maps to non-profit organizations.  So if you browse through the Bonaire images, for example, you'll see the Donkey Sanctuary and Trans World Radio identified.
So thank you very much Paul Donahue, for creating these cool aerial views, and for your generous heart as well.

Be sure to check out these awesome aerial images of Bonaire.

Orion Nebulae

I shot a couple pictures of the constellation Orion the other night.  It wasn't as clear as the night I got the LMC pictures, but it was still pretty good.  Seeing these images has me wanting to get back out and try to frame the constellation better.  I took four 3 minute exposures and combined them into a panorama in Lightroom.

I drew some lines on the wide field shot so you can see the outline of Orion, the belt and the sword.  Betelgeuse is the orange star on the left side and Rigel is the blue white star on the right side.  All the red stuff swooping around the scene is nebulosity.  It is known as the Orion molecular cloud complex.
For the second image, I cropped in to the sword and belt area so you can see more detail, like the flame nebula, the horsehead nebula, the running man nebula, and M42 the Orion Nebula.

If I don't get back out to image Orion again this year, due to haze, the waxing moon, etc.  I'll probably have another go at processing these shots.  I usually come back to them after some time ahs passed and try different techniques.

Another TWR360 Update

We're starting to promote www.TWR360.org heavily on the air, here at TWR Bonaire. An all new and improved version of TWR360 will be rolling out in two stages later this month. Check it out now and come back later to see the changes.

There is audio and video in 42 languages online now. There is a twr360 app for your phone too.

TWR360 received a record number of visitors in January, 639,524 to be exact, from 224 Countries and Territories.

There was a new one day record of 21,568 visitors on January 26.

Brazil again lead the way in visits from Web browsers. The rest of the top 10 countries, in descending order, are: Russia, the USA, India, Kenya, Vietnam, Indonesia, the Ukraine, the Netherlands and Mexico.

The USA lead the way last month, among visitors using Android and iOS Apps to visit TWR360. The rest of the top 10 countries connecting by apps include: India, Mexico, Colombia, Brazil, Peru, Venezuela, the Netherlands, Argentina, and the United Kingdom.

Large Magellanic Cloud

I haven't seen the Large Magellanic Cloud, a nearby galaxy, since 2010.  But I've been hankering to try to get a better picture of it, with some foreground objects in there for scale.

 

The night sky looked pretty clear tonight, so I zoomed out to Red Slave to see if I could get a shot. The LMC is only about 6 or 7 degrees above the horizon at its highest, so the sky has to be very clear to be able to see it.

 

There was some light haze, but I was lucky enough to get a couple shots when the LMC was located in a hole in the haze. This is a three minute exposure with a 85mm lens working at f2 and ISO 800.

 

 

Three Moons over Bonaire

I went outside with the dog around 10 pm for his final pee and saw the Moon real near Jupiter. It was quite striking.

 

You can use the Moon to identify all the major planets over the next week or so.

 

The moon will be near Mars on Feb. 1. It will be near Saturn on Feb. 3 and it will make an equilateral triangle with Venus and Mercury on Feb.5.

 

 

 

I shot a picture of the moon and Jupiter and when I zoomed into the shot, lo and behold I could see two of Jupiter's moons! So the close-up picture below shows three moons in total. whoo - whoo 

You'll need to click on these images to see the larger versions I think.

 

I am regularly amazed at what a camera can capture with a normal lens, 85mm in this case.

Full Moon Rising

The Moon was only three hours from being completely full when it came up this evening at 6:20 pm. The Sun set at 6:30, so they were sitting on opposite horizons at the same time.

It was quite windy and there were still eight kite sailors out on the water at sunset.

Here is what the moon looked like a little later on as I continued around the south end of Bonaire.

Wednesday Sunset

We've been watching the moon grow in size since Monday evening.  It is still a nice crescent shape, but is much higher in the sky already.

The sunset was nice this evening, not super bright, but there was color of some sort around the entire 360 degrees of the horizon.

You can see the moon in the full size version of the picture.

Comet Catalina

The Moon was right next to Venus Monday morning.  In fact, the farther west you live, compared to Bonaire, the closer the Moon will be to Venus.  The Moon will pass right in front of Venus around mid day as seen from the west coast of the USA.  You can read all about it here.

Comet Catalina is lurking nearby too.  These shots show the Moon, Venus and Comet Catalina.  The comet is a faint greenish fuzz.  You'll probably need to click on the thumbnails to see the full size images.  The upper image is a one second exposure.  The low image is a two second exposure.

Animal Shelter Annual Christmas Sale

The Bonaire Animal Shelter, or Dierenasiel, had its annual December sale and flea market this past Sunday.  There was music, food, and many bargains to be found; but funny enough, I didn't see any fleas.
Good thing Sandra wasn't with me or we probably would have come home with a puppy!

Reception Reports from Far Off Lands

We received a reception report from a listener in Finland early last month.  He heard the Spanish language program, Mujeres de Esperanza, and sent us an mp3 recording of Annabel doing a Station ID at 1 am, Bonaire time.

Later in November we received a report from Jose, in Garciasville, Texas.  He heard La Voz Alegre at 9 pm, Bonaire time.

Here is a look at the post card Per-Ole sent us from Finland.

TWR on the World Wide Web

Here is the latest news from TWR's online media portal.  There is audio and video from 108 ministries, in 41 languages on TWR360.  Be sure to check it out today.

TWR360 received a record number of visitors in October, 563.069 to be exact, from 221 Countries and Territories.  October 27 set a new one day record of 19,603 visitors to TWR360.

Brazil lead the way in sessions from Web browsers in October.  The rest of the top 10 countries, in descending order, include:  USA, India, Indonesia, Vietnam, Kenya, Russia, Colombia, South Korea, and the Netherlands.

The USA lead the way last month, among visitors using Apps to visit TWR360.  The rest of the top 10 countries connecting by Apps include:  India, Colombia, Mexico, Peru, Brazil, The Dominican Republic, Argentina, Singapore, and Japan.

projector mount bracket

I recently installed a video projector (known as a "beamer" here, not to be confused with a Beemer, which is a car) at our church here on Bonaire.  It is on a pretty long post hanging down from the roof beams.  It is pretty stable, considering how windy it can be here.
Here is a shot of the bracket the attached to the roof beam. (there is a story behind this seeming random post)

Moon, Venus and Mars with Foreground

Here is what the moon and planets looked like this morning.

Jupiter was up quite a bit higher, so I cropped it out of the picture, which was looking too tall and skinny for posting online.

Mars is to the upper left of the Moon and Venus is to the lower left of the moon.

You'll probably need to look at the full size image to see Mars.

Saturday Morning Moon and Planets

The Moon, Venus, Mars and Jupiter looked great in the pre-dawn skies this morning.  Here is a shot that shows them all, and one that shows just Mars, Venus and the Moon.

Jupiter is pretty far to the upper left of the Moon and the other two planets. Better click on the thumbnails to see the full images.

I hope to have another picture later today.  A dawn bike ride is calling my name right now.

Planets on the Move Oct. 17-26

This picture represents much loss of sleep in the interests of science.  ha-ha.
We see Venus, Jupiter and Mars changing position between Saturday, October 17 and Monday, October 26.
Venus is at the top of the image and slowly moves down (to the East) day by day.
Jupiter starts out just below Mars and moves slightly up (West)  Actually, Jupiter doesn't move very much at all with respect to the fixed background stars.
Mars starts out just above Jupiter and slowly drops down (East).
You can't see the background stars in this composite image, but I used them to make sure that each frame was registered correctly relative to the other frames.  So the changing positions of the planets are real.  Venus and Mars really were moving eastward relative to Jupiter and the background stars, which made Jupiter look like it was moving up from Mars to Venus.
Venus will be down by Mars by the end of this week.
I'm not sure how well the planets will show up on a Web browser, but if figure it is worth a try.  The image is 1920 pixels wide, so if you have a 1920x1080 monitor, and click on this thumbnail, you might be in luck.  I'll have a look with a few different computers to get an idea of how this is working.