Milky Way panorama

Did some stargazing the other night. It was the first clear, moonless night in months. I shot about 600 pictures from 8pm to 9:30. This panorama is made from two rows of images. Four frames on the first row and five frames on the second row. Each of those nine frames consists of nine stacked images-to cut down on the grain. So about 81 shots in all. It would print out two feet by three feet at 240 dpi. I have another batch of 500 or so frames that i hope to combine into a larger panorama.

A Tale of Two Airports

I flew to the States a few weeks ago for some meetings.  Flamingo Airport was busy busy busy, with United-Newark, Delta-Atlanta and American Airlines-Miami planes all there at the same time. United and Delta fly on weekends.  American has some midweek flights too.

Then the sky was super clear when I got to New Jersey.  Here is what I saw looking over at Manhattan as we approached Newark's Liberty Airport.

 

Good Friday in the Park

Washington Park opened at 6am today, instead of the usual 8am. I took advantage of that to do some cycling in the park without getting cooked by the Sun.

I used to ride in the park every Saturday, but these days, I'm close to finishing my long Saturday ride about the time that the park opens.

March 20 Super Moon

We were out with the dog last night while the full moon was still low in the sky. 

It was a super moon, but I have never noticed any difference visually. 

We love it when there are popcorn clouds and a bright moon.

Scattered Showers = Scattered Kibrahachas

We had some brief, localized, but heavy rain showers last week.

As a result, a few Kibrahacha trees in the Sabadeco area have popped.

I shot these pix around sunset, and then shot the sun sinking into the haze while on my way home.

The Birds

It looks like these guys are rehearsing for an Alfred Hitchcock movie!

We're having early morning showers these days, so they seem to like to fluff out and catch some rays once the sun comes up.

Morning Moon and Planets

The Moon was between Venus and Saturn this morning. They were well placed over the TWR mural around 6am.

Mercury is Visible this Week

Mercury is visible in the West after sunset these days. We were fortunate to have a couple clear evening skies this week and Sandra and I got to see Mercury on Wed. and Thur. evenings. There is a limited window of opportunity between when it becomes dark enough to see Mercury and when Mercury sets. 

Here is a picture from my phone. I boosted Mercury's visibility in Lightroom a bit to better approximate what it looked like to our eyes Wednesday evening.

Thursday Planets and Moon, Feb. 28

From lower left to upper right, one could see Venus, Saturn, the Moon and Jupiter all in a line this morning.

By the way, on my computer screen at least, the Teapot asterism of Sagittarius is clearly visible directly below the Moon. Can you see it?

More Windy Side Waves

Here are the last of my shots of the windy, wavy east side of Bonaire, from a week ago.

Check out the big hunks of coral that were broken off and kicked up on the shore by hurricane Ivan back in 2004.

(more about Ivan on blog post from Oct. 13, 2004)

More Waves

Here are some more crashing waves images, this time from the South edge of Lagoen.


I'll probably wait a bit to decide which ones to print.

Live Valentines Day Show

The Muhe de Speransa (Women of Hope) team here on Bonaire did a live Valentines Day special yesterday evening on the Voice of Hope, 89.5FM.

Here are a few photos from the event.

The Valentines Day program is now available on TWR360 in the Muhe di Speransa section.

(I have the TWR360 app on both my Android and iOS cell phones. It comes up in Papiamentu, since it can tell I'm on Bonaire - or something like that)

 

 

Washikemba Waves

It has been pretty windy this week, so I headed out to the Washikemba area to check out the wave action. 

I kept a plastic bag over the camera except for when I was actually taking a picture. I managed to get quite a few pictures of the inside of the bag!

Mars Points the Way To Uranus

Back on December 8, Mars was close to Neptune, but Neptune was still pretty hard to spot.

Well, during the next couple evenings, Mars is passing by Uranus. Uranus is easy to spot in binoculars, compared to Neptune, even with the Moon hanging out nearby.  Sandra and I spotted Uranus Saturday evening, no problem. 

On Sunday evening, the crescent moon is near Mars. Mars is to the north of the Moon, or to the Moon's right, if you are looking west. Once you use the Moon to find Mars, you can use your binoculars aimed at Mars to spot Uranus.

I've taken screen shots from the free software Stellarium, (highly recommended) that show where Mars is compared to Uranus, on Sunday through Wednesday evenings. The bright star to the left of Mars is easy to spot, as is the right triangle that Uranus is part of.  You won't see the dimmer stars shown on these screen shots, especially with the Moon nearby.

Uranus doesn't move with respect to the Stars, but the Moon is zooming Eastward from night to night, with respect to the stars, and Uranus.

Sandra and the Super Bowl

Sandra sports her noise cancelling headphones, while reading her Kindle.

I know it was a low scoring game, but !!!!

You call THAT a drill?

       THIS is a drill!

Friday Morning

Hi, its 05:30 here on Bonaire. The picture is what the Moon, Venus and Jupiter looked like at 05:00! 

I'm in the studio getting ready for a live Spanish Despertar RTM. We'll have Gabriel from Venezuela, Annabel from Chicago, and Jehiel from the Dominican Republic. I'll be playing the songs and short features from here in the studio. 

We'll be on Facebook live from 6am to 7am, Bonaire time. 5 to 6 EST. The facebook page is Twr-Bonaire.