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February 2, 2012

An Oddly Flat Sea

A 30 second exposure of the beach yeilded this last night. There were little waves, and the several broke during the exposure making the ocean look really weird.

This photo is looking towards Orion. It is really neat how over the course of the year the stars move around in the sky so much. I remember just a few months ago, Orion would just be rising at 9 or 10 o'clock. Now it is up when the sun goes down. 

It is no small wonder that the "march of the heavens" so captivated the ancients. Their slow progress through the sky is somewhat comforting.

Last night down at the observatory we took our first look at Mars. It is not a particularly interesting thing to look at. It is just a small reddish dot, but it is still pretty cool.

As we speak there is a new rover on its way to the red planet. Curiosity will land in August. There is a link to the mission page in the links section. 

I was thinking about this last night. Even in my memory it is incredible how far our understanding of Mars has come. I remember when Spirit and Opportunity landed 7 and a half years ago, how amazing it was. Their 3 month planned mission was historic. Now, pictures of the martian surface are commonplace and easily recognizable by just about anyone, and still one of those rovers is still trucking away soon to be joined by Curiosity. Pretty cool if you ask me. Anyways, this picture doesn't even have Mars in it, so I don't know how I got talking about this. Tonight I am going to go out to capture an Iridium Flare. I got one last night, but it was just a little wimpy one, and it peaked right in between two exposures. The one I am going to try to get tonight is going to be about as bright as a crescent moon when it peaks...should be good!

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