Jupiter, Saturn and Venus are aligned with the moon close by, but not quite inline. While I was waiting for it to get dark enough for Saturn to show up clearly, I almost lost Venus in the trees.
Aligned
Category: Night
Venus in Purple Sky
Venus in focus through blurry tree (Bazooka). Mia’s Tree with Venus (iPhone 13 Pro). Tree in focus with Venus in the background (Bazooka).
Jupiter with three moons shot with the Bazooka. Moon shot with iPhone 13 Pro. Moon blasted by the Bazooka.
I traded in my iPhone 12 Mini for an iPhone 13 Pro. I decided I wanted the camera with the LiDAR scanner†. As you can see from the two moonshots, the iPhone has a long way to go before it can compete with the Bazooka, but I’m really impressed that I was able to control the exposure well enough to get as much detail as I did shooting a bright moon at 15x zoom†† on the iPhone. I had to lock the focus on the moon while I adjusted the exposure because the moon was jumping all over the screen with the slightest movement at 15x zoom.
Here’s the kicker, since I got a decent discount on the iPhone 12 Mini when I bought it, between Apple’s trade in allowance and T-moble’s trade in allowance, I got $75 more in trade-in value than I paid for the iPhone 12 Mini. The iPhone 13 Pro is larger than the iPhone 12 Mini, but I think it will be worth the larger size for the camera upgrade.
†The Wiki article on LiDAR states LiDAR scanners are available on the iPhone 12. That is not true. It’s only available on the iPhone 13 Pro, currently.
††15x Zoom on the iPhone Pro 13 Pro is equivalent to 390 mm. The Bazooka on the Canon 7D Mark II body is equivalent to 640 mm.
Plane Abstracts
Intermission: Jupiter with three moons
Cloud Shapes Before Harvest Moon
The Harvest Moon might have had something, maybe everything, to do with it, but the clouds were wild while I was waiting for the moon to rise on Monday night.
Blue Moon Blue
An August blue moon rose orange. Turned blue above the clouds.
Blue rose for breakfast. A thawed, well heated, frozen rat.
All Day And All Night Through
I am super excited about this collaboration between Resa at Graffiti Lux Art & More and ArtGowns, and me. Resa mentioned that the construction project to replace the 130 year old sewer lines that run under the street in front of where she lives in the old area of Toronto, Canada goes on “all day and all the night through!” I told her that would make a good parody. Resa wrote the parody lyrics to go to All Day And All Of The Night by The Kinks. I go the music and recorded the first round with my vocals. I sent the music to Resa and asked her to try singing her parody. When she sent me the audio file of her vocals, I was like “Wow!” she sounded super good. I mixed her vocals in with the music, Resa sent me video clips and photos of the construction from her window, and I put the parody music video together. Laurie was reviewing the video and she thought there needed to be more desperation in the chorus, and asked if I could add construction sounds to the chorus. I pulled the scraping sounds off a backhoe video and added snippets of the scrapping and clanking to the chorus and solo. That was enough to give a better sense of desperation to the parody.
When Resa first told me about the construction I really felt sorry for her. When we lived in Madrid, Spain, the city constructed a new Metro stop about 100 feet from the apartment building we lived in. The construction noise went on 24/7 for a year. It was horrible. However, we were not in lock down, and so it was easy for us to simply go to parks, museums, and bars to get away from the noise. Toronto is still locked down with stay at home orders, so Resa cannot simply say the heck with it, go out and get away from it all. She can go on walks, but she is very limited in her activity under the lock down orders.
ALL DAY AND ALL NIGHT THROUGH
By Resa McConaghy
Oh they have got loud work to do in the day time
Evac, jack hammers and backhoes too, all the night through
There is no time nowhere to hide losing my mind too
It’s cruel they pound and crash then roar all of the time
All day and all night through
All day and all night through
All day and all night through
I believe this crazy work will always be there
Oh yeah all day and night time through – PTSD
There is no time nowhere to hide losing my mind
Evac, jack hammers and backhoes too, not a good time
All day and all night through
All day and all night through
Oh go away
I just know that they will be here forever
Oh yeah all day and night time through, fixing the sewer
There is no time nowhere to hide losing my mind
Oh they have got loud work to do in the day time
All day and all night through
All day and all night through
All day and all night through
Super Flower Blood Moon
3:00 am 
3:30 am 
4:00 am 
4:30 am 
All of the blood moon photos were shot between 4:30 am and 5:04 am. I changed my exposure allowing the non-eclipsed portion of the moon to washout. When there is no cloud cover it easier to keep the non-eclipsed portions of the moon from washing out. The bright parts of the moon cast a glow off of the thin cloud cover that turned into heavier clouds as the moon sank toward the horizon. After the moon slipped behind the tree I walked up the road to where I could barely see the white sliver of the moon through the haze. After that it disappeared. The full eclipse was at 5:18 am, but it had slipped behind the clouds and out of sight.
More flowers and roses for the Super Flower Blood Moon.
All three owlets have flown into the bosque. They are near the Tangle Heart Tree. Can you find them in the above photo? I’m not sure you can see Mona Lisa from the photo. I believe she is blocked by a branch. This is a higher resolution image than I normally upload, so you can click on it to see the full image and enlarge the image to help find the owlets.
A super-wide view of the area the owlets are in with the Tangle Heart Tree on the right.
Contrails when I got home.
Wild sky of the Sandias and Rio Grande.
More wild skies. The last shot was sunset tonight.
Water & Roses
Finally got some more water to irrigate. Many of our roses and iris will be very happy.
Tuscan Sun
Canada Rose for Resa, Dale, Rebecca and Gigi
Major Tom Peepers, Sleepy and Mona Lisa
Mona Lisa, inspired by Tabatha Towhee’s performance the other day, tries doing a little Owlet Opera singing.
Mona Lisa hitting the high notes. She was a real hoot.
Mona Lisa bowed and thanked everyone.
Falstaff
Double Delight doubly delighted by back lighting from the sun.
Betty Boop
Cherry Parfait
Sliver Moon
Pre-sunset
Bazooka’s First Bats
As the dusk turned to darkness, bats fluttered around, buzzing by me with their quick, erratic flight patterns. I tried my best to focus on their silhouettes and capture their erratic movements. These are the results of Bazooka’s (my large 400mm lens) first bats.
Bazooka’s first squirrel.
Bazooka’s first Night Heron at night.
The Night Heron at night brought to light.
Two Firsts and a Wet Skunk
I got water for my first irrigation tonight. It’s so dry the land soaks up the water for a long time before it keeps flowing. Furthermore, the water level in the acequia madre keeps fluctuating, which changes the water pressure. Between bone dry land and changing water pressure, it’s going to take a long time to get everything watered tonight. I may not get everything watered tonight.
That little fuzzy head in the darkness is Mama Owl’s and Daddy Owl’s new owlet sticking its head up for the first time to say “Hello world!” I was talking to Jim between calling the owlet and taking photos, and Jim asked “Why don’t they stick their heads up when it’s light?” I told him that owls like darkness.
Mama Owl and Daddy Owl in a cottonwood in the bosque looking for Junior’s dinner.
If anyone has suggestions for names for Junior, I’m open.
“¡Hola Mundo!”
The left fork in the Y in my irrigation ditch flows through a culvert where Scrappy Skunk was sleeping. Poor Scrappy was rudely awakened by the water and he came out one end of the pipe but got offended that I was videotaping him. He crawled back in the culvert, came out the other side, went back in, and stayed in the culvert until the water got too high and finally forced him out. He was an embarrassed wet skunk when he finally climbed out of the ditch and ran off. You can watch Scrappy Skunk in all his wet glory in the video below.
Tonight’s flowers, bunny and moon follow.
Beatrice Bunny
Off Center & Not Even 