"The Best Laid Plans of Mice and Men"

Sunrise

"The Best Laid Plans of Mice and Men". Now why do I say that? My plan on Tuesday morning was to wake up early and again try to capture images of the comet Ison, however, I set the alarm for quarter of 3 AM but did not turn the alarm on. So, I awoke at 5 AM, quickly got dressed and drove out to Gooseberry. The sky was getting lighter and the brilliant moon didn't help, so no pictures again of the comet. However there were great pictures of the sunrise.

Really, the only bad thing that occurred was that my Nikon D800 started acting up and given the error messages and intermittently would stop auto-focusing. When I got back to the car tried it on a different lens the same thing happened. Oh well, camera off to Nikon for repair. I had bought the camera, when it first was released in the camera has approximately 57,000 shutter activations since then.

The moon illuminating the clouds

Sunrise captured with a 500 mm lens

After pictures of the sunrise, I relaxed and waited from my birding companion Doug to show up and we did our Tuesday morning birding trip. Right in the parking lot at Gooseberry, was our first surprise, a Rusty Blackbird. Despite the brisk wind, birds were flying over. Juncos and songs powers while hopping around feeding. As we slowly walked out toward the tip of Gooseberry, we saw out on the water large groups of White-winged Scoters, Eiders, Common Loons and Horned Grebes. What was interesting was most of the rocks in the water with cormorants usually rest were covered with water or having large waves splash over them. I like the way the water was crashing over the rocks so I made photographs of it happening. The Phragmites were were really blowing in the wind, and since I used 1/1250 second shutter speed I almost completely froze the Phragmites. Near the tip when we went out onto the beach, we did see a small flock of peeps flying and landing back down on the shore. With the spotting scope we were able to identify them as Sanderlings and Dunlins. When we reached the tip, we found a flock of the least 100 or more Sanderlings and Dunlins. I sat down to be low to the ground and started moving slowly toward them, when suddenly they all took off in to a massive flight. Doug told me up a Peregrine falcon passed by and set them off. I got some nice photographs of the birds turning and swirling in the air. They came back down and started resting. On a rock just off the shore were a group of Purple Sandpipers. As I slowly approached them being low to the ground, they suddenly flew from the rock and landed just in front of me. Bingo, more pictures. As we were returning back to the parking lot, we saw a goldfinch on the ground feeding and the goldfinch say just of head of us and company us part of the way back to the parking lot.

Rusty Blackbird

American Goldfinch

Dunlins and Sanderlings resting on the beach

Great Cormorants in Flight

Waves crashing over the rocks in black and white

Waves crashing over the rocks

 

 

 This picture is the same as the black and white picture above it. I learned a new technique yesterday watching a webinar from Topaz. What you do is open the original picture in Lightroom as a Smart object, apply your filters that you want as Smart filters, open Topaz black and white also was a Smart filter and process your adjustments, and then change the blending mode of the filter to luminosity. This gives a great feel to the picture.

Dunlins and Sanderlings in-flight

Phragmites blowing in the wind

A small plant trying to survive

Great Cormorants in Flight

Dunlin and Purple Sandpiper

Ruddy Turnstone

Nighttime Snow Event

The weather forecast for Tuesday evening and night was for snow with accumulations of the 3 to 7 inches depending on your location. When it was all over, only a couple inches fell, due to the storm staying offshore. Reading a weather forecasting blog the reason for this is this was a very small system and did not follow any of the normal computer models.

It did make for some nice photographs. I took a series from my front landing of my condo complex. The first picture shows what apparently is the snow coming down extremely fast and hard, but, this is due to a slow shutter speed. The snow was actually coming down very light and fluffy and there was really no wind.

The next picture is a composite which shows a car going by with its lights as a blur, overlaid with soft snowflakes falling.

Tuesday night, was when looking in the sky Jupiter will be the closest to the moon until 2026. The moon did show through the clouds, but no Jupiter.

The last picture is the peaceful night scene after the snow stopped.

Jupiter and the Moon

Night sky with Jupiter and the Moon

Today January 21, 2013 in event will occur that will not be repeated until the year 2026. The event is Jupiter being the closest to the moon. I would love to photograph it then tonight, however here in southeastern Massachusetts it will be snowing, so the skies will be obscured by clouds. On the 19th, I did go out to Lake Rico and photographed the sky to show Jupiter closing in on the moon.

Night sky with Jupiter and the Moon - Labeled

Sun, Moon, Clouds, and Fog

You never know what a day will bring.  After missing out on the sunset because of heavy fog, I decided to go the next morning to see if I could obtain the sunrise over Buzzards Bay.  Arriving at Gooseberry Neck on the Weston side.  There was still clouds and fog present.  As in the previous blog on the eastern side the black scoters were there and I decided to photograph them.  After I finish photographing the black scoters,  I walked across the parking lot and down onto the beach on the West side.  And behold, there was the Sun's disk in the fog and clouds.  It was like looking at the sun with an appropriate filter.  I utilize my 500 mm lens with the converter that was on it to obtain this image.  There are 2 spots on the sun's disk that I was wondering if they were sunspots, since these spots did not show up on any other picture that I obtained with the lens.

Behind me, the sky cleared and the Moon was present along with some clouds.

I change from my long lens to wide-angle lens to show the clouds and fog that was still present in the area.
looking toward East Beach in Westport

Across Buzzards Bay

The Sky at the Stone Barn

I spent another interesting evening at the Stone Barn property of Allens Pond Massachusetts Audubon Sanctuary in the company of my son and grandson, who are both photographers (my grandson is learning) photographing the nights sky.  Leaving home to travel out to Westport/Dartmouth, the sky had become very cloudy and overcast, however, arriving in Westport, there were only occasional clouds around.  An interesting fact is that driving down the road, prior to turning into the road leading to the Stone Barn, we were in Westport, Massachusetts, and once we got onto the road leading to the barn, we were in Dartmouth, Massachusetts.

Gibbous Moon

my son observing the sky, and Venus



Venus surrounded by clouds

 

the sky at nautical dusk



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The s

Orion and Venus

Venus in the Pleiades

We arrived just after sunset and in the sky was a large waxing gibbous Moon (the full Moon will be in 2 days) that was lighting up the sky. By the wayhe Moon light the buildings and scenery so I did not have light paint.

In the Western sky, Venus was brightly shining, but there was a bank of clouds coming in out of the Northwest.  The clouds gave an interesting affect to the sky, especially during nautical dusk and the clouds intermittently covered Venus and the Moon.  The clouds continued to rule intermittently through the area, however, we still had extremely great views of the sky, the stars and constellations.

Big Dipper and Polaris above the Stone Barn

Star Trails

I would have liked to spend at least an hour, killing start trails, but because of some time constraints and the bright moon, I was only able to do a 20 min. exposure of the Big Dipper and Polaris over the top of the Stone Barn
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Allens Pond, Venus, Pleiades, and the Moon

25 second picture with Venus showing through the moving clouds

My plans were to go and photograph Venus and it's conjunction with the Pleiades, on the evening of April 3, since this is when Venus will be in the middle of the Pleiades.  My grandson, who was going to go with me, was over, his uncle's house doing some work for him, so, I plan to pick him up and travel out to Allens Pond Massachusetts Audubon Sanctuary, where we were going to do our photography.  When I left the house, the skies were absolutely clear with no clouds in the sky.  We ate supper at my son's house and when we went to leave and looked at the sky, it was full of clouds.  We still decided to go out to Westport/Dartmouth to observe if there was any possibility of photographing the event that was occurring in the sky.
At the field station, there was intermittent clouds, and Venus was visible when the clouds were thin.

Field Sation and  Venus

Venus Pleiades taken at the Stone Barn

The sky did clear and we took some photographs at the field station, and then left to photograph at the Stone Barn.  The sky did clear for some periods of time and did allow the capture of the event that we wanted.

Moon and clouds over the Stone Barn

The Moon, which is in the waxing gibbous stage (the full Moon will be April 6) was in the clouds and gave the Stone Barn, a ghostly appearance.

Waxing Gibbous Moon and Clouds

This is a stitched sequence of three photographs of the moon with the clouds as they moved over it.
If tonight is clear, I probably will go back out and take more photographs of this event, which only occurs around every 8 years.

Great Cormorant - A Composite Picture



Original



One of the pictures that I took the other day when I was at 3rd beach in Middletown, Rhode Island, was of a Great Cormorant flying. However, the picture by itself, although we gave a good look at the Cormorant was basically uninteresting.  Therefore, taking my artistic license.  I adjusted.  First, the picture of the Cormorant, and then inserted it into a picture I had of the moon with a blue sky.  I ended up with a much more pleasing picture.  Of course, when I show this picture, I do tell that it is a composite.  In my old days, doing black and white pictures in the darkroom, I also would make a composite.  Just because I take photographs does not make me any less of an artist, and when I adjust the picture, I add my personal likes on how the picture on how it looked to me.

Here are the steps that I used to create the final picture.

in LIghtroom

I opened the picture in Lightroom and adjusted it to give me the look I wanted of the Cormorant.

After levels adjustment

I then crop the picture, took the  picture into Photoshop and performed a  levels adjustment  to give me a pure white background.


Photoshop

 Then I selected the magic wand and selected the background and put it on its own layer and then put the Cormorant on its own layer

I then opened the picture I had of the moon that I had in light room and opened it in Photoshop , floated both images, then, utilizing the move tool, moved just the layer with the Cormorant in it onto the moon picture and adjusted it to where I wanted to place it.  Then saved the composite picture..
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Moon Workshop

This blog is a report on the moon workshop.  It was supposed to be held on Wednesday, February 8, however, that night, the sky was completely overcast with heavy cloud cover and the moon was not at all visible.  However, the group still got together at Allens Pond Massachusetts Audubon Sanctuary Field Station for a presentation on Moon photography and had a discussion on how to set up the cameras, and other topics pertaining to photography.  The weather forecast for Thursday, February 9 was for clear skies and I set a meeting time was 7 PM on Gooseberry in the parking lot.  The reason for this is that the moonrise was scheduled for 7:39 PM (according to my Sundroid app on my android phone).  This would give us plenty of time to have the cameras set up and be ready for the moonrise.

Getting Equipment Ready

Happy Group on the Beach Photographing

After meeting in the parking lot, attaching the cameras to a tripods.  We walked down onto the beach, utilizing headlamps and flashlights so we would not fall and set a tripods with the cameras pointing at the direction where the moon would rise.  That information, I also obtain from my Sundroid app.

My Star Photo

As the moon rose and everybody obtain their first picture, I had them check their histogram and make corrections to their exposure.  I spent most of my time helping the participants.  I did utilize my camera and nice shot lens to do some star photography, since I was using thirty second exposures, and after I push the shutter.  I could go continue to help the participants.

One of the Participents Moon Photo

Composite Photo

After everybody obtain what they felt was more than enough pictures, we packed up and return to the field station for hot chocolate and to view some of the pictures  that were obtained on my laptop. I also demonstrated on how to make a composite panoramic type of picture.

Moon and Light Reflection on the Water

Everyone had a great time in the workshop, and they all felt it was a success.
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