A Meteor Drizzle

It was a brisk 20- or 30-something last night when I got home from a small Christmas Party at the house of one of our board members at work.  I was more concerned about getting home in time to let the dog out before he made a mess indoors, than I was about paying attention to the sky.

When I walked in the door, Toby rushed downstairs as if to say "at last!" and danced around, eager to get out to relieve himself.  It was nearly 9 PM, after all, and I'd been gone over 12 hours.  He peed, then ate, and we went for our walk.

What a beautiful night.  The sky was dark (no moon), despite all the light pollution (neighbors and neighboring cities), and Orion and Saturn were bright up above.

 In the image above, you see Orion in the center, 

with Sirius (really bright blue star at the bottom) 

just coming over the horizon.

Saturn is just out of range off the top of the photo.

As we made the loop back toward the house, I saw not one, but two meteors streak across the sky out of Orion's feet.  A few minutes later, a third streak rushed across the sky.  Rumor had it that we might see up to 60 meteors this night, so I figured a little night time photography was ahead of me.

We got home and I dug out the camera, tripod, and remote cable release.  I got things assembled and we went out into the back yard, where the worst of the neighbors' lights were blocked by the house.  I set up the tripod and started shooting - leaving the shutter open for 5-20 second intervals (playing around with the ISO), hoping a meteor would streak across the sky while it was open.  Five or six did, but as bright as two or three of them were, the camera didn't register most of them.

Here's the one shot that worked:

Unenhanced image

Same image, lightened so the streak(s) show up.

Tonight's meteor shower, or drizzle, as it turned out for me, had two possible origins.  The first was the Geminid Meteor Showers.  I did a little research on these, and it turns out that they are a fairly new occurrence in our skies.  Most of our meteor showers have been around for hundreds, if not thousands of years, but the Geminids only appeared in our skies about 150 years ago.  They occur when our planet passes through the orbit of an asteroid we call 3200 Phaethon.  The meteors are bits of debris (some no bigger than a grain of sand) burning up as they pass through our atmosphere.

The other potential source, new this year only, is the tail of debris cast off by the comet 45P/Wirtanen.  Apparently Earth is passing through this tail at approximately the same time it's going through the asteroid's orbit.  So, in theory, there could be two meteor showers happening at the same time!

Now, I was out there about 10:00-11:00 PM (-ish).  The experts were saying that the best show (the most meteors) would be between midnight and 3:00 AM.  Well, I didn't think I was going to be awake at that time, but lo! and behold! I was.  It was about 12:30 when I grabbed the camera set-up again and headed back into the yard, thoroughly bundled up (standing still for an hour or so in a frosty yard at midnight in December is a chilly prospect).  I positioned the tripod where the other neighbor's light was mostly blocked and looked up at the sky.  Where were all the stars?  It seemed a high fog had moved in, rendering the view unusable.  What few stars I could see were all hazy and blurry.  No good.  The good news, though, was that I could go back inside and get some sleep knowing I probably wasn't going to miss much.

A Day of Adventure!

The word was out last week, and by Saturday, a plan was set to meet by 8:30 AM Monday at a car pool site north of 94.  Ten of us showed up, passports in hand, and off we went to Canada.  The sun was out and it was going to be a beautiful day.

In less than wo hours or so after we left, we were nearing The Site, as evidenced by cars parked along the roadside and people lining the the shoulder.

What in the world were we there for?  Can you see it below?  In front of the people?

It was a great grey owl.   This bird had flown down from way up north in search of food and had been hanging around for a few days.  So here it was, trying to find something to eat, and all these people were lined up literally within spitting distance of it to take its picture.

I confess, I was one of the perpetrators - but at least this time I had the right lens for my camera (the last time I went in search of a great grey, up in Montreal, I got to the site and was getting my gear ready only to discover I had brought my macro lens instead of the zoom).

This bird, however, was really quite focused on trying to find food.  It sat there very patiently, turning its head this way and that, using that marvelous facial disc to listen for the rustle of any small mammal in the dry leaves on the ground.  The constant clicking and beeping of upwards of 30 or 40 cameras seemed to be of little concern.

Great greys are probably my most favorite of the owls.  Saw-whets are cute, but there's just something majestic about this bird, the tallest of the North American owls (snowy owls are the heaviest). Normally a denizen of the far northern forests, where it is often called the ghost bird, the great grey hunts in the deep silence far from the bustle and noise of civilization.  When food becomes scarce, however, it heads southward in search of better hunting grounds.  Small mammals make up the majority of its diet.


We got to watch some good behaviors, including a little grooming:

And for those who prefer action shots, here's a video of the bird taking care of an itch (I didn't have my tripod - who knew there'd be video opportunities - so be warned, it's a bit jumpy).

Finally, after what must've been a half hour or more, the bird started to take exception to our presence.

He flew down the road maybe a hundred feet or so and landed.  The herd followed.

Again he took off.

A fence post across the road was a good perch...

but the paparazzi followed again, so he crouched...

...and launched.  This time he went where we could not follow:  into a thicket behind a wire fence.  At last - some peace to hunt.  Notice the really large feet.  They are covered with feathers, which help this northern bird stay warm in normally subzero temperatures.

Next on our agenda was stopping by the ferry station along Lake Erie.

Our goal at the lake was to search for gulls.  At the first stop gulls were few and far between.

So we headed off for our next stop:  The Onion Fields.  This area of very flat land was (and still is being) drained so the original settlers could access the very rich wetland soils.  The resulting mucklands were used for growing onions.  The fields didn't look terribly oniony when we were there, but it was for onions that we had come - we were looking for snowy owls.  Luck was with us, we found two!  Do you see it below?  It's that tiny white dot slightly up and to the left of the center of the photograph.

Here's the cropped image - the bird is just above and right of center:

I'm afraid that's as good as it gets with the snowy.  Unlike the great grey, which sat right along the roadside, the snowies were smack dab in the middle of these large fields that were surrounded by deep ditches.

After a quick bite to eat, we dashed back to another ferry landing, just in case some gulls or other interesting shorebirds showed up.  By now the wind had picked up quite and we had a bit of a surf rolling in.

This didn't seem to deter the birds too much, for we watched a flotilla of Canada geese bob along unconcerned, and a raft of golden eyes were also floating nearby.  We saw a couple redheaded ducks, too, but the big find along the shore was a greater black-backed gull.

By now the clouds were rolling in and it was time to head back to The States.  On our way across the border, we had a little excitement as one of our vehicles was pulled over for having set off the radiation sensors.  The officials came out and were using their hand-held radiation detectors to locate the source of the potential crime.  Soon we saw bags and one of our people escorted into the building.  It turns out that our friend had an old WWII compass that had been a gift from an uncle.  This compass apparently has a slightly radioactive compound in the paint on the dial, which set off the alarms as being similar to the radioactive products used in "smart bombs."  We all got a good chuckle out of this unplanned adventure.

When I finally was headed back toward the old homestead yesterday evening, a gorgeous orange full moon of impressive size was on the rise.  I nearly floored the gas pedal to get home before it was up and drained of color.  Grabbing the tripod and dog (who had been inside all day and needed respite), I dashed out back to snap some shots.

While I was out there, I thought I'd see if the camera could pick up more stars that my eyes could see.  About the only constellations I could make out were Cassiopeia (below) and Orion (partly hidden by a tree). 

The camera got this pretty good shot of Jupiter and two of its moons, though!

I haven't consulted any star charts yet, but this bright one was in the western sky (about 6:00/6:30 PM).  Could it be Venus?  I was fascinated by the effect I got from the plane that flew by, flashing its red light.

Every evening there is a smudge of stars that I can just barely see when I look directly toward it, but see much more brightly from the corner of my eye.  I believe these are the Pleiades - the camera picked them up nicely, too.

As Calvin would say, the day was just packed. What a perfect way to spend a day off from work.

Rumor of Northern Lights

 While driving back from a school program today, I heard the end of a blurb on NPR about there being spectacular northern lights tonight.  Could it be?  I would have to go somewhere out in the country, away from the glare of the city lights, to check them out!  Where would I go?

AH - of course - there is the property I'm looking at possibly purchasing out south of Grass Lake, north (-ish) of Napoleon.  It's rural country - farm country.  If there was any place nearby to see an auroral display, this would be it.

I forgot that tonight is the full moon.  This became apparent immediately as I drove eastward out of the city:  the glare of the moon was as strong as the street lights and the headlights of on-coming traffic.

I pulled in to the driveway of the old farm house and stopped.  It was too early to see anything, so I decided to take the dog for a walk, and to pace out the boundaries of the property, to get a rough idea of just where they were.  A bit over four acres - that's a good-sized chunk of land!  We walked up the dirt road, hopping in and out of the field edges, until a dog chased us back from whence we came.  Then another dog set up the alarm as we neared the property, so we detoured into the field. 

When we returned to the car, I put Toby inside and set up my camera.  It was still too early for northern lights, so I decided to capture the full moon behind the gnarly tree in the yard.

I didn't quite capture the images I wanted.  Too much of my photography is simply done by guessing.  I really should sign up for a course and learn how to actually use the digital camera.

Next I turned my attention to the stars.  Orion was putting in a good appearance to the south.

A little enhancing of the image on the computer brought out the stars (and trees) a little better.

I was hoping for a sky full of stars, like the sky back in the mountains.  I miss that sky, with its millions and millions of stars.  The sky out here at the farm house held no more stars than what I see from my hovel in the city.  Still, that is probably because of the full moon, whose beautiful light completely washed out the sky.

I stuck around for about an hour, but the wind was blowing mightily, and the dog was not happy sitting in the car and waiting.  The temp was dropping and since I have to be at work tomorrow, I decided to call it quits. 

If anyone sees the northern lights tonight, I hope photos are taken and shared!