Starry, Starry Night (you'll have to take my word on this)

As several of you know I spent this past weekend up in Ely, Minnesota, a town that bears a sign on its outskirts that reads, "All International Citizens entering the U.S. must report to the U.S. Customs office in Ely." You should know that there are no roads (as in, asphalt or gravel) that lead from Canada to Ely. Just lakes and rivers. In fact, a whole linked network of them called the Boundary Waters, of which this is only one.


When I decided to come up here I was hoping to read some books, write some stories, and see lots and lots of stars. Which I did. All three. It was overcast when I first got up here, but then the sky cleared and there was nothing but sun and blue skies till Tuesday. It was beautiful. So Saturday night I took the ol' camera outside with the intention of taking some star pictures. I forgot to bring my tripod, but I just set the camera on its back on top of my car and turned the timer on. I took three pictures, of which only one seemed to have anything on it (other than a dead pixel, that is). Here's the shot that "turned out."

As you can tell, nary a star showed up on the ol' CCD. If you enlarge the picture and look in the bottom left corner, you might just make out the hazy shape of Canes Venatici. Actually, I have no idea what it is. I just know it's not a dead pixel (unlike that other perfidious white dot near the center).

So the lesson here, fellow photography buffs, is to find a camera that allows long exposure shots before you spend the weekend in the middle of nowhere. And if you do find that camera, try to keep it away from one of these creatures (I like to call them "David's Little Friends").

Some night-time pictures gone wrong

Last night it was mostly cloudy, but I was pretty sure that enough sky was showing to be able to glimpse a few stars. I have an assignment due in Astronomy soon, so that little glimpse might wind up being valuable. Since there's so much light around Wheaton (and especially around Chicago), the stars are pretty difficult to see. I thought I might be able to take my camera out and get some good long-exposure pictures of the stars. You know, something to take back to my warm, non-icy room for further examination.

In the end, the stars really didn't turn out too well. In fact, I don't think they turned out at all. There were just too many clouds. However, I wound up taking lots of pictures of buildings and the scenery in the dark. Even though it was the middle of the night, the sky turned up a deep blue when I used a long enough exposure.

I bought a tripod today at the thrift store. It was a little too cold outside tonight, so I set up the tripod and the camera beside my window and took a whole series off long-exposure pictures. I put them all together in a movie, and you can see the clouds pass by in the night. Just glancing out the window right now, I can vouch that the sky looks jet black, and you can't tell anything is moving up there. For some reason I get a kick out of this video.

And to start the ball rolling

I'm taking an astronomy class this semester. It all seems pretty interesting, although they haven't let me touch the big telescope yet. We're supposed to be keeping an eye on the stars, whenever weather permits. Last night I went out with a star map and camera in hand. I thought I might be able to take some long-exposure pictures of the night sky and analyze them back in my room. Well, it turns out my camera won't even do a one second exposure. Most of the pictures turned out pretty bad. The moon was the only interesting thing to photograph.

I was a little confused because there was something really bright next to the moon. My star map didn't help much. The star map indicated the position of the stars at about 8pm, and I was out around midnight. After a long time of straining at the map, I gave up at identifying the bright star. I went back to my car, snapped a few more pictures, and then headed back.

When I got in, I found that most of the pictures were, naturally, either boring or completely black. Something in the very last picture looked funny, however. That bright star next to the moon actually looked like a planet. That made no sense to me, since my calculations somehow put Saturn (the only big planet visible last night) high up in the sky, nowhere near the moon. After much investigating on the internet, however, I have determined that the spot I saw was Jupiter. I'm pretty impressed, especially since that picture was taken at a pitiful 3x optical zoom and only at 1/2 a second. Hey, that's something everyone's camera can handle! Tonight, if you go out late enough, you can see Jupiter also. At about midnight, the moon will just be rising in the southeast. If you look pretty much directly above the moon, you should see a bright spot. That's Jupiter all right. (If you go out before 10, however, it's still below the horizon).

Update: Ok, so I talked with my astronomy professor after class. He pretty much burst my bubble. I showed him the picture and he said, "Hmm, that just looks like some sort of blip in the sky." In retrospect, I guess Jupiter would have to be pretty huge to show up as that large in my picture. Well, so much for that.

So we'll give this a little crack...

Most of my thoughts are not really worth much: barely enough to communicate over a telephone call, certainly not enough to compell me to sign up for an account with Blogger.com, sift through 60 sample blog templates, and start posting those aforementioned thoughts. Besides, the world has too many blogs. Some of the world's brightest and wittiest minds have finally joined the blogosphere. There's really no room for a lowlife like me.

Just as there is safety in numbers, however, I hope to discover that numbers help bolster what might have been an otherwise insubstantial and pitiful blog. Yes, I thought to myself, you are but a meager mite, David. And yes, I thought, my brothers are both of meager mite status. But if all our powers were combined in one cyberstatic union, perhaps we could cooperatively produce a blog of merit and vigor like has not been witnessed since the days of yore.

Actually, that's a bit misleading. The true story is that I had been intrigued, perhaps for over a year or so now, by Ben or Steve's suggestion to have some sort of photo/poetry contest held online. Of course, the contest never materialized (I was I just never invited?) but I still often thought about the idea. What if we could have a central spot to post various interesting pictures, perhaps with a short narration? The pictures could be interesting, in and of themselves (I assumed this category for Steve) or they could be interesting simply in virtue that it becomes a conversation-starter for what has been happening in one's life lately (I assumed this category for Daniel and for all pictures depicting Dad with shaving cream on his bald head).

So there you have it. I thought it would be nice to have a community blog where we could all dump pictures and other things onto it. (Also, if I can generate enough traffic - and with a family this large that would be inevitable - then my AdSense payments will skyrocket). Anyone else can start posting to this blog. You have to get a Blogger.com account. Then I can add you to the member list. So far it's all been free. I'm not quite sure what I signed in that Terms of Use contract, though.