ZapperZ's Great Outdoors Photo Contest

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Sorry to hear that, Turbo. Sounds like he was a good man to remember.
 
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Borek said:
Sorry to hear that, Turbo. Sounds like he was a good man to remember.
A very good man, indeed. He married my divorced aunt (not a good thing, back then), and that next fall, we all got invited to dig potatoes. He had hilled up about an acre, and planted it, and hoed up the plants all summer. Each family ended up with at least a couple of hundred pounds of potatoes that we could put in cold storage.

He would thin his raspberry patch every year and give canes to friends and relatives, so that anybody who wanted a raspberry patch could have one. Raspberries propagate through rhizomes, primarily, so you have to work a bit to thin them. Give them away, and pass on the bounty.
 
fuzzyfelt said:
My condolences, Turbo, sorry to hear.
Thanks. He was a good man, and I hope that people can say that about me when I'm gone.
 
turbo said:
Thanks. He was a very nice quiet, reserved man. He halted chemo because he felt it made him too upset/combative, and he didn't want to be that way toward his son and daughter-in-law (retired lifers from the Air Force), and he didn't think that the chemo was going to actually prolong his life. My father and I had a very long phone conversation about him this morning. Every time we face our own mortality, we should look at the "balance sheet" as honestly as we can.

So sorry to hear about your uncle! You're right, each of us should review our "balance sheet" from time to time.
 
I'm going to say I got a photo of 2005 YU55:

[PLAIN]http://img600.imageshack.us/img600/1390/asteroiday.jpg

The one on the left was taken at approximately 6:50, the one on the right at 7:15 or so. 400mm, ISO 3200, 1.3" exposure times.
 
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Confirmation- here it is on the other photo:

[PLAIN]http://img15.imageshack.us/img15/6797/asteroid2.jpg
 
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Pretty cool, Andy! I looked, but didn't see anything. I guess it was too dull. I had hoped it might be a bit more reflective.

Meanwhile, back on Earth - http://www.grindtv.com/surf/blog/30981/is+this+the+largest+wave+ever+ridden/
 
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Turns out I erred- those two dots are stars- the upper one is TYC 1092-893-1 (magnitude 11) and the lower one is ADS 14090 (double star, magnitude 9.6 and 11.5) . However, I was looking in the correct location, so I'll keep looking through the images- I found a nebula or two already.
 
Yosemite Valley & National Park is a great place to spend time -

and go rock climbing

http://www.grindtv.com/outdoor/blog/31278/rock+climber+endures+16-day+vertical+existence+on+face+of+el+capitan/
 
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An impressive epic, Astro, in Tommy's words...
"A journey such as this is something I do because of a mysterious deep-rooted curiosity. A want to explore not only what we see, but who we are. I have chosen to immerse myself in things grander than me. To stretch my imagination in a effort to learn what I can dig out of the depths of my being. It would empty without the allure of success. But it doesn't always end that way. At least for now."

Rhody... :cool:
 
Astronuc said:
Yosemite Valley & National Park is a great place to spend time -

and go rock climbing

http://www.grindtv.com/outdoor/blog/31278/rock+climber+endures+16-day+vertical+existence+on+face+of+el+capitan/

I wish, big wall climbing for me is the best thing to do, so free. But until I can get outside again I pass the time climbing at a local gym, I took my camera there for the first time yesterday to get some photos, here are some of the better ones:
climbing096.jpg

climbing100.jpg

climbing156.jpg

climbing183.jpg

climbing230.jpg


Not exactly the great outdoors, but what can you do when you're in Saskatchewan in the winter.
 
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Which one is you Kris, I am guessing #2 and #5 picture from the top ? Looks like fun BTW. Keep at it, it is a great source of relaxation and building confidence.

Rhody... :biggrin:
 
Haha, nope, that's my belay partner though, I'm the one behind the camera :shy:
 
Last night was excellent for viewing- Orion has 3 nearby nebula (Crab, Horsehead, and Orion) and Andromeda was directly overhead. I worked at 400mm, 0.8s exposures ISO6400 and stacked about 40 images for each. After a rough brightness/contrast tweak, I passed the images through NeatImage to remove most of the remaining noise.

Here's the best of the bunch:
http://img36.imageshack.us/img36/7711/orioncropfiltered.jpg

the Crab and Andromeda are smudges, and the Horsehead nebula was invisible. Checking the images against SIMBAD shows that I can reliably image stars of magnitude 12-13, so I'm surprised I couldn't pull out the Horsehead nebula. Getting smudges is also discouraging... maybe I need to schedule a meeting somewhere at high altitude :)
 
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A little more down to Earth -
 
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Nice story. I had a younger co-worker years back who used to vacation in the alps or other rugged places. Winter vacation was usually ice-climbing someplace and summer vacation was spent getting to and competing in some Iron-Man contest. The ladies in our department didn't swarm him, but they called him "Tom Terrific".
 
Astronuc said:
A little more down to Earth -

Nice story Astro, Jeff Lowe and ALPS... even with his debilitated medical condition, he stills shines with new challenges... making of this documentary... will look for it in theater's when it is released.

Rhody...
 
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It's been frustrating lately- nearly a month of completely overcast skies. About a week ago, there was a brief period when I could try getting the Horsehead nebula. I stacked 140 0.8 s images, 400mm f/2.8 ISO 6400 and got this (cropped and downsized selection), after considerable post-processing of the stacked image:

http://img827.imageshack.us/img827/2313/horsergb1.png

The brightest star is Zeta Orionis. If you look carefully, you can barely see a whisper of NGC 2024 (flame nebula) on the upper left, but there is absolutely no evidence of either the Horsehead nebula or IC434, which should be near center in the image.

I'm confused about where the problem is: there are stars of +15mag clearly visible (there's a tight trio of stars in the lower right, one is 2MASS J05403667-0243469 with a R magnitude of 15.4), so I don't understand why NGC 2024 and IC434 are not visible... are they strictly NIR objects?

Any tips would be appreciated, TIA.
 
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And 24 hours later:
http://img576.imageshack.us/img576/4461/dsc4419filtered.png

There's enough sunspots to measure the differential rotation rate- here's a close-up of the group on the left:

http://img828.imageshack.us/img828/8765/dsc4419filtered2.png
 
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So, we have spent last week in Bieszczady, the most SE part of Poland. We had just a few hours of Sun, but other than that we had a nice winter - a lot of snow, almost no wind, and a frost - down to around -10ºC (14ºF), but not that cold for most of the time.

We were not expecting fresh snow here, but that's what we found. In some places it was half thigh high (or even half [censored]body part on the back, just above the thigh[/censored] high), but mostly just to the knee. I was breaking the trail, Marzena was following:

IMG_4991.jpg


Have you ever wondered where does the charcoal come from? This guy makes it:

IMG_5068.jpg


Together with lots of smoke:

IMG_5066.jpg


As for someone living in the woods (literally: he spends weeks watching these retorts; not that he is so far from the closest village, less than an hour walk) he was surprisingly knowledgeable, we had a short, but very nice talk.

Sun was not cooperating, so even if we were surrounded by picturesque views, they all look dull on pictures:

IMG_5089.jpg


There were just a sunny spells now and then:

IMG_5104.jpg


IMG_5123.jpg


Bieszczady are not high (most peaks are below 4000 ft). Some of the higher peaks are bald - which is rather unusual in other Polish mountains (apart from rocky peaks in Tatra mountains, but they are much higher). These bald parts are called "połoniny" - my dictionary translates it as mountains pastures, but I am not sure they were ever used as pastures. This flat white snow that doesn't want to have any texture is a połonina:

IMG_5178.jpg


And finally, a picture for Andre - this is a mountain shelter called "Chatka Puchatka" - Polish for "The House at Pooh Corner", located on Połonina Wetlińska, it was about 200 meters behind my back when I took the picture above:

IMG_5193.jpg


(http://pl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schronisko_PTTK_"Chatka_Puchatka"_na_Połoninie_Wetlińskiej - in Polish)
 

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http://img94.imageshack.us/img94/7815/montagesmall.png

A composite image of Jupiter and the Galilean moons, taken as the weather permitted over the past few months. This image is about 25% of the actual size, so the patterns of the moons are harder to see, but visible enough to still be dramatic (IMO).
 
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