Beautiful

too larry

Well-Known Member
Venus is dropping out of the evening sky like a startled prairie dog bolting for its hole.

It is at inferior conjunction (between sun and earth) June 02.

Im gonna try to see what is the last day I can see it at dusk.

A few days later it will rocket into the morning sky.

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Because it has a thick atmosphere, the thin crescent spans more than 180 degrees of arc.

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I miss her already. And since I don't do predawn, odds of me seeing her anytime soon is slim. But then my sense of time must be off. It seemed like almost two weeks the moon was missing from my midnight rambles over this last new moon period.
 

lokie

Well-Known Member
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Waitomo Glowworm Caves in New Zealand
It’s far less romantic to call them Arachnocampa luminosa or fungus gnats, so let’s go with the common name: New Zealand glowworms. It’s those luminescent insects that make the ceiling of the Waitomo Glowworm Caves shine like a starry night sky. Some scientists suggest that illusion of a night sky is precisely what might draw a mayfly or mosquito to soar up and fly into the snare of a waiting glowworm. Feeding on other insects is how the larva of this species survives long enough to mature into an adult gnat whose sole purpose is to find a mate. The adult doesn’t even eat during the few days it lives.

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cannabineer

Ursus marijanus
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Waitomo Glowworm Caves in New Zealand
It’s far less romantic to call them Arachnocampa luminosa or fungus gnats, so let’s go with the common name: New Zealand glowworms. It’s those luminescent insects that make the ceiling of the Waitomo Glowworm Caves shine like a starry night sky. Some scientists suggest that illusion of a night sky is precisely what might draw a mayfly or mosquito to soar up and fly into the snare of a waiting glowworm. Feeding on other insects is how the larva of this species survives long enough to mature into an adult gnat whose sole purpose is to find a mate. The adult doesn’t even eat during the few days it lives.

See the source image
They did a segment on those on BBC’s Planet Earth series. Scenes of predation narrated with Sir Richard’s inimitable genteel wheeze.
 

cannabineer

Ursus marijanus
Today’s planet report:
Venus was five degrees above “bony knee mountain” before I could see it in the 10x70s.
Even at 10x it was a bright little tilted smile, but considerably fainter than at full elongation. I could just barely catch it with my unaided eyes for a one-minute interval before it faded in the thousand-mile-thick atmosphere on the horizon. I was helped by a notch in the ridgeline north of the mountain. There were subtle crepuscular rays.

Mercury is high and easy; it is still a coupla degrees above the horizon now. It reaches max elongation ( apparent distance from the sun) on June 04.

It’s almost cool enough to open the house to the rapidly-cooling desert breeze.

Some crepuscular rays. They are made by distant terrain (mountains or thunderstorms) combing the tangent sunlight.

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cannabineer

Ursus marijanus
I doubt I’ll see Venus this evening. Even so, nature served up a consolation prize. There’s a 30mph wind sculpting the high overcast.

The rise in the skyline at center( under the brightest cloud) is “bony knee mountain”. I think this is the Piute range.

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Then there was that magical minute when the clouds were lit from below. Note some nice crepuscular ray action.

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Thirty seconds after I took this detail shot, this marvelous terrain of pillows went dark.

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cannabineer

Ursus marijanus
And in the last instant, a one-degree gap opened between land and cloud. The bright little tilted smile was plain in the binos but doesn’t show in this photo of the notch to the right of bony knee mountain.
It set at 8:21 local in the second (right) notch.

~edit~ I mean the notch that is in the center, next to that symmetrical little peak.

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SFnone

Well-Known Member
I doubt I’ll see Venus this evening. Even so, nature served up a consolation prize. There’s a 30mph wind sculpting the high overcast.

The rise in the skyline at center( under the brightest cloud) is “bony knee mountain”. I think this is the Piute range.

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Then there was that magical minute when the clouds were lit from below. Note some nice crepuscular ray action.

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Thirty seconds after I took this detail shot, this marvelous terrain of pillows went dark.

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great picture... I've tried to capture sunsets with digital lots of times and never get it... any secrets?
 
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