Pages Tagged “Stargazing”
Blog Posts
- Venus and Jupiter Conjunction 2023
A photo of Venus and Jupiter close together in tonight’s sky, and a close-up that appears to have very blurry images of Jupiter’s moons.
- Venus and Mercury Again
They’re not as close as they were two nights ago, but I managed to frame them with a more interesting foreground.
- Venus and Mercury Spotted!
Venus and Mercury close together after last night’s sunset. I lucked out in that… I remembered they were going to be visible when I got to the store on the way home. The parking lot was both wide and slightly uphill from the western side of the street, giving me a clear view. The sky […]
- Venus and Jupiter Conjunction: Three Views
On June 30 2015, Venus and Jupiter lined up more closely than the edges of the moon. Here’s what they looked like that night, 2 nights later, and 10 before.
- Venus and Mars are all right tonight
There’s nothing like a conjunction to remind you just how much brighter Venus is than, well anything else in the night sky except the moon.
- Venus and Mercury, Sitting in a Tree
I’ve been watching Venus and Mercury move toward and away from each other. Tonight I caught them framed by the almost-bare branches of a tree. (Photo)
- Venus and Mercury Above the Trees (UPDATED 2x)
I walked out of the office and stopped: there, framed by the trees and the next building over, were Venus and Mercury, right in front of me.
- Supermoon Rising Through Clouds
Last night’s supermoon rising through light clouds. Spotted, oddly enough, while walking past a Supercuts.
- Lunar Eclipse = Front-Yard Astronomy (Photos)
One of the nice things about lunar eclipses is how easy they are to watch. No special equipment needed, just a clear view, even from the city.
- Gray Moon Rising
A few nights ago I watched the moon rise. Normally it’s yellow or orange when it’s at the horizon, but to my surprise, this time it just looked gray.
- Musings on LA, Light Pollution, and Water Management
Why it’s so hard to see the stars at night in Los Angeles, and some ways we might be able to save water by changing landscaping and flood control tactics.
- This is why I can’t see stars anymore
Rain, a late night and dark adapted eyes gave me a relatively nice view last night…but I miss clear skies. A photo of LA from space explains why.
- Planetary Triangle
Last night I had a clear view of the Mercury, Venus and Jupiter conjunction, but no camera. Power lines crossed my view tonight, but at least I got a photo.
- St Patrick’s Day Moon and Jupiter
I almost missed this near-approach, but fortunately I had to make an early-evening grocery run and looked up at the sky.
- Photos: Comet Watch LA
An evening watching the sun set above the clouds, a crescent moon pop into existence, Jupiter through a telescope, a red moonset, and of course a comet!
- Moon and Jupiter Conjunction
Two views of the moon/Jupiter conjunction of January 21, 2013, one taken with a phone and the other with a somewhat better camera.
- Photos: Solar Eclipse from Los Angeles (May 2012)
I went up into the hills to view the eclipse and ran into dozens of other people with the same idea…and got to look through their telescopes, welding helmets and more.
- Lunar Eclipse and Sunrise (With Photos)
I woke up early this morning to catch the lunar eclipse. I watched it move into totality from home, then drove down to the beach to watch it set, and stayed out to watch the sun rise.
- Mercurial View
I’m 90% certain that I managed to (barely) spot Mercury below and to the left of Venus from the grocery store parking lot just after sunset. Appropriately enough, the one other time I think I spotted Mercury, it was also from a grocery store parking lot. It was like trying to spot one slightly brighter […]
- Venus and Mercury!?
At the age of 34, I’ve finally seen the planet Mercury. It’s close to Venus for a few days, and I managed to spot it from a grocery store parking lot.
- Look to the Western Sky after Sunset
In a world full of airplanes and helicopters, why do people jump past mundane explanations when they see a light in the night sky and assume it’s aliens?
- Night Sky
There’s something to be said for a night sky with so many stars that Sirius doesn’t stand out quite so much.
- No Comet For You!
I had hoped that the darker skies near San Simeon on the central California coast would have made it easier to spot Comet Lulin, but no such luck. First the clouds rolled in around sunset. I checked around 9:45 and they’d cleared enough to see very clearly out toward the ocean, but the lights of […]
- Leo, Saturn… and Comet Lulin?
I figured I’d try spotting Comet Lulin from my back yard. I found Leo and Saturn easily enough, but just couldn’t see anything that looked like a comet. It should be a little to the right of Saturn, going by Sky & Telescope’s chart. Too much light pollution, I guess. And unlike the Bad Astronomer, […]
- Moon and Venus Above Palms
- Stellar Triangle
I managed to get a few shots of the near-conjunction of the crescent moon, Jupiter and Venus tonight before they sank into the haze. The first two shots were taken at twilight (well, dusk, really), around 5:05–5:10 PM PST, while the third was taken at 5:30, after night had fallen.
- Jupiter and Venus
This is actually from a couple of nights ago, but the view as I left the office tonight was about the same (though the lights were just starting to turn on in this picture). It’s really odd to walk out of the building into a lot that’s normally lighted (even when I head in to […]
- Eclipse Ring
I found this while looking through a box of old photos, in an envelope marked Lunar Eclipse and developed in June 1994. Most likely the May 25, 1994 eclipse. I’m not sure, but I think the bright splotch near the bottom is actually the moon, and the clear image of the moon up near the […]
- Fire by Night
With the winds dying down, the smoke from the Santiago Fire clung loosely to the mountains most of the day. Unfortunately, smoke from the new fires down on Camp Pendleton drifted up the coast to take its place, bringing back the yellowish sunlight. Also, without the wind to clear them away, ashes left a thorough […]
- Look! Up in the Sky!
On Sunday, I participated in the Great World Wide Star Count. The idea is to track light pollution and get people (especially kids) stargazing. They ask you to look at either Cygnus (northern hemisphere) or Sagittarius (southern hemisphere) about an hour of two after sunset, and match what you can see against a set of […]
- Lunar Eclipse pics
I decided to go for it, and set my alarm for 2:30 AM (ick) to see the eclipse. The moon was nearing totality at that point, with a too-shallow crescent near the bottom and the rest in slightly reddish shadow. My original plan was to lie down on the balcony and watch, but it turned […]
- Lunar Indecision
I’m still trying to decide whether I should set an alarm to wake myself up at ski-o’clock in the morning to see tonight’s/tomorrow’s lunar eclipse. I mean, I skipped the Perseid meteor shower a few weeks ago, but that would have required not only getting up in the wee hours of the night, but driving […]
- Stars
I used to see thousands of stars on frequent camping trips out in the desert. These days, living in a hazy well-lit suburb, I can typically see a handful.
- Pumpkin Moon
We were driving home from visiting relatives this evening, and noticed a dull orange ellipse on the horizon, appearing and disappearing between trees. It didn’t take long to realize it was the moon, just beginning to rise. As the freeway twisted and turned, and we went through areas full of houses, retail centers, and trees, […]
- Deja View
Follow-ups to two past blog entries. First, remember on our most recent trip to Las Vegas (last March) we repeatedly encountered a slow-moving, hand-painted truck labeled “Henry’s Moving” on the drive out. Well, after a trip to Fry’s this past Sunday, we spotted it again. Second, for the first time in 1½ years, I managed […]
- Lunar Eclipse Tomorrow
There’s a lunar eclipse tomorrow. It looks like we’ll only get to see the tail end of it here in California, right at moonrise. Europe and Africa get to see the whole thing. Interestingly, the map of where the eclipse will be visible manages to cover the major land masses almost exactly. The only region […]
- Crescent moon and Venus
I walked out the front door last night around 5:50 to pick up the mail, and immediately walked back in to get the camera, because this is what I saw: My parents gave me a flexible mini-tripod for Christmas, and it proved very helpful here, as there was nowhere flat where I could set the […]
- Daytime… Comet?
Well, I tried again at lunch to see if I could spot Comet McNaughton during the day, just in case it was still bright enough. No luck, but I set my camera on max zoom and took a set of pictures in roughly the right area, just to see if I could spot something. And, […]
- Comet!
The skies were surprisingly clear today. Four of us at work walked outside after sunset to a bridge near the office, and saw Comet McNaught. It was visible from ~5:10/5:15 to 5:28, at which point it slipped below the line of hills to the west. We saw it against the red sky, slowly dropping through […]
- Daystar!
I saw the planet Venus four times on my walk to and from lunch today! Yes, in broad daylight! Someone on Slashdot mentioned it was possible last week. I took it seriously because back in high school, I used to watch Venus fade into the brightening sky on winter mornings. Often I could still find […]
- Venus Shadows
Venus is apparently so bright this month that it’s casting visible shadows. Now that’s cool! Unfortunately, while I can see Venus perfectly well, there’s way too much light around to see anything resembling a Venusian shadow. I don’t think I’ll have a chance to drive out into the desert by sunset in the next few […]
- The Moon and Venus, sitting in a tree
This view of the Moon and Venus was taken from our apartment balcony earlier this evening. I also took a picture yesterday, from the top of a parking structure near John Wayne Airport (we went to a show at UCI later that evening.) You can see the red trail an airplane left as it crossed […]
- That Belt of Venus Thing
About a month ago I posted about noticing the Belt of Venus—the red band that circles the entire horizon just after sunset—and the Earth’s shadow on the sky. I snapped this picture on the drive home this evening. This is looking east, away from the setting sun. If you look at the right edge of […]
- Kilauea, Craters, and Hot, Hot Lava
Kilauea is often called the world’s most active volcano. It’s been erupting continuously since 1983 at vents several miles away from the caldera. The eruptions are still inside Hawai‘i Volcanoes National Park, but the lava hasn’t stuck to the boundaries as it flows to the sea. So late on an April afternoon, we started driving […]
- Look, up in the sky!
A few nights ago I was walking around sunset, and decided to look for something that had been mentioned last week on the Astronomy Picture of the Day: the Belt of Venus. Somehow I’d never noticed that after sunset, the band of red encircles the entire sky at the horizon. Even more amazing, if you […]
- Mauna Kea
And now for something completely different: Hawaiian snow. On our second-to-last day in Hawaii, we took a tour up to the summit of Mauna Kea, the highest mountain in the state at 13,796 feet. And even in early April, they still had snow at the summit. We caught a somewhat hazy view of it from […]
- Shooting the Moon
Some idiot is out there taking flash pictures of the eclipse.