Comet Nishimura
This one came up quickly after its discovery by a Japanese amateur astronomer. You may be able to catch it just before sunrise low on the eastern horizon. See this link for details. Let me know if you spot it.
Another Starlink train
Another launch by Elon and another group of Starlink satellites headed for the ~500km orbital plane above the earth. This time with a Canon DSLR on a tripod. Complete with cicada soundtrack! You can see them dim one by one as the train moves into earth’s shadow.
Starlink trains
When SpaceX launches a bunch of Starlink satellites they are visible for a few days as a train of bright dots crossing the sky. They eventually spread out and boost themselves into higher orbits where they are not visible to the naked eye but will bug amateur and professional astronomers for decades as the photo …
Late arriving Perseids fireball
The all sky camera is proving its worth lately with clearer skies and meteor showers like the Perseids. Note the time stamp on all the recent fireball posts – all are after midnight. Meteors are most likely when the “radiant” is above the horizon. In this case the constellation Perseus sits just below the horizon …
Perseids meteors
I hope everyone got a chance to see the Perseids meteor shower this morning. I did not bother planning any photography given the bad weather forecast but just dragged an air mattress out to the driveway at 1:30 to enjoy the show and found nearly clear skies. We saw one about every 3-5 minutes with …
Snake surprise
A four foot black rat snake gave me quite a surprise the other day when I reached for a saw above my workbench. Snakes in our garage are not that unusual as they come after mice who see shelter and look for food in dark spaces. I only noticed this one when he struck my …
Another fireball
There is no way to predict when I pebble of interstellar material will streak into the Earth’s atmosphere but the odds increase when we have a meteor shower. This is likely from the Perseids meteor shower which has a broad peak from around mid July to mid August every year. If you had been outside …
October annular solar eclipse
You have certainly heard about the total solar eclipse which will be visible across the center of the US next April. There is also a annular eclipse this October where due to the elliptical orbit of the moon, the sun is not completely blocked. This website has a lot of good information about both eclipses …
Bear cub visit
Lexi barks incessantly at any intruder – usually is just a dove or turkey. Last night it had four legs!
Why did the rufffed grouse cross the road?
She just wanted to get her chicks safely across East Reach! Three walked and one over achiever flew across.