I headed to Glendo State Park in Wyoming today to watch the eclipse with some friends. Here’s a quick photo of totality…

I shot this with my Tamron SP 500mm lens earlier this evening. With a bit of noise reduction in Lightroom, you can make out 4 of the moons.

I arrived in Jupiter, Florida earlier today. This evening, there was a launch of a military communications satellite, known as WGS-9, from the Kennedy Space Center. My parents and I headed out onto the balcony in front of the place they’re renting to see if we could see it.

Happily, we could…

For those wondering about the technical details of the photos: Canon 70D, Tamron SP 500mm, 1/160s, f/8, ISO 12800.

Early Sunday morning, at 2AM, we move our clocks forward an hour in a futile attempt to save energy. As I’ve mentioned in previous years’ versions of this post, daylight save time hasn’t been shown to actually save energy.

Instead of saving energy, there will be an increase in accidents because people are discombobulated by the change in their sleep pattern. As an added “bonus”, there’s a 10% increase the likelihood that you’ll experience a heart attack during the days immediately following the time change. Is it worth it? Not in my opinion. (more…)

It’s not quite as sharp as I’d like, probably due to the fact that the Moon was quite high in the sky, it was cold, and it’s tricky focusing the Tamron SP 500 when your hands are cold

I’m still playing with the 500mm lens I wrote about a few days ago and took these from my balcony this evening:

And with a bit of luck, I was able to capture Saturn, too:

Saturn required a bit of processing to remove the sensor noise and clean things up a bit. But, I’m still very impressed that you can make out the planet and the gaps of the rings around it.