Nice hot day at the lake today. Apparently it was 111 degrees a few days ago, but has cooled down some.
How’s the weather?
- Thread starter The Masked Shadow
- Start date
We had the privilege of watching a bald eagle eating his dinner.
He was at least 50 yards away, and it was difficult to focus the camera with the boat pitching and bobbing.
You might get a little sea sick watching this video. My hands were braced, but the boat was moving. Best view in 1080p HD.
photos.app.goo.gl
He was at least 50 yards away, and it was difficult to focus the camera with the boat pitching and bobbing.
You might get a little sea sick watching this video. My hands were braced, but the boat was moving. Best view in 1080p HD.
New video by shasta wake
photos.app.goo.gl
Got back from Greece in the early hours of this morning. We've left this.....
l
.....to come home to this.....
Had a great time, just a shame to come back to dreary blighty.
l
.....to come home to this.....
Had a great time, just a shame to come back to dreary blighty.
Got back from Colorado today. Apparently Zeus is still mad at California because he’s keeping it cloudy and rainy
One of my other hobbies is astronomy. When you get into stargazing you start to develop a passive eye for atmospheric conditions, I'll check the sky almost every evening to see if its a good night to haul out the binoscope and spot some hard-to-find DSOs.
Here on the east coast US, we havent had a clear night for several months between forest fires and constant hazy cloud cover...not even fun clouds that eventually create spectacular storms and much-needed rain, just this thick smoggy layer that seems to swirl around and culminates in a tropical, moist heat during the day and stifling humid stillness at night.
But, just these past couple days a cool breeze and several storms whipped through, seeming to suggest the worst is over for this summer.
Visitors to Virginia will usually remark at the peculiar range of weather we experience every year. But living here most of my life im never surprised to be blasted with whatever variety of heatwave, blizzard, monsoon or tornado happens to be passing through.
Here on the east coast US, we havent had a clear night for several months between forest fires and constant hazy cloud cover...not even fun clouds that eventually create spectacular storms and much-needed rain, just this thick smoggy layer that seems to swirl around and culminates in a tropical, moist heat during the day and stifling humid stillness at night.
But, just these past couple days a cool breeze and several storms whipped through, seeming to suggest the worst is over for this summer.
Visitors to Virginia will usually remark at the peculiar range of weather we experience every year. But living here most of my life im never surprised to be blasted with whatever variety of heatwave, blizzard, monsoon or tornado happens to be passing through.
I love astronomy, I'm totally absorbed by all the mind-blowing facts regarding the universe and such like.
Unfortunately though I can't really say i've taken it to the next level where I could call it a hobby simply because nice clear nights in the UK are so few and far between.
I have a telescope, nothing fancy, and I can see several planets and such on the rare occasions I set it up.
I love nothing more on a clear autumn/winter evening than having a tin bin fire out the back and looking skyward at the stars, planets and constellations.
From a relaxation perspective it's certainly up there with fish watching!
Ive had a few cheapo reflectors and refractors in the past. Last summer i finally wanted a quality instrument and had some burnin' cash on hand so i went shopping, ended up with an oberwerk binoscope. Binoscopes arent new tech but the more modern incarnations seem to be getting very popular for their much wider field of view and ability to gather much more light than a comparable telescope and so being much more useful in light polluted areas and poor visibility,.
Its all personal preference really, but after i got bored looking at the seven other planets and moon a couple decades ago and i shifted to tracking down DSOs i found myself wanting more field, clarity, luminosity instead of magnification and the binoscope fits that bill perfectly. Its about 96% easier to set up than a telescope and much easier/more pleasant to scan the starfields with both eyes open.
in short, i cant say enough good things about binoscopes for the casual/amateur astronomer like myself, especially with almost everywhere in the world becoming more and more light polluted every night. If there is a con, its that you have to buy twice the amount of eyepieces lol.
The thing with astronomy, if you do decide to take it seriously, it's one of those hobbies that could literally bankrupt you....a bit like fish keeping, lol.
An entry level telescope will allow you to see x,y and z, in a blurry sort of way. You soon want to see x,y and z in high definition so you upgrade.
Then you get fed up of looking at x,y and z and want to see other stuff in high definition too, so another upgrade is needed with fancy motorised tracking technology and such.
It can get quite complicated very quickly, and at great expense....and I already have an hobby that does that to me, lol.
I'm going to wait for a cheap portable hand held ground telescope to come out which has similar capabilities to the James Webb telescope. Lol.
An entry level telescope will allow you to see x,y and z, in a blurry sort of way. You soon want to see x,y and z in high definition so you upgrade.
Then you get fed up of looking at x,y and z and want to see other stuff in high definition too, so another upgrade is needed with fancy motorised tracking technology and such.
It can get quite complicated very quickly, and at great expense....and I already have an hobby that does that to me, lol.
I'm going to wait for a cheap portable hand held ground telescope to come out which has similar capabilities to the James Webb telescope. Lol.
All of this is true. Especially when you start exploring astrophotography. But, just as in the case with fishkeeping, the used equipment market is very rewarding for the dedicated chiseler. Very often you can find quality instruments lightly used for a fraction of new cost.
Imo, viewing the stars manually with a telescope these days is obsolete. If you want detailed views and impressive colorful photos of DSOs then you want an expensive remote astrophotography rig. If you want to explore and find things in the sky that youre curious about (like me) then you want a quality binoscope which is still sorta expensive. Like i said, personal preference though.
But i digress. Getting back to the weather theme on this thread, studying astronomy inevitably forces you to coordinate and appreciate weather patterns, so its almost like being an amateur astronomer equates to being an amateur meteorologist.
You can also look in other peoples windows from way the hell off lol.
Now you're talking my kind of language, lol. All amateur astronomers are closet perverts at the end of the day, lol.
