After the new moon phase Wednesday (01/29/2024), I managed to get this photo of first lunar light in the waxing crescent phase just after sunset last night. The first quarter Moon is about a week away when it looks as it does in the image above — just a tiny “sliver” of light visible.
My camera is a Canon EOS Rebel SL3 using a Canon EF 55-250mm zoom lens set to 250mm focal length. Click on the image to open the viewer.
Of course, the Moon has nothing to do with the title, but we are getting queued up for the first full moon of 2025 in Arizona on June 13, 2025. I took the image above this evening with my Canon SL1 set to shutter priority 1/1000 sec. and F5.6. The focal length was about 250 mm through a Canon EF-S55-250mm zoom lens.
Anyhow, we’re late in wishing everybody a happy 2025, but we can do it now, so there it is.
Our plans for the new year aren’t very resolute, but they will probably include a longer voyage with the motorhome to the lands of our ancestors with some interesting attractions along the route(s). We may also go all the way to the east coast which will be a first for us in the big rig.
There will be no eclipses this time around, but we will be on the lookout for interesting photo ops and we plan to blog about it when we’re underway.
Cheers in 2025 and God Bless!
Nice asterism this evening – waxing crescent Moon setting in the west with Venus up and to the right.
What we anticipated to be a dismal forecast for the weather on Eclipse Day, turned out to be not so bad, especially during the totality phase. Clouds passed between us and the sun often, but then opened up for partial phase glimpses and during totality, most of the four minutes of darkness, we were able to see the corona and in the image below, a couple of prominences at two-thirty and five-thirty on the disc. The 5:30 prominence was huge.
I wasn’t very well-prepared to take photos given the woeful forecast, which affected my motivation, but I was able to attach the big 100-400mm telephoto lens and shoot bunches of photos hand-held (no tripod) and had a few fair results including the one above. Verna had similar results and captured the “Diamond Ring” at the end of the totality show:
As I’m blogging this, we are getting some moderate to heavy thundershowers with lightning and thunder, but, Praise the Lord, no tornadoes. The precipitation knocked out the satellite TV a few times, but it is up and running now.
We’re here until Wednesday and then off to other parts of Texas south of us towards the Gulf of Mexico and thence via westerly routes heading back to Arizona over the next several days.
Image – an unusual snow day in Wickenburg (2014-12-31)
The first day of winter in the Northern Hemisphere is marked by the winter solstice, which occurs on Thursday, December 21, 2023, at 8:27 P.M. Arizona time or 0127Z if you’re into Greenwich mean time. Today is the shortest day of the year with only 9 hours and 53 minutes of sunshine at our latitude here in Wickenburg.
We’re not expecting any snow of the magnitude depicted above this season. The snowfall in Wickenburg on New Year’s Eve 2014 was the most snow we have ever seen in town since we moved here in early 2011 when our house was finally completed. As a matter of fact, we can count our snow days on one hand over our nearly 13 years of living here.
The 61-key digital keyboard shown below is the replacement for an older version of the same thing that I’ve had since March of 2010 (and there were many before that). This one has much more capability and I have been enjoying exploring the different voices, songs and styles included in the unit.
I have been playing keyboards (without much formal training) since age 5 or so. I have messed with MIDI quite a lot although that isn’t my peak interest now. I’d much rather play favorites and try to compose some things now and then.
The new keyboard is a Yamaha PSR E373 which is still considered an entry level unit, but it has a lot more features than I probably can figure out how to use. I have an app for the Smart Phone which allows me to record sound and video from the unit. Maybe I will post some of it on social media and link it here one of these days.
Here is the new unit in my studio (a.k.a. Master Bedroom):
This is Yamaha’s Blurb about this keyboard:
The PSR-E373 features a newly developed tone generator that delivers stunning improvements in sound quality as well as high-quality effects. You can enjoy a comprehensive library of 622 instrument Voices perfect for playing in any genre you choose, as well as unique Super Articulation Lite Voices that reproduce the subtle nuances of stringed instruments such as the cello and mandolin that are typically difficult to emulate on a keyboard instrument, delivering realistic and authentic performances.
The old keyboard will be retired to the Motorhome for practice when we’re on the road.
We were blessed with clear skies and good weather as we witnessed today’s annular solar eclipse from Albuquerque, NM.
Image information: Camera: Canon EOS Rebel SL1, Lens: Canon EF 100-400 set at 400 mm focal length. Solar Filter: Thousand Oaks Optical 77mm. Click on the image to enlarge.
