#218 A SKY FULL OF PHOTOS

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We’ve had two recent Super Moons, both of which I missed because of cloudy skies. That made me look back at old files which showed I didn’t have any pictures of Super Moons—at least none worth showing. I also recently missed opportunities to see the Northern Lights (Aurora Borealis) from Oregon. Again I din’t have any aurora pictures. I have seen the Northern Lights once from a commercial flight passing over Idaho on a trip from Albuquerque to Portland. No photos of that either. I did find some photos of sky phenomenon that I thought might be worth sharing. Some of these (or similar shots to these) might have been shown before, but most go back a few years. I’ll group the sky show into Sun, Rainbows, Moon, and Clouds. Hope you enjoy the views.

THE SUN, Sol, our nearest star, dominates our skies and our lives. But it is hard to photograph without special equipment or special conditions. I’ve managed to pull out a few examples of my photographs of the sun.

October 1978 solar eclipse taken from a farmer's field near Bigg's Junction, OR. A photo of mine from this shoot was published in Sky and Telescope Magazine.

Sun with a halo of light reflected off high altitude ice crystals. Photo taken on a dirty iPhone.

August 2017 solar eclipse from Salem, OR.

        SUNSETS

Mt Hood with alpenglow.

Taft beach Lincoln City, OR.

Illusion of a double sun, Orkney Islands, Scotland.

Illusion of a flat sun caused by the sun's rays having to go through more layers of atmosphere as it approached the horizon. West coast, WA state.

RAINBOWS are probably the most common of sky phenomenon to be photographed. Sunlight filtered through raindrops are always a wonder to behold.

Sept 2012 Scotland

Balkaneil Beach, northwest Scotland

Near Tain, east coast of Scotland.

Besides a halo the sun can also create sun bows and other effects.

        DOUBLE YOUR FUN

When double rainbows are created the secondary rainbow reverses the colors of the first (ROY G BIV - VIB G YOR). St Fillan GC, Scotland.

THE MOON is the earth’s only permanent natural satellite, though we get an occasional astroid visitor which hangs around for a while. The second brightest object in the sky, the moon dominates our night sky and is easier to photograph than the sun.

2014 lunar eclipse in BW.

Lunar eclipse with nearby Venus. Nearby only in astronomical terms.

A very new new moon. Sept 2017. From Santa Fe, NM.

The new moon with the old moon in her arms. From either Dejection: An Ode by Samuel Taylor Coleridge or the early English Ballad of Sir Patrick Spens.

Old and new moon with Jupiter.

CLOUDS can make a sunny day dull, but they can also be spectacular in the sky. For the photographer a cloudy sky is almost always preferable to a bright blue sky.

Near Durness, northwest Scotland.

Mammatus clouds are usually a sign of severe weather, such as thunderstorms, heavy rain, and lightning.

Clouds, rain, and the Taos mountains, 2015.

Colorful clouds make the sunset.

Abstract clouds.

4000 year old standing stone and clouds, Orkney Islands, Scotland.

NOTE: Please let me know if this kind of blog is worth your time viewing--I enjoy producing them, but I’d like to know if you like viewing them.

Spring in Scotland #2: The Best, Part 1

      We are just into our last week of our spring 2019 Scotland trip and in typical Scottish fashion the weather has turned not so nice. Yesterday we played golf in heavy showers and 25 mph winds. Today we played in heavy clouds with no rain or wind—a better day. Tomorrow it’s back to rain again. but the inside time gives me a chance to organize my more than a thousand photos into a meaningful blog post (or in this instance, two posts). I’ve tried to pick photos that characterize both Scotland and our trip. This “Best Of” is presented in categories, starting with some village images. 

Construction in Dunblane

We love the villages, the small towns, far more than the cities. Places like Crieff (our home base), Aviemore, Comrie, Boat of Garten, Grantown-on-Spey, Stonehaven, and many others are where the Scots walk daily to shops and cafes, much as you’d see in the 1950s in the states. We find there are always interesting things to see in the villages.

Horse and buggy in Kingussie

How much is that haggis in the window?

Peterhead Pub Patron

This could be any village in Scotland.

And this could be any village road in Scotland.

A special type of village is the seaside village or harbour. Scotland’s harbours come in all sizes [Thanks ,Mr Obvious, for that startling information.] from the small village harbour like Crail to the large fishing ports at Peterhead, Fraserburgh, and Aberdeen. Even though I don’t enjoy being on almost any size boat, the vessels are always good photo targets.

Crail Harbour on Fife

Fraserburgh Harbour

Gardenstown, a clearance village

Fraserburgh with large fishing boats.

Sea Pinks and Buchaness Lighthouse

Rainbow over Stonehaven Harbour

Buchaness Lighhouse in the fog

On this trip we had several encounters of the wildlife kind that couldn’t be photographed. For instance, on one trip home from a golf club social event we came within a couple of feet of hitting a rather large red deer. There was also the time near Cruden Bay when a large owl flew across the road right in front of us. Can’t have a camera on everything, but there were many sightings of Scottish fauna (mostly foul) where we could get photos.

Conversation

Oystercatcher at St Andrews Botanical Garden

Hairy Coo at Balgove Larder in St Andrews

At the St Andrews Botanical Garden

Pheasant Hen

The last category for this first part of The Best of the trip involves the life of the traveler--a little bit about how we live on the road.

A Good Shopping Trip

In self-catering we turned the lounge into a drying room.

A relaxing afternoon snack

The white bait and calamari are pretty good at Anstruther Fish Bar.

NEXT: Of course, Part 2.