Moon, Sun, Clouds, and Lunar Eclipse

We've been busy working on several projects.  Biggest one is repairs to our seawall and replenishing the sand on the beach after Hurricane Julia (no, not Lisa, Julia was the one before).   That will take a month or more of hard work by our crew to finish.  More fun is monitoring sea turtle nesting activity.   So far this year there have been 18 crawls, the most we have ever seen.  Of course that doesn't mean there are 18 actual nests; some crawls seem to be primarily exploratory.  I'll do a separate post on turtles once the season is over.  Another ongoing project is documenting birds and I am having great fun with the Merlin App using Sound ID.  They have recently added more Belize birds to the Sound ID feature.  

Did you know there was a lunar eclipse November 8?  The best viewing time for us was between 3:00 and 5:00am.  The sky was crystal clear at 2:00 and I got my first photo at 3:00 with just a tiny edge of darkness showing up.

This is with my phone.  Mitchell should have been here - his moon photos are superb!

Clouds were just beginning to show up and within 15 minutes, the view of the moon was blocked.  So that was it for me.  I went back to bed and didn't get up again to see if the clouds had blown over.  

Two days later, the moon was in her glory rising over Great Monkey Cay.

The moon is looking right at me!

Reflection on a calm sea.

Followed by the every day miracle of sunrise.

Also reflections on a calm sea.

When a light breeze comes from the west, the trees block the wind from the disturbing the surface of the water closest to shore - it can be almost mirror smooth at times.  A little farther out, and you can tell the sea is slightly ruffled.

This morning's sky view was of these super cool clouds.

Like UFOs.

Then all hell broke loose, so Clove and I made a mad dash for home.  No aliens, just 1/3rd an inch of rain in 15 minutes.  Always something exciting going on.

Of Towers and Dishes, Locks and Boats, and Lunar Eclipses

There is still so much more we did on our trip to England that I want to show you, but first up is our our new internet system that will make it all possible without me pulling my hair out.

New receiver dish on our roof.

We got what is called "dedicated internet" from our mobile phone provider.  We have a receiver dish (I guess it must transmit as well as receive for uploading).

The dish is more than 40 feet above the ground.

The dish is aimed toward the nearest tower 12 miles away where its partner dish, which is aimed right at us, is mounted.  The service is called "dedicated" because we are the only ones who can use the paired dishes and their reserved bandwidth.  It is not cheap, but that is another cost of staying connected while living so remotely.  I was very impressed with how quickly the 2-man installation team got it all set up and aimed correctly.  We opted to go with the slowest speed which seems OK and is considerably less expensive that the next step up.  We have used it for a month now and are very pleased.

Back to Bath Spa now, for a trip through a canal lock.  I think it was our first evening there that we watched a narrow boat navigating through a lock.  It was fascinating to me, so I took lots of photos.  You will be pleased to know that I narrowed down the selection in consideration of you, my readers.  The gorgeous light of a mid-summer evening was beautiful.

Waiting for the lock to fill.

The top of the narrow boat is still lower than water of the next level.

At last the water is the same level and the gates of the lock can swing open.  All those people standing and watching the folks pushing the gates are my family.

Almost open enough to clear.

And she's through!

The gates were closed behind her.

I'll mix in more of our holiday in upcoming blogs.

Were you able to watch the lunar eclipse night before last?  I thought cloud cover was going to keep us from watching it, but the clouds thinned out for part of it.  I got a few shots worth sharing.  I used my new camera, which I am still trying to master.  I'll have to write a post about it some time soon, too.  It doesn't have telephoto lens per se, so these are highly cropped.

Oh - Happy New Year!

The Moon Also Rises

The moon has never had so many cameras aimed it as it did night before last, and mine was one of the many.  Geographically, South Englishtown is in the perfect place to view this eclipse as the moon rises over the unbroken sea - moonrise at 5:39PM, sunset at 5:47PM, full moon at 8:52PM.  That means the totality would commence around 8:20PM.

The moon made its appearance above the low clouds on the horizon at 6:05.

And at 6:23 it was bright and relatively crisp with a lovely golden glow.  Not exactly the blood moon I had anticipated, but spectacular never-the-less.

Would the weather cooperate for the next 4 hours?  In a word, no.  I did get a few images of the beginning (through the haze) and more as neared totality. For the full effect, click on the image above and scroll through the images.

The first sign of the eclipse was around 7:00 with shadow showing up in the lower left side of the moon.

Clouds obscured everything for the next hour, by which time totality was approaching.  The next set of shots took place from 8:03 until 8:13, when clouds rolled in for good.

I sat on the little east-facing balcony with the camera on a monopod to take these photos. They were taken with the zoom maxed out at 105mm and an exposure compensation of -3.66.  I adjusted the aperture and ISO as conditions changed.  Otherwise, all I did was crop them; no adjustment of color or brightness.  I am pretty happy with them, my next chance to photograph a lunar eclipse with the moon at perigee won't happen again until 2033!

Did the moon come back after being eaten by the dark?  Yes, The Moon Also Rises the next evening.  And it looked satisfyingly red this time.