Tuesday 11 November 2008

Kaloli Point moonrise


I'm slowly getting to grips with my camera but there are a gazillion settings to learn and it's going to take a long time. After I learn how to use one of them I then forget, half an hour later, how to get to it via the camera's menu. I guess I'm getting to that sort of age.

The one thing I really do want to try is getting an image of the Milky Way from home on Kaloli Point as the night sky is stunning from here, even down at sea level. On dark nights one doesn't even have to be dark adapted to see the Galactic plane and its dark lanes - it helps that there are no street lights and no big cities nearby. Unfortunately, it's been pretty cloudy since my camera arrived so I haven't had the chance, so instead I tried my luck taking a picture of the nearly-full moon rising over Kaloli Point this evening. Not too bad for a complete beginner...

3 comments:

Keera Ann Fox said...

I agree! Not a bad portrait of the Man in the Moon. :-)

Zuzana said...

Hi there.:)I found your site through Keera Ann.
I am totally intrigued by the fact that you grew in Europe and now live in Hawaii. Being an astronomer and working there. I would love that happening to me.
The picture of the moon is fantastic. Here in Europe we had full moon a week ago. Is it the same in Hawaii? Shows how little I know.;)
The moon is so very bright here and I am very fascinated by it, have always been.
I love also your photograph of the red poppies. Very beautiful, a great blog.

Tom said...

Thank you Protege (and Keera!) for those very kind words! In my younger days Hawai`i was certainly the last place I expected to be living in, but I can't complain.

As for the full moon, if it's full in Hawai`i then it's also full in Europe - give or take an hour or two. There is a little difference in the time of a full moon depending on your location, but it's a very small period of time. Genarlly, for us astronomers, the moon is a pain because it's so bright and drowns out many of the fainter things we look at, but it's still beautiful to look at!

Incidentally, I can't take credit for the poppy photo, I found that on the internet and the link to where I found it is in the post. Unfortunately poppies aren't used to signify rememberance (veterans) day here so I wasn't able to take any photos of them.