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Orionid; Meade’s a good brand. You may be doing something wrong. A $220 sale price probably means a $299 list price, and for that, with that brand, you should be able to do better than that run-down Buick next door. PM me the model info and I’ll look it up; chances are, you can do better (I had a 60mm Meade bought at Costco before my current scope; about the same price; it did just fine at finding/tracking.)

Newtonian=awesome. Equitorial mount=not so much. If you can align the base to circumpolar, you can see wonders–but you have to first find them; after that, you’d only have to rotate one axis knob to keep them in view. For astrophotography–forget it w/o a sidereal drive. For meteors–also useless (but I’ll buy it from you for $40, plus shipping)[consider getting a drive mount, if one is available.]

Zing!

“Zing! Zing! Zing! went the trollop! Ring! Ring! Ring! went the belle!”

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…I have an inside, working knowledge of the penal system.

Really? Me too! Good to know! Oh, and it’s spelled ‘penile‘, btw. Just sayin’. 🙄

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They’re hard little buggers to catch, aren’t they? Naturally, the occurred while I was working, so I missed this one. It’s still a good shot, particularly with Orion rising showing the O. nebula, and Taurus up above. But I like the one with the Pleiades better (personal bias cluster of mine). Soosh has a couple decent ones, I recall.

The next coupl’a meteor showers will be during full/near full moons, but the Geminids will occur on a Monday-Tuesday in Dec., which is good for me, and during a half moon that will set about the time activity picks up. Usually I try for the Orionids in October, but it’s will be a full moon this year, and unlike our Orionid‘s shower during a full moon, it won’t be much to look at.

‘nuther one of those ‘how can I not go there’ opportunities. Sorry Kestrana!!

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Hrmm…why didn’t my comment stick? I think this is way cool. I’ve faired really well these past couple of weeks, but since that isn’t usually the case, this is useful stuff! Thanks for the innovation!

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Ah, I see “Niantic” as your location. I grew up in Stonington/Mystic but moved away in the late 70s. I spent a lot of time in Old Lyme and Old Saybrook in later years but I haven’t been back there since probably 1998 or so.

“Mystic”? Isn’t there a pizza joint there? I heard they’re the bomb, but the waitresses have big teeth and an annoying laugh…

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Caradoc I do hope that copy of Stranger in a Strange Land is the unabridged version his wife put out, and not that mini-version he was forced to publish way back in the day?

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I like #3, CD.

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NOT relaxing; trying to log into totalfark and finding out today is the day my 6 month subscription ended. But I got it renewed in time for the contest. *phew*

ok i did the OBO thing and used his captions since he had them there and i hadn’t heard back from him re to use them or not.

nice to be able to post even if it was OBO because i got noting tonight.

I only had one this week; the tessellations I feel is a pretty damned weak-arse pic, but I lucked out with a very cool sunrise that relaxed me enough to remember to take pictures, then use one of them. 🙂

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heh. made it onto the top ten at the end of the contest by the skin of my teeth, as they say. And what drops off for me when FSM refreshes at the start of the next contest? My 76 votes from the macro bugs contest. *head desk*.

*waves at top ten as I zoom past it on the roller coaster that is my stats*

I’d better not completely tank farkitrol. 😉

Wait. The FSM stats are not forever and you’ll lose the older ones?

And your ‘up close’ shot of the cat’s eye makes one pic I selected for ‘I did see a putty tat’ mute. Yours is closer.

This farkitol contest eludes me. I have one shot thus far. The things that relax me haven’t proved to be photographical.

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Lightning if anything, is a matter of luck-of-the-draw. But your pic is outstanding. You might was well pulled two aces on the draw in 7 card poker, and followed it up with two more on the table.

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Lord knows she’s well-traveled; I would have no clue. When they were restoring the Sistine Chapel, and it was closed to the public, she was up on the scaffolding looking at it up close and in person (though she didn’t do photography then.) You can ask her via the email option, though, about Dunkeld Abbey.

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Photograph fish that look like chairs. *wait* I’m confused. 😉 The musical chairs is too my liking; I can do that in a week…

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I wouldn’t have a single inch of free wall space if I could take pictures like these.

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Monkeys aside, I’ve been doing a shooting that’s taken me all night; I think I got the one I want, late in the game. Might have to do some white-balance adjustment, of course (I think I’ll go with ‘cloudy’); maybe work on the saturation angle a bit. As I’ve learned here, ‘great shots are not taken, they are made’. I made the best of it (it was so hard, of course, to keep up to the task at hand–the shot idea was a fantasy projection, really, after all).

Now I just have to replicate the feeling, twice more, and yet make it seem original each time. Well, I’ve pulled harder tricks than that before.

But never before an audience of savants. Hope I stand up to the challenge of everyone else’s submissions. Can we disable the ‘clickr for bigger’ this contest? If there’s one thing I can’t stand, it’s size-queens. And little…pics.

“Saturate yourself with your subject and the camera will all but take you by the hand.”

— Margaret Bourke-White

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Five hours of driving around and shooting… I think it was worth it.

+1 Teravolt. Way nice.

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