Blood Moon

If there's one real advantage to jobs in the field of natural resources, it's all the wonderful early morning skies that you'll (be forced to) see. Yesterday's had the added bonus of a so-called "blood moon" eclipse, the second in a series of four supposed to conclude next year. Fortunately I was in rural Nicholas County at my second job as an environmental camp staff member; the city lights of my home base of Lexington are not conducive to astronomy.

The previous day had some weird weather. We were under an on-and-off tornado watch and huddled in the basements for our classes. Surrounding counties had building damage and heavy hail, but we were luckier and--although we were drenched and cold--thunderstorms was as bad as it got. The next morning I got up at 6am to a cold, clear morning with Orion shining brightly above the staff cabin and a big chunk already bitten out of the moon.

 

The copper-colored shadow spread so quickly that by the time I had retrieved my camera from the office, changed the batteries, and come to the realization that you have to remove the lens cap to take a picture, the eclipse was all but complete. By 6:40ish it was setting behind the treeline, still a garish red. Until April 2015, blood moon.

Camera Experiments

I have now officially graduated from an iPhone camera to a step above an iPhone camera with the purchase of a Canon Powershot SX510! Naturally what this means is that even more of my mediocre photography will be unleashed upon the unsuspecting internet. A second job teaching at a fall environmental camp has been keeping me pretty busy, but in between times I've been experimenting with all the different settings that I can't understand. It's a learning process but I'm comforted by the fact that there's nowhere to go but up.

 A patient Great Blue Heron at McConnell Springs Park

Vultures on a cloudy evening

Fall leaves with the palisade cliffs of the Kentucky River in the background--Jim Beam State Nature Preserve

Moonrise in Nicholas County

Sunset, North-Central 4H Camp