St. Patrick’s Day Moon & Jupiter

St. Patrick’s Day Moon & Jupiter on Flickr.

Yesterday I looked at the moon and Jupiter and thought, there’s going to be another conjunction tomorrow, isn’t there? Then I forgot, but fortunately I had to make a grocery run.

I took this photo just minutes ago. If you’re in the western half of North America, and the sky is clear, you can walk outside RIGHT NOW and see this.

Comet Pan-STARRS and the Moon

Moon and Comet

On Tuesday I drove up to a hillside park to get above the clouds and look for the comet. I arrived just a few minutes before sunset and found a large group of people with telescopes, binoculars and cameras lined up along the western side of the hill. The sun set, the moon came out, and the comet slowly came into view. I left just after the moon set a little over an hour later. More photos and write-up at K-Squared Ramblings.

Looking for comet Pan-STARRS last night. A lot of people had chosen the same hillside park…

Looking for #comet Pan-STARRS last night. A lot of people had chosen the same hillside park and were sharing their telescopes and binoculars as we watched the #sunset over the clouds, then the barely crescent #moon coming into view, and finally the comet itself. More at K2R: Comet Watch

Not a Rainbow

Feathery Not-a-Rainbow

An amazing circumhorizon arc that I saw last May. I had just crossed the street while walking to lunch when I looked up, saw it…and walked back to the office to get my camera!

It started out as just a couple of small segments, but as the clouds drifted into position it quickly grew, and at its strongest it was just long enough to fill the field of view on my camera. There were also a couple of fragments of a 22° circular halo visible at the time.

It looks like a sort of straightened-out rainbow, but it’s actually caused by ice crystals. If the right type of crystals cover the entire sky, this will actually stretch in a circle all the way around the sky, parallel to the horizon.

At times like this, I really wish I had a DSLR, but the point-and-shoot will do in a pinch.

Location: Irvine, California. May 14, 2010, 1:30pm

Maxfield Parrish Sky

Maxfield Parrish Sky

Maxfield Parrish Sky, originally uploaded by Kelson.

One night last October, I stepped out of the office building and felt like I’d stepped into a Maxfield Parrish painting. The whole sky looked like this. (Or at least the half that was visible.) It literally stopped me in my tracks.

I spent the next 15 minutes walking around the parking lot, watching the lighting on the clouds change as the sun set and taking pictures.