Saturday evening, June 27, 2009, Saturn and the Moon had another close encounter. This was much nearer than the one Thursday evening, and this time, Saturn was to the upper right of the moon.

The sky was nice and clear tonight, but it was difficult to get both the Moon and Saturn exposed properly, as the difference in brightness was so great. I got a nice picture of the moon, however.

There was an interesting convergence of stars and planets Thursday evening, with Saturn and the Moon approaching the edges of the constellation Leo. Saturn was to the upper left of Leo and the Moon was to the lower right.

It was a tough night for astrophotography, as there was a great deal of sky glare from the recently set sun, and there was considerable haze. I got a couple of shots that are worth showing, however.

© Copyright 2009 Pat Bagley – All Rights Reserved.
Used with Permission.

© Copyright 2009 Bob Englehart – All Rights Reserved.
Used with permission.

Pre-dawn clouds Friday and Saturday kept me from shooting a couple of wonderful convergences this week.

Yesterday (June 19, 2009), the crescent Moon grouped with Venus and Mars. Venus was to the lower right of the Moon, and the much fainter Mars was between them. The clouds were just broken enough that I was able to get an occasional glimpse of this Friday morning, but I wasn’t able to get any pictures.

I’ve only watched two of the games of the College World Series so far this year (the two Texas Longhorn games, of course). The commentary by ESPN has been horrifically bad for both, however.

First there was Sunday’s game between Texas and Southern Mississippi, which featured an extended discussion of how unimportant Twitter is. This contrasted nicely with ESPN’s promotion of its CWS Twitter feed every fifteen minutes or so.

The Wife was off on Thursday, so the two of us drove to Georgetown, Texas to take one of the tours at Inner Space Cavern. This series of caves was discovered by the Texas Highways Department while they were surveying for Interstate 35.

We took the Adventure Tour, as the Explorer Tour was sold out for the day. As usual, taking pictures was one of my main goals. Unfortunately, the tour guide kept us going at a fairly fast pace. As a result, I only got wide angle photos, not the close-ups I really wanted.

© Copyright 2009 John Cole – All Rights Reserved.
Used with permission.

A few miles north of San Antonio you’ll find Natural Bridge Wildlife Ranch, a drive-through wildlife preserve of herbivores. The Wife and I drove out there last weekend to try out my new Nikkor 300mm f/2.8 lens. As it turned out, the animals were way too close for such a long lens.

Part of the entrance fee gets you a bag of feed for the critters, which draws the hungry ones right up to your vehicle. In fact, we even had an ostrich stick its head a foot or two into the Chevy. That’s something that doesn’t happen every day.

© Copyright 2009 Eric Allie – All Rights Reserved.
Used with permission.