Nature – Page 2 – The Science Attic

In case you missed last night’s lunar eclipse, it was a good one. Luckily the weather mostly cooperated. I took a few pictures, these being the best two – although they are a little fuzzy due to some thin clouds. This being the last one until the end of 2010, I wanted to make sure I got to catch this one. The color on this one was good, the orange/red very visible once it reached totality. (Why is it that color, instead of totally dark? It’s the sun’s light refracting around the earth’s atmosphere as it makes its way to the moon – basically looking at a distance at all the sunrises/sunsets all at once if you were to stand on the moon.)

If you click the pictures above, you’ll see one that is wider angled has two stars visible. The one to the left is actually the planet Saturn. The other bright one above is Regulus, in the constellation Leo.

Pretty cool stuff… although the natives in this story didn’t think so…

I know I’ve focused many of the recent posts on the more technical computer related arena. I thought for this one, I was overdue to focus (at least visually) on some of the great outdoor environment. Autumn is my favorite season and as some recent business found me on a couple of road trips to Albany, NY, I took the opportunity to bring along the camera to see what kind of shots I could grab. I was eager to try some of the features of my digital camera that I have learned about in the last few weeks. As it also so happens, I took the family, on the weekend between each of these road trips, to a day hike to Walden Pond in Concord, MA. I think these shots are among some of the better I have taken. Thumbnails are below. All photos were taken with my Kodak EasyShare DX7590. (The cabin at Walden Pond is the replica of the cabin Henry David Thoreau lived in for two years on Walden Pond.)

Hudson River – Albany, NY