Nighttime Phenomenon

Post date: Oct 12, 2016 7:23:27 PM

The photo above was taken on August 30, 2016, and the sky is so red because what is left of the sunshine is travelling through smoke from the Chimney and Soberanes Fires. You have to look closely but if you do, you might be able to make out the Evening Star, Venus, low in the west.

This photo was taken almost a month later, September 26, and the sky still has a little light, and Venus is barely visible in this one too.

I've been experimenting lately with taking photos at night (can you tell?) both with the phone and with a digital camera. The photo of the moon (a few nights ago, a waxing crescent not quite a quarter moon) is my favorite of several photos I tried that night - there are some branches across the moon which give the photo a little depth.

Did you know that sheep's eyes glow green in the light of a flashlight? Eerie but pretty. But I couldn't get a photo, not quite bright enough. Maybe I'll try again sometime.

Later that same night, I found and photographed, with the help of a flash, this little critter in the chicken yard as I was putting the chickens to bed (that is, shutting the doors to their coops). It's a kangaroo rat. Very cute. Nocturnal, you could guess by the big eyes. It (he or she?) comes into the chicken yard at night to eat some leftover chicken feed - along with lots of mice. Wait, I don't mean the kangaroo rat eats mice, I mean the mice also eat leftover chicken feed.