Not Many Sunspots

As the Sun is making its presence felt at the moment I thought it was time to take a few photos. Yesterday's high here was 26C.


29th June - one Sunspot at 11 o'clock:



30th June - one Sunspot at 9 o'clock:




A gentle reminder that you should never point a camera, telescope or binoculars directly towards the Sun without using a filter made for that purpose. The Safety Film Solar Filter I use cuts down the light from the Sun by about 10,000 times. Also it should go without saying that you should never look at the Sun with the naked eyes.

Nearly a Full Moon

Taken last Saturday while the Moon showed in the day time sky.
Converted to grey scale as I think it looks more natural:

Guess What

As I am finding it harder to find things for new macro photos I have introduced an extra topic to my Guess What on Mondays which I can use from time to time - close shots of everyday objects.

First though, the answer for last week's mystery photo of a full object. That proved to be difficult .....



TexWisGirl gains the virtual Midmarsh Silver Star for being close(ish) in suggesting it was some sort of lamp. It does have a tiny blue LED inside which flashes while it is working. In fact it is a novelty / disguised USB memory stick. Fiendishly clever those Chinese designers.

   




Now for the new mystery photo, a close shot of an everyday object:
Guess What:


Please leave any guesses in the comments.
They will be revealed next Monday, along with the answer.
No prizes. Just for fun, a fuzzy feeling of satisfaction and possibly a virtual Midmarsh Gold or Silver Star.

As always the new title was designed in Art Text 2 and uses the fonts 'Aliens Ate My Mum' and 'A Charming Font'.

House Sparrow Community

RSPB reports suggest that House Sparrow populations have fallen by 71% since 1977. Our local ones are doing their best to make a recovery. They spend a lot of time together. Chattering in the hedges. Taking dust baths. Visiting the garden pond waterfall:

Six at once:


No, make that Seven:


Correction, Eight:


Might be hard to see - there is one almost hidden behind the Sparrow on the left.

What I have noticed has been the lack of Tree Sparrows visiting the garden. For the previous few Winters there have been several joining the House Sparrows at the feeders but last Winter I didn't see one.

Seeing Red

Spot the red:



Here's two of them:



A close crop:



These red spider mites were spotted on the wooden step of my Summerhouse.
Actual size about 1.5mm including the legs.
Photos above were taken with the Nikon Coolpix S9050

The following were taken with the Canon 50D with 70-200 zoom plus Raynox Macro lens:

 

 

 

Those were taken hand held while the little darlings raced around all over the place.
Over 30 shots were consigned to Dusty Bin but no mites were harmed during this photo shoot.

Friday at the Flicks - Sunset Clouds

Taking a video of clouds at Sunset is very much a pot luck, suck it and see, exercise. As I prefer to start a short while before Sunset there is no guarantee that any colour will appear. I got lucky with my second attempt.

Time lapse taken Wednesday night towards Sunset:



Shot using the LapseIt app on an iPod Touch 5.
One shot every two seconds.
Total 1837 frames processed at 24 fps.
Colours and contrast slightly enhanced in LapseIt and iMovie.

Doing the same thing on a DSLR means having hundreds of individual shots which have to be transferred to a PC or Mac to be made into a video with a suitable program.  The LapseIt app for iPhone or iPod Touch does the whole process in one app with the advantage of being able to preview things before making the final video. It is possible to add music in the app but I find it easier to use iMovie on the Mac as I have a large selection of music to choose from on disk.

The Ususal Mowing Hazard

It's always a bit nerve wracking mowing the longer grass round the edge of the lawn. Especially so yesterday as it had grown so long. The long grass holds the moisture and is a favourite resting place for the garden frogs. Yesterday was no exception when this young frog (probably around two to three years old) leap out in front of the mower:



Frame added using the old version of PhotoScape X.