The Impressionist in Me (2)

Remember this from a few days ago?



How were the pictures made?
Adrian was correct in surmising it was something to do with a new app.

I found a camera app for the iPhone (NightCap) which is designed for night photography, especially sky photography. It has several different methods for taking photos of stars and meteors. One facility can continuously take slightly delayed shots but instead of saving them separately it combines them in real time. Me being me I decided to see what would happen with a normal daytime view.

This is the area I was looking at



It was quite a breezy day so much of the hedge was moving.
In consequence various parts of the hedge were recorded in slightly different places.
I think I kept the app running for 5 seconds or thereabouts.

Resulting in



I added the frame.

Some fine night I will set up the iPhone on a tripod outdoors to see what happens.
If shooting long enough it should record star trails.

Harvest Moon

Oh, Shine on, shine on, harvest moon
Up in the sky;
I ain't had no lovin'
Since April, January, June or July.
Snow time, ain't no time to stay
Outdoors and spoon;
So shine on, shine on, harvest moon,
For me and my gal.

 

A pity the Moon ended up over exposed.
Lovely coloured clouds again almost makes up for it.

I did take three shots with different exposures.
When I tried to combine them as an HRD photo it was a dismal failure.
Time to explore the capabilities of Affinity Photo.
Found out how to make the background of the darkest one transparent.
That just left the Moon with some features showing.
Next found out how to add that to the above photo to make a composite.

 

Harvest Moon, the full Moon closest to the northern autumnal equinox.
In days gone by farmers could use these bright Moonlit nights to continue harvesting at night.

Monday Montage

Last week's WidsMob Montage picture was



Fully identified as a photo of



a Horse chestnut seed, a conker
by Adrian and Ragged Robin with Wilma getting close.


For this week have a look at



If you know what it is, or just want to have a guess, please leave your answer in the comments.
They will be revealed, along with the original photo, next Monday.

The Impressionist In Me

I wonder how I managed to produce those.
Can you guess?

Looking Up

Once the stormy weather had passed through on Wednesday and some semblance of calm had returned it was the chance to take a photo I've been trying to get for over a week but it has been so overcast. There were some bands of cloud but they were drifting past fairly rapidly leaving occasional clear spots.

To start with, a photo of the Moon



What I really wanted to capture was this



Recently the Moon and Mars have been visible quite close to each other in the night sky.
For over a week Mars has shone like a bright orange star. To spot it on the photo - start from the bright blurry moon and follow an imaginary line from it to the bottom left hand corner. Mars is about two thirds of the way towards that corner. It may show better if you click on the picture to see it larger.

Also noticeable was the amount of colour in the clouds.

 

Possibly ice crystals high in the atmosphere scattering the Moonlight. Some people have seen Moondogs, rainbow like streaks similar to Sundogs. See an example on the Spaceweather site HERE.

A Tale of Two Coppers

I recently had to replace my whistling kettle. My old polka dot one had a whistle which, when boiling, rapidly increased in pitch until it was beyond my hearing. Unfortunately a few days ago I nodded off and didn't hear it. When I finally woke it was to the smell of singed metal. It had boiled dry and was well and truly blackened in the process. This is my nice, shiny, copper coloured replacement:



This one has a loud, strident whistle which I can hear.
I used to have an electric one which whistled as it switched itself off. Unfortunately the element gave up. When I replaced it the new one tainted the water with a strong 'plastic' taste, even after several boilings, so I went back to the type I could use on a gas ring.

The second copper of the week - a Small Copper Butterfly.





Since the very cold blast we suffered earlier in the year I haven't seen many butterflies, let alone those which stayed still long enough to photograph.

Wordless Wednesday

A splash of Autumn