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 M57 - Ring Nebula ST-7XME camera, LX-200 f/6.3 scope. 5 each LRGB 60 second images stacked then color combined. Then Lucy-Richardson deconvolved. |
 M20 Bright stars spiked. Spike removal tool left much to be desired. |
 Omega Centauri, i.e., NGC5139 |
 NGC4565 |
 NGC4565 |
 M27 Dumbbell Nebula |
M27 after pretty heavy Lucy- Richardson processing. |
The
following are not astronomical images but I shot them at the Griffin
Ranch site. I think they are interesting. |
 In the middle of an infrequently used road. |
 Globe Mallow. I've always enjoyed the colors... |
 Turkey Vulture. Shot it with Canon S3IS at X12 as it was circling overhead. |
 Predator. Note spider on the left flower just waiting for something to be attracted to the flower! |
 Super-predator. I saw the moth on the thistle. Blew on it to see if it was alive. That caused to spider that had presumably killed it to emerge from the center of the thistle! |
 Rattlesnake track. I'm not an expert at reading signs but I think the little curved mounds indicate a large Western Diamond-back crossed the road here. I have seen some this big (4 inches in diameter or so) near the Peralta Trail. |
"Re the rattlesnake
track: I *love* this picture. That’s
definitely a rattlesnake track and it looks like he came through before
it got
hot in the day, probably early morning. I can’t see the “shine”
of the track very well but I’d say that track is no more than 4 hours
old
or so. Looks like this was taken mid- to late-morning, true? Note at
the far
left of the track there’s a small stick lying over the track but no
disturbance under the stick. A snake that size could not have gone
under or
over that stick without disturbing it, so it got there after the snake.
Yet the
snake track has the smooth but non-shiny appearance of a track a few
hours old
but it’s not yet graining over, which makes it 4 or 5 hours old in
typical
desert soil. From the looks of the soil it looks like there was a very
light
rain not too long before (maybe a day or two) and there was a bit of
breeze
earlier in the day that may have joggled the sticks a bit, then your
snaky
friend came through. In the desert there’s often a breeze about the
start
of morning twilight, which means Mr. Snake came through about early
breakfast
time – a common time for snakies to move around on mild days. And it is
a
fairly large rattler, but I’m not sure about a 4-incher. It’s hard
to tell scale in the photo; I’m guessing only from the other tracks
also
visible. Note there’s another, older snake track along the left edge of
the road just past the stick. That one was probably made at night, but
not the
previous night (it’s older than that).There’s also a deer track, looks
like a mature buck (but still smallish), near the lower right corner,
but it’s
a least a day old and the people tracks have stepped all over the area,
including one very fresh Vibram left boot just in front of it (not
yours, I don’t
think – somebody smaller). There’s what look like two rabbit (not
hare) forepaws about halfway to the lower left corner and what look
like maybe
ground squirrel tracks all over, but I can’t make out the detail or
gait.
Were you wearing textured-sole sandals and did you walk over the track
(toward
the camera), the turn around to take the picture? (There's a very fresh
textured-sandal sole of an adult male coming toward the camera along
the center
of the left “lane.”) (I used to teach tracking to military
and law enforcement, back in my search-and-rescue days. Love this
stuff.)"
