pioneer farm – The Amazing Sky

April 21, 2015April 21, 2015

Conjunction Over the Old Barn

The Moon and Venus shine in conjunction over an old pioneer barn.

Tonight, April 21, the waxing crescent Moon passed a wide eight degrees to the left of Venus. That’s a wide conjunction to be sure, if we can even call it a conjunction!

Nevertheless, when the two brightest objects in the night sky come together it’s worth looking at and photographing.

I had planned to drive west, to the Kananaskis area of southern Alberta, to shoot the celestial scene over the Rockies. But clouds to the west thwarted those plans.

As it is, I still fought the oncoming clouds out on the plains. I chose a favourite old barn near home. It made a rustic foreground to the twilight sky.

Venus remains a brilliant “evening star” all spring and into the early summer. We’ll see a similar wide passage of the crescent Moon by Venus a month from now, on the evening of May 21.

April 26, 2013

Piercing the Night

All things must pass. A bit of billion-year-old comet dust disintegrates above a decaying pioneer farm.

This was a lucky shot to be sure. Last night I returned to my favourite farmstead site to shoot a time-lapse sequence of the stars turning over the moonlit rustic buildings. I started shooting some test frames to get the settings right — the camera was on a motorized dolly to move it along a track for the next three hours, so you want to make sure you have all the settings right. I opened the shutter to start a test series, and whoosh! A bright meteor appeared. Right on time and in frame. That doesn’t happen very often!

However, shooting hundreds of shots for a time-lapse sequence, now a common practice among astrophotographers, does boost your chances of picking up a bright meteor on one of the frames. But having it appear nicely framed is often too much to ask. I was lucky. But … I was out with a camera aimed at the sky, and for getting good shots that’s the first requirement!

September 30, 2012September 30, 2012

Pioneer Harvest Moon

The annual Harvest Moon shines over a scene from pioneering farm days.

One of the last remaining wood grain elevators still stands as a historic roadside attraction near the little hamlet of Dorothy, Alberta. It’s seen better days.

But in its time it took part in many a harvest in the Red Deer River valley. There were once no less three grain elevators here and railway tracks to take away the bountiful harvest. That was back in the 1910s and 1920s when Dorothy was a little boom town. But the prosperity waned in the Depression Years, and never returned. In the 1960s, the railway tracks were pulled up, and two of the elevators torn down.

Now, Dorothy is one of the ghost towns amid the badlands of the Red Deer River valley.

I shot this Saturday night, as the Full “Harvest” Moon rose over the hills, shining in the blue shadow of the Earth. This is one frame of 450 in a time-lapse sequence.