Crescent Mercury!

I took my own advice from last night's post, set up the 14" Celestron before sunset tonight, and attempted to image Mercury before it got too low. Well, too low is a relative term, and while it was above the horizon a good 5 or 10 degrees in a still-bright sky, it still showed considerable atmospheric dispersion. At angles far from the zenith, the atmosphere acts like a thin prism so at low elevations, the lower edge of a bright object like the moon or Venus will show a red edge, the upper edge a blue edge. The same with the view of a low star through a telescope, or in this case, Mercury.

With the Canon XSi camera mounted at the Cassegrainian focus, the C-14 acts like a nearly 4,000mm telephoto lens. This is enough to show the crescent shape of Mercury using the "live view" to focus on, but such a long focal length is difficult to take short exposures with the camera's shutter and SLR mirror slap. Using a shutter speed of 1/250 second and using mirror lockup, image motion was minimized, and I took 30 frames to stack together. The crescent shape is prominent, as is the atmospheric dispersion mentioned above. The only way to do better would be with a webcam, stacking multiple images (with no moving parts), and shooting while the sun was up (Mercury higher off the horizon), likely with an IR filter to darken the sky. Amateurs are doing amazing things with this combination, as shown here.


Note: I got the idea today to include what a single shot looked like. This one was representative of the 30 shots. With Mercury that low in the sky, the image had to go through 6 or more airmasses (6 times more than if Mercury were overhead). Observing that low has a huge affect on the image due to atmospheric turbulence, and is analogous to looking at something at the bottom of a swimming pool - the waves distort the image. Averaging many images smooths out the image and increases the signal-to-noise of the image. You can note how much smoother the above average is compared to this single...

The Early Opuntia Are Blooming!

Temperatures have been pushing close to 90F lately, so Spring is really here! While many of the Mammillaria have been in bloom, it is still a bit early for prickly pear (genus Opuntia). However, driving home after work Friday an early variety on the west side of our neighbor, Leenie's house, (or perhaps early because they are on the west side), is already blooming. Generally, they all have big yellow blossoms, and strike quite a contrast with the dull green or purple of the cactus pads. As always, click on the photos for a full-screen view.






In my opinion, the flowers are not the only photo-worthy parts of the plants. The new pad growth have a beauty all their own, and it is quite amazing how fast they grow from a little pimple on the edge of the pad to a full-grown pad in their own right. The growing cladophylls sometimes bear striking colors, and while still young and tender, are edible to humans (seen as cans of nopales in the Mexican section of local stores here, or sold fresh in some vegetable markets). Here are a couple examples taken within 100 feet of our front door yesterday. I don't know the varieties pictured, but they are very photogenic! Note also that the young growth is home to a variety of insects. In the middle picture, note the aphids at top center, an unidentified bug right center, and an ant below. I hadn't noticed the aphids until I saw the photos on the computer screen. I went out to try a closer shot today, and they are shown at right with a little more detail. The macro focuses closer, but I would have had to climb into a cactus pile to move closer - will keep an eye out for easier prey!


Many of the prickly pear are sporting their flower buds, but a species at a neighbor's down the street really takes the cake! Instead of just a few buds around the edge of the pads, it sports over a dozen buds over the full pad face! They are unlikely to all bloom at once, but I'll be keeping an eye on them. While photographing it last year, they came out and offered some pads for me to plant. While I didn't take them up then, I may soon. They are easily propagated by sticking the pad in the ground and watering well for few weeks. Before you know it, you'll have one a few feet high.





I'm closing out this post with some non-cactus blossoms. On our trip last weekend to Mexico, the Desert Globe Mallow was in bloom most of the way. It wasn't until we got back that this one, growing in our yard between our parked vehicles, bloomed as well. The apricot color is just about the only only desert flower of this shade, and the plant is also known as an Apricot Mallow as well for that reason. Keep watching, we'll be running more desert plants as they flower through the Spring.

Evening Sky Show Continues!

Mercury's excellent evening apparition continues! In the next few days, Mercury will get a little further from brilliant Venus (moving more to it's lower right), and start to fade dramatically, so be sure to get a look at it soon. This shot was taken tonight with the Canon XSi, with a 4 second exposure. Click for a full-screen view.


If you have a telescope, Mercury now displays a crescent phase as it's orbit takes it between us and the sun. Use Venus as your starting guide, looking to the lower right with your naked eye or binoculars as it gets dark enough to pop out. Happy hunting!

Spring Cleaning

I don't know the mechanism involved, but as the temperature warms, the cats shed their winter coat as their fur thins out. On a longhair, they usually need a little help with grooming by brushing or combing. But The Scruffers (aka, Scruffy) is a long-hair that hates being brushed, and he gets thick mats that are impossible to comb out, and are very uncomfortable for him as well. Scruffers has lots of medical issues - not only is he FIV+, and under medication for a past spinal injury, but he's lost his vision about 6 months ago, likely as a result of FIV and his high blood pressure. But we had to do something... Last year when he moved in with us, we had him clipped at the vet while he was under for neutering. This year I made an appointment with Barbara, a groomer that Vicki located years ago, who runs Transformations Pet Center for a clipping.



Years ago I took another cat regularly to Barbara, ironically, another FIV+ cat who also had lost his vision. She utilizes the owner to help hold the cat and reassure it during the clipping, so I was glad to help out. As much as Scruffy hates being groomed, I was a little nervous, and Barbara had the big leather gloves out for me, but they weren't needed. He did very well, though he hissed a little as we clipped around his private parts - to be expected! Even the clippers had trouble getting through some of the mats, but the vacuum attachment helped control the mass of hair, and he was done in about 15 minutes. He was sure happy to get home! Just from his walking you can tell he is a lot more comfortable with his new haircut, and takes petting a lot better too. Barbara suggests we might want to do a fall clip too - we'll see if he gets any mats coming in as his fur fills in through the Summer.

A "PS" from Melinda: DO click on the link to Scruffy's original clipping at the Vet. He was such a skinny little runt when we initially brought him in from the outside and had him clipped. We could count every bone and rib along his back. After his grooming on Friday it was amazing to see how hefty he really has become (it wasn't all fur afterall)! He is quite the handsome boy!

Funny How Things Work Out!

Well so far, in three posts about Rocky Point, we've neglected to mention the major earthquake we went through! The northern edge of the Sea of Cortez, where we were located, was only about 120 miles from the epicenter near Mexicali. I've never been through an earthquake before, and while the epicenter strength was 7.3, it was, of course less where we were. I'm guessing we were in the low 5s, but I'm not sure. It really did shake us though, for seemingly a long time, perhaps detectable for a couple minutes, though weaker towards the end... Melinda was coming out of the shower and had a difficult time standing. Margie, Rick, Linda and I were sitting on the second floor and observed it all in comfort. It never shook so bad we felt in danger, I was just amazed to witness one. Actually, we might have witnessed one a couple months ago when we took Carolyn to San Diego. There was a time when we thought the car was being buffeted by a strong wind - that was about the time Southern Cal got an earthquake, though we didn't know about it till afterwards...

Anyway, shortly after the earthquake, Margie's neighbor to the east was taking a look around his house. While chatting with him, Melinda asked if we could take some pictures of some of his mosaics that we had admired all weekend. He invited us to come over for a full tour of which we took advantage.




There we met Al and Dee - it was their son Jimmy that we had met. Their home there is amazing - not only with the exterior tile mosaics, but every room in the house is decorated with similar mosaics and ironwood statuary. Al is a home builder in Arizona and his Rocky Point home was one, of not the first house built in the area. It was a small bungalow when they obtained it, but in several remodelling cycles, is now huge - it can sleep the entire extended family (19!). But it is the artwork and design features that make the house so beautiful! Taking advantage of local artisans, and with Al's direction the tile mosaics and carvings were completed. They are justifiably proud of their home, and I hope the pictures do justice to the place. It was great to see the interior, and we thank them for the chance!

More Rocky Point Shopping...

My last post about food shopping in Rocky Point got interrupted (work is sometimes sooo inconvenient!). But we didn't just cruise for food - with our recent home improvements and our interest in talavera tile, we had other fish to fry, so to speak.




We only stopped at a few places, but man, what a variety of stuff! Everything imaginable from glassware, to pottery, loads of talavera, spanish colonial furniture, and similar style appointments and decor. We only spent $30 on some sconces, but with the variety of tile work there, we'll likely return before our next bathroom remodel. The talavera sink I'm holding was only $110, about $60 less than in Tucson, and with lots more variety too. And while there are innumerable sun emblems available in Arizona, there were about a gazillion I've never seen before. The artwork at lower left is all bead work, and the salesgirl is holding just about the smallest dog we've ever seen!

Shopping in Rocky Point!

While we ate out a couple times on our Rocky Point Weekend, with access to a house and full kitchen it is less expensive (and more fun!) to go out shopping and cook your own meals. That especially true when you happen to have a former professional chef staying with you!


So we went to the local "Super Ley" supermarket, which is a lot like a major grocery in the States, with a few minor changes. The first was the parking lot guard carrying the machine gun! Anyone who reads the newspapers knows about drug-related killings in border towns, and while Rocky Point in particular has not had any issues, we certainly saw lots of security carrying weaponry. Once in the store, things looked more familiar. The fruit and veggie section was huge, with usual standard stuff, but with a Mexican flair -like fresh coconuts and a big chili section. Here Margie checks out some huge papaya. Note prices seem high, but remember, they are marked in pesos (currently about 12/dollar), and also would be weighed out in Kilos, so divide again by 2.2 to get to pounds. So the $16.75 peso/kg works out to 63 cents/lb. The large seafood section contains unusual (for us) items like fresh manta ray, conch meat and squid. And we also chose not to get any chicken feet, which I've never seen for sale... But they also had a large bakery that sold fresh, warm tortillas and a variety of other fresh-baked goods.



We were in search of seafood, but wanted the ultimate in freshness, so headed down to the old port area of town where the fishing boats unloaded that morning. Here Rick oversaw the shopping with a menu in mind, and got a couple kilo of the biggest shrimp I'd seen in while. They also had clams fresh enough to squirt you, oysters, scallops, pretty much any sort of shellfish or fish you could want, right off the boat and on ice. They even cleaned the shrimp for us while we waited for a couple minutes.


We had the shrimp for our Easter dinner - grilled with veggies over noodles and garlic sauce. Rick again did all the work, and we helped as best we could - set the table with paper plates and made sure everyone had the alcohol of their choice. It was fun and instructive to see and listen to the chef at work. His secret seemed to be - more butter! But there were no complaints from the customers - the leftovers consisted of a lone linguine noodle!

There is more coming, but it will have to wait till next time!