Figure 1 – Black-crowned night heron, Ding Darling National Wildlife Refuge, Sanibel Island, FL (c) DE Wolf 2024
As a New England birder, I am always delighted by the herons. Our marshes are dominated by the Great Blue Heron. But Southwest Florida, wow! And one of the favorites is the black-crowned night heron (Nycticorax nycticorax). The name leads one to wonder why it and its relatives are called “night herons,” and the answer is an obvious one. They are pretty sedentary during the day but active from dusk to dawn feeding on pretty much everything that wiggles.
The black-crowned of Figure 1 was photographed in a mangrove at the Ding Darling National Wildlife Refuge on Sanibel Island in January. The distinctive red eye seems all so knowing, or is it the effect of endlessly and sleeplessly burning the midnight oil?
Figure 1 – IC2944, the Running Chicken Nebula, taken on iTelescope 71 in Chile, (c) DE Wolf 2024.
I wanted to post this morning an image that I took last night on a favorite 180 mm Takahashi iTelescope T71 in Chile. There are a number of important points to be made here, but start with the rich diversity and a kind of out of reachnes, for us in the northern hemisphere, exoticism of the southern skies. The image is of IC 2944, known variously as the Running Chicken Nebula, the Lambda Centauri Nebula or the λ Centauri Nebula. It is an open cluster with an associated emission nebula.
If you look closely at the image you will see dark spots resembling dirt. These are, in fact Bok globules, small dense nebulae composed of dust and gas believed to be the sites of active star formation.
When it comes to astrophotography, I am always struck by the contradiction between the joy of creating an image with dramatic dynamic range yet not exaggerated color, and the sublime joy of visual astronomy, where the object hangs in an infinite space, and where the colors are muted by the insensitivity of our photopic or color vision. Nothing beats aesthetically the sense of “looking” through the telescope
Figure 1 – Common Gallinule, Ding Darling National Wildlife Refuge, Sanibel Island, FL, (c) DE Wolf 2024.
One of my favorite birds in southwest Florida is the common gallinule (Gallinula galeata) with its delightful red beak. In the everglades it was always tricky to capture because it was invariably hiding behind grasses and mangroves. But always worth the effort! The photograph of Figure 1 was taken in Ding Darling National Wildlife Refuge on Sanibel Island. I personally love the greys of the water, the vertical branches, the reflections, whose symmetry directs the eye to the subject, and the circular ripples, which has a similar effect.
Figure 1 – American bald eagle, Sanibel Island, Fl, (c) DE Wolf 2024
Like Ozymandias* the haughty eagle chooses his perch high above the meager trees that hold the nests of the osprey. Bald eagle (Haliaeetus leucocephalus) carries with him so much symbolism. And they are often, like the one of Figure 1, so difficult to photograph. I was just beneath its tree, but really it was so far away and challenged my lens’ ability to capture him. “Capture” is the right word. The eagle is so hard to “capture” both physically and figuratively. Had we chosen the osprey instead as the emblem of America, might we have become a nation of pescatarians?
While Benjamin Franklin did not, as often cited, suggest that the turkey be the proper national bird. Perhaps it seems more appropriate in these troubled times, when we cannot find it in ourselves to come to aid of our allies. Franklin did comment in a letter to his daughter that the eagle in the national seal resembled a turkey. Franklin did apparently comment that “Bald Eagle…is a Bird of bad moral Character. He does not get his Living honestly…[he] is too lazy to fish for himself.” Like, I guess, the noble osprey. Neither agreeing or disagreeing with Franklin and having a strong disdain for the anthropomorphic, I just put it out there as a measure of a time when America was purer.
I took the image on a road side on Sanibel Island. TC and I pulled over and took photographs. The bird in question was himself haughty and disdainful. He barely looked at me and allowed me only so much time to take his image and, certainly not, to capture him before flying off.
Figure 1 – Tree fallen in the spring flood, Great Meadows National Wildlife Refuge, Concord, MA, (c) DE Wolf 2024.
This is a usual time of year for post-winter flooding in New England, a kind of mud season. And, as I indicated yesterday, there’s a lot of flooding this year. I wanted to try and capture it in a photograph – the inundated trees, a deep chocolatey still water surface, thick with rich mud. Often, as in Figure 1 the key is the contorted abstract shapes and, of course, the reflections. What particularly caught my eye was the spiral pattern in the park and its inverted reflection in the water as well as the disconcerting contrast between the cylindrical symmetry of the log and the vertical linear reflections of the standing trees.
Figure 1 – American Goldfinch, Great Meadows Natural Wildlife Refuge. (c) DE Wolf 2024.
Well, it is officially spring, judging by the warmth of the air. The birds are putting on their best plumage for the mating season, and I am hitting the birding trail. So, Figure 1 is just a warm-up image that I took at the Great Meadows National Wildlife Refuge this afternoon. After all the rain that we had these past few weeks the amount of flooding is insane and many of the paths and trails are impassable. This American Goldfinch (Spinus tristis) was displaying some brilliant color. The redwings are similalrly spectacular and their mating calls fill every corner of the meadow. I cannot wait for the coming of the lotuses!
Figure 1 – Osprey calling from its nest, Lovers Key. Fort Myers, FL, (c) DE Wolf 2024
One of the most wonderful animals on Lovers Key are the Osprey (Pandion haliaetus). Everywhere that I have seen them osprey are truly magnificent. Here they are very accessible. They nest right along the beech, and you can see them up close: mating, brooding and eating. I took a short video of one devouring a fish in a tree, while desperate laughing gulls gathered and squawked beneath it.
You suddenly have the understanding that just as we see them as others at the end of horizon of comprehension; so they must view us. We are a distraction.
At Lovers Key they talk a lot to each other. And they have a birdlike call that doesn’t quite seem to belong to a big top of the food chain predator. In Figure 1, I have tried to capture that endless conversation. Here an osprey sitting on its nest calls out its presence to the others around it. Perhaps it speaks to the timelessness. Perhaps it is saying to us to get off my beach. Perhaps it is protesting the end of the endless.
Figure 1 -The Fisherman, Lovers Ket, Fort Myers, FL (c) DE Wolf 2024
Following on yesterday’s blog about the solar eclipse, I thought I would post the image of Figure 1, which I took on Lovers Key in Fort Myers, Florida. The theme is a fisherman in a very intense sunlight; so intense that the image is driven into silhouette. Every once in a while I like to do a silhouette. It is curious. I like to think of silhouettes as simplifying. Indeed, usually that is what I am trying for. Here nothing is farther from the truth. The intense and high contrast light reveals rather than erases the debris on the beach. It is a jigsaw puzzle of complexity
OK, I admit it. I was supposed to go to Texas for the eclipse, but decide in the end that the weather forecast was too dismal and stayed home. I should have gone! Is Spain next? So i spent the afternoon with dear friends photographing the partial eclipse in Sudbury with my SeeStar 50s, see Figures 1 and 2.
Figure 1 – First eclipse contact, April 8, 2024 SeeStar 50 s (c) DE Wolf 2024Figure 2 – Eclipse Maximum, April 8, 2024. SeeStar 50s (c) DE Wolf 2024
Figure 3 shows a picture of the SeeStar 50s. This is a brilliant device and the cutting edge of what we may be pretty sure is a surging revolution in amateur astronomy. I’ll have more to say about this little robotic telescope in the future. But right now I just wanted to point out the here, resting on my dining room table, we have a basic altazimuth telescope system. A yoke enables the scope to move up and down in altitude, while a rotatable platform enables movement along the azimuth.
Figure 3 – The SeeStar 50 s “Smart Telescope” by ZWO. (c) DE Wolf 2024.
It connects wonderfully with Sir William Herschel‘s (1738-1822) design of his great “forty foot telescope” in 1744. Famously, George III led the then Archbishop of Canterbury into the tube saying, “Come, my Lord Bishop, I will show you the way to Heaven!” For my friends who gently chide me how amateur astronomy appears to be nine parts tinkering and adjusting and one part actually observing, I will point out that Sir William’s telescope was “down” most of the time. There were two speculum mirror, the main one weighing about a ton, and these were constantly being swapped out so that the other could be polished. Nevertheless, the “forty foot telescope” was instrumental [sic] in the discovery of Enceladus and Mimas, the 6th and 7th moons of Saturn.
Figure 4 – Sir John Herschell’s first photograph 1839 showing the altazimuth mount of his father;s “40 foot Telescope” in the public domain By John Herschel – http://www.mhs.ox.ac.uk/features/ephotos/nphoto3.htm#photo, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=7833750
There is an interesting connection with photography. Sir John Herschel, William’s son is famous both as a pioneer of Astronomy and of Photography, His earliest photograph was of the frame of the altazimuth mount of his father’s “40 ft telescope.” This is shown in Figure 4.
One will, of course, wonder what became of this important instrument in the history of science. As a good father Sir John worried about his daughters (see Figure 5) getting hurt playing in the ruins of the giant frame and he had the structure dismantled in 1840 as a safety precaution.
Figure 5 – Herschel’s daughters Constance Anne, Caroline Emilia Mary, Margaret Louisa, Isabella, Francisca (“Fancy”) and Matilda Rose, 1860s, albumen print, unkn. photographer (NPG x44697) in the public domain.
