Twelve minutes, fifty four seconds separate the first and list images of this series of 16 images, starting with the first set published here fourteen days ago.
Almost a minute, fifty two seconds, separates the images of this post, enough time for a wave to sweep over a boss of sand, forming a mirror, and to start a return flow to the sea.
Happy turning of February to March.
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Exposure: 1/250 sec at f / 4.0, Focal Length: 24 mm, ISO 125
A sand boss held water briefly each cycle to form a mirror.
A slide show of these images.
Exposure: 1/250 sec at f / 4.0, Focal Length: 24 mm, ISO 125
Heraclitus, sometime between his beginning and end, 535 – 475 B.C., wrote “No man steps into the same river twice.” The flow of these images is more changeable, ebbing and flowing with each wave.
My habit is to time early morning walks by sunrise, stepping onto the beach well before dawn to enjoy the encounter. First days of January 2020 were notably clear and warm. Then over several days the wind rose, on the 9th were these clouds,
High tide passed a few minutes before, for whatever reason there were hollows filled with the stronger waves, the water pooling to flow back as is seen here. The pattern of sand hollows across the beach was lost across the hours and tides, not to return during our time at the beach.
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Exposure: 1/250 sec at f / 4.0, Focal Length: 24 mm, ISO 125
A sand boss held water briefly each cycle to form a mirror.
A sand boss held water briefly each cycle to form a mirror. In the small ripples in the return stream rising against the waves of the return flow can be seen the strong, steady southeast wind of that day.
Exposure: 1/10 sec at f / 22, Focal Length: 24 mm, ISO 125
A slide show of these images. Use is to compare the effect of longer vs shorter exposure time and f-stop.
Exposure: 1/250 sec at f / 4.0, Focal Length: 24 mm, ISO 125
Exposure: 1/10 sec at f / 22, Focal Length: 24 mm, ISO 125
Sunrise for Florida, January, is roughly a quarter past 7 am. Most mornings this year I was on the beach for a morning, pre-dawn, walk camera in hand. This day, the 9th, the clouds were promising, no to heavy on the horizon and scattered, cumulus clouds otherwise. For the promise I brought the full frame Canon EOS-1Ds Mark III, Canon lens 24 mm f/1.4L II USM fitted with a graduated .6 ND filter sitting on top of a Manfrotto BeFree Carbon fiber tripod.
A graduated neutral density filter has a portion shaded with gray to produce a “2 stop” difference in exposure between the darkest shade and clear glass with, between, a gradual feathered reduction in shade. In this way, the dark foreground and bright sky are balanced.
A carbon fiber tripod folds into a compact shape. At about 2.5 pounds it fits into a suitcase with the least weight possible for a reasonably stable platform. Using it, I am able to take a sequence of frames of the identical scene, changing camera settings as I go along.
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Exposure: 1/6 sec at f / 22, Focal Length: 24 mm, ISO 125
Sunlight, low in the western sky, was perfect for mirror-like reflections in the retreating surf.
Exposure: 1/250 sec at f / 4.0, Focal Length: 24 mm, ISO 125
In a few weeks, after the “Slievenaglogh View” series now underway, I will present a week of these images moving from pre-dawn to sunrise.
A slide show of these images. Use is to compare the effect of longer vs shorter exposure time and f-stop.
Exposure: 1/250 sec at f / 4.0, Focal Length: 24 mm, ISO 125
Exposure: 1/6 sec at f / 22, Focal Length: 24 mm, ISO 125
Copyright 2020 All Rights Reserved Michael Stephen Wills
On Tuesday, December 17, 2019 a caterpillar dropped from vegetation to crawl across the parking lot of Sonic Drive-In, 2140 N Courtenay Pkwy, Merritt Island, FL 32953, crawl up an order station, affix its tail to the kelly green semi-gloss enamel, to form a chrysalis.
The afternoon of New Years Eve, 14 days later, we spied the Retro theme of this fast food business, finding it appealing, stopped for a hi-fat lunch of hamburgers, onion rings (“highly recommended, very delicious”) and (ha, ha) diet sodas, choosing this same order station where the emerged Brush-foot butterfly, of the family Nymphalidae, clung, drying in anticipation of flight.
Captured here with the Apple IPhone 8. I cannot identify the exact butterfly species this is. Source: wikipedia article on Nymphalidae.
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Copyright 2020 All Rights Reserved Michael Stephen Wills
The sun disk broaches the Atlantic Ocean horizon on a clear January morning.
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Copyright 2020 All Rights Reserved Michael Stephen Wills
There are limitations, certainly, to photographs from that tiny lens on the IPhone 10 (or IPhone X). It captured the moments in this series. I take mine along even with the professional camera bodies, lenses and tripod, for this reason. These images are the unprocessed files.
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Copyright 2020 All Rights Reserved Michael Stephen Wills
December 23rd, sky clear at 6:30 am, the International Space Station (ISS) passed through the zenith with a waning crescent, a bowl filled with earthglow, in the southeast. On December 22nd I received the following email from NASA advising me of the event.
HQ-spotthestation@mail.nasa.gov
Sun 12/22/2019 7:00 PM
Time: Mon Dec 23 6:30 AM, Visible: 6 min, Max Height: 87°, Appears: 10° above SW, Disappears: 11° above ENE
Visit the NASA site to research if ISS viewing is possible from your location.
Here is another photograph of the crescent moon filled with earthglow.
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Cresent, McGraw Tower, Regulus
Copyright 2020 All Rights Reserved Michael Stephen Wills
December 23rd, sky clear at 6:30 am, the International Space Station passed through the zenith with a waning crescent, a bowl filled with earthglow, in the southeast. Here is a photograph of a waning moon above Cornell University from October 2017.
Crescent, McGraw Tower, Regulus, Venus
Copyright 2024 All Rights Reserved Michael Stephen Wills
You will find I replaced photographs in the original post and well, all the major elements of Cancer are labeled. Here is an explanation of the new elements.
You can now trace the “Y” constellation pattern, with Alpha and Beta Chancri (Latin for “of Cancer”) the two claws and Iota the tail. Both elemetns of Iota, a visual binary star system, are there. They are wonderful viewed with a telescope. Near Alpha is M67 (Messier Object 67), another galactic cluster of gravitationally bound stars. It is quite faint in this photograph.
Total Lunar Eclipse and Surrounding Sky with labels for primary element of the Cancer constellation
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Copyright 2025 All Rights Reserved Michael Stephen Wills
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