Here is a companion post for last Sunday’s photographs of Beebee Lake. This was taken where the lake outflow continues as Fall Creek. Enjoy!!
Frozen Dam
Views from the bridge on Christmas Eve 2019
Category: Winter
International Space Station
pre-dawn sky event
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.
Click photograph for the expanded view. To do this from WordPress Reader, you need to first click the title of this post to open a new page.
Cresent, McGraw Tower, Regulus
Copyright 2020 All Rights Reserved Michael Stephen Wills
Earthglow
pre-dawn sky event
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.
Copyright 2024 All Rights Reserved Michael Stephen Wills
Exploring the Cancer Constellation: A Detailed Guide
Here are labeled photographs, detailing its major elements, and including visual guides for enhanced viewing.
Pam proofed my post, “When the Moon Dined from a Stellar Mangar”and found some improvements, including adding text labels to aid in finding Cancer constellation elements.
Labels!!
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.
Enter your email to receive notification of future postings. I will not sell or share your email address.
Copyright 2025 All Rights Reserved Michael Stephen Wills
Reveal
The elements come into focus, revealing Ludlowville Falls, near Lansing, New York. On the eastern side of Cayuga Lake, Salmon Creek plunges 35 feet over this limestone shelf. Pioneers constructed a grist mill at this site.
Here we see The Fang hanging over the entrance to The Cave. There is falling water overall, but especially the center section (can you see it?). The weight of accumulated ice fractured a portion of the frozen cascade.
The Cave?
Flowing water eroded away until this durable limestone strata. The majority of sedimentary rock is shale, only 6% is limestone. Throughout the Finger Lakes and elsewhere, this is why when flowing water exposed the edge of a limestone strata, the underlying, soft shales are worn away to reveal a waterfall, ever deepening. Eventually, the support of the limestone washes away to form this ledge. Here it is an ephemeral cave behind a curtain of ice.
See “The Fang?” for the first post of this series.
Falling Water
Amid the crystallized water, super-cooled, flowing water seeps through the structure to fall free.
See “The Fang” for the first post of this series.
The Fang?
Me and the War on Christmas
Flourishing after 2017 Years
“The problem with the world is that the intelligent people are full of doubts, while the stupid ones are full of confidence.”
― Charles Bukowski
It is necessary to find insights in unpleasant places. Take this quote from Bukowski, a reprehensible individual in that following in the totality of his actions will lead to bad results. What can you say about a guy who believed his downtown Los Angeles neighborhood was ruined after the the pimps and whores were forced out? Still, Bukowski wrote well about the personal truth of his self-made environment, one he drank, whored and wrote his way to become a present-day saint of atheists.
With Trump and his “War on Christmas” is analogous. Trump does the magician’s, the practiced thief’s, slight of hand, distracting us while pocketing the coin, picking the pocket. His use of this slight of hand is effective in so far the premise is true. Sure, there is a War on Christmas. It started 2017 years ago when Herod ordered the innocents slaughtered to destroy the rumored Messiah. Then, as now, Herod was defeated by dreams and determined action. This is a link to my take on the story, ““Christmas Angels”.
A return to Christmas Past brings us to the “Me” of the title and how Amol K. shared in our 2002 celebration. Amol had arrived from India as a new hire for our team. That fall I searched for a roommate to share in household expenses. CBORD’s Human Resources department brought Amol and I together. He required temporary lodging until his marriage planned for 2003.
A single parent who raised a son alone, my Christmas preparations started immediately after Thankgiving with boxes of materials and decorations organized over fourteen years into beginning, middle and end boxes. In this way, day by day, I gradually transformed our home for Christmas. Workday evenings, unpacking a box at a time and laying out the contents.
The changes caught the attention of Amol. Raise in a middle class family of Bombay, India, Amol, a practicing Hindu, asked questions about the objects and images slowing building with the month, the sun drawing down lower and lower on the horizon, darkness now falling soon after 4 pm. Amol was curious to understand these new experiences.
Amol saw correlations with his own belief systems and stories and enjoyed helping decorate the tree on Christmas Eve.
We attended Christmas night mass together, shared presents Christmas morning. It was not a question of Amol becoming a Roman Catholic proselyte, he enjoyed experiencing the stories, practices and celebrations of Christmas.
Beliefs and religious practices are like a sky scraper. A push against natural law, constantly under pressure from gravity, wind, frost/thaw cycles and human fanatics who must see them come down by whatever means necessary. “You must break eggs to make an omelet.” This is a photograph taken on the returning training ship Empire State July 2001, less than two months before a fanatical suicide attack brought the Twin Towers down.
Happy New Year, remember to love your neighbor as yourself in 2018.
Michael Stephen Wills Photography 