The Tomatoes? Not So Good.

We planted about 7 or 8 tomato plants in the spring, some of which were from the seeds from France. The tomatoes were looking good, and they were all over the plants.  It looked like a bumper crop this year.  But then just as the individual fruit became ripe, they were infested with bugs.  And if there were no bugs, there were these little brown craters on the surface of the fruit!  We did get some good ones out of both gardens, but not that many.  This is sad that so many have gone to waste.  I started reading about spraying for bugs, but it puts important insects like bees at risk.  What to do...

Selfie, With 300mm Lens

Sometimes it gets boring waiting for a picture to happen.  This was the case for two days last week, waiting for the clouds to clear enough to photograph Venus and Jupiter.  So being bored, I was looking around for something to do.  I decided to use my toy camera and do a selfie of myself and my setup with my 300mm lens at the park where I photographed the conjunction.  It's kind of pretty with the remains of the sunset and the deep blue sky.

"Save Money"

Now that the weather is less hazy and the skies are clearer, you are likely to see the Geico Skytypers flying over populated areas, like beaches, or the North Shore of Long Island.  For me the first clue that they are around is the very distinctive sound of the throaty roar of five big radial engines as they approach from a distance.  There is no other sound like it.  So then I run outside and start searching the skies.  There are five aircraft flying in a line, side by side.  They are North American AT-6 "Texans" with 600 horsepower nine-cylinder engines.  They make the white smoke by injecting mineral oil into the engine exhaust, and the planes are all connected by computers to sychronize the smoke puffs that create the letters.  I had always wanted to fly with them to do photographs, but it never happened.

A Mulligan

A "Mulligan" is when a player gets a second chance to perform a certain move or action.  That seems appropriate because yesterday I didn't get a good look at the conjunction of Venus and Jupiter.  Tonight there were fewer clouds, so I brought my Canon 6D and a 300mm f/2.8 lens down to the beach, and managed to get this photograph.  Venus is the brighter of the two objects, at the upper left.  Jupiter is more toward the center of the frame.  The other two bright objects are landing lights on an aircraft inbound to LaGuardia  Be sure and click on this photo to enlarge it and see it with more detail.

A Beautiful Sunset With Clouds - Phooey!

This photograph is taken from Memorial Park, overlooking Hempstead Harbor, at sunset.  It is beautiful because of the clouds.  It is also maddening because of the clouds!  And that's because, behind the clouds, the planets Jupiter and Venus are in conjunction, which means they are really close to each other.  Close, as in only 1/2 degree apart!  I brought some 15 power binoculars with me, and decided to go down to the water to better see the western horizon.  It was still light out, and I was able to see both planets, through some of the thinner clouds, for a period of about 5 minutes.  This would have been an astounding thing to see, had both planets been in a dark sky.  If you missed this, it will happen again in 2065.

The Color Green

Desperate for a picture for today, I headed out to the garden.  I had in mind to check out the tomatoes.  We have a billion ripe ones - more on that in a later post - stay tuned.  So I did some photographs of the ripe ones, and then while looking around, this tomato jumped out at me.  It was the green on green color pallet, next to a flower garden full of brilliant colors.  This is another one of those French tomatoes  given to us by our friends from across town.

Cat-In-The-Telescope

I brought this telescope into the house, so I could disassemble it to clean the telescope mirror.  I never even considered that this would happen - that one of the cats would SIT in the telescope!  The good news is that the mirror in the bottom of the telescope is covered by a Plexiglass cover, and then on top of that is a one-inch thick foam rubber pad.  So the delicate surface is well protected.  Given that the mirror is safe, then I can laugh out loud, once again, at cat behavior!