I Hung Them Out To Dry

Well, all the painting is done in the bathroom!  Finally!  But then I realized that I had to paint the shutters, which I had forgotten about.  So I had to take all the hinges off of each shutter and then brush them to get rid of the dust.  Then I put a screw hook in the bottom of each shutter, and I hung them on a clothesline and sprayed each one on both sides, but very gently.  I tend to forget and make too many passes and end up with too much paint on them and then I get runs.  So I did two coats with a couple of hours in between and then left them here to dry.  They look really nice now, but it will take a while to put all the hinges back and then re-hang them in the window.

 

International Astronomy Day!

So yesterday I mentioned that I was at the Vanderbilt Museum for an event.  That event was International Astronomy Day, which is celebrated around the world on May 18, and again in the Fall on October 12.  Our club supports this day at the Vanderbilt Planetarium and it is always fun for us to show both children and adults our telescopes and tell them about observing the moon and planets and the night sky.  A mom and dad came by with their two children, and after this boy looked THROUGH the telescope at the eyepiece, he came around to the front and looked inside!  Wait, wrong end of the telescope!  It happened so fast that I nearly missed this!  It cracks me up, but it is also a tribute to the curiosity of children.  There is a mirror in the other end of the telescope which what makes it work, so what the child is doing is actually  pretty reasonable!

Planetarium staff had all kinds of activities for children.  This one involves using markers to add color to drawings of Earth and the sun and planets and galaxies, on a printed sheet that then folds up into a  tiny book!  This is Victoria and she is helping everyone get started making their own books.

This is Charlie, a museum staffer and he is using a flexible piece of black fabric in a circular shape that deforms with weight.  In the center is a small cast iron ball, which represents the gravity of the Sun and he has the children use marbles and they spin them on the fabric and watch their orbits as the marbled descend down into the sun..It is a demonstration of the deformation of gravity in space.

Here is a dad and his young son, and the son is looking through the eyepiece of my home-made telescope.  I printed out a photograph of Saturn, from the Hubble Space Telescope, and taped the print to a wall about fifty feet away, and that's what I pointed the telescope at.  It does not look like it would at night, but the children and adults see that the photograph a long way off, suddenly looks really close through the eyepiece of my telescope.

 

The Eagles at Vanderbilt

I was at the Vanderbilt Museum and Planetarium today for an event.  As I have mentioned before, I am usually here in the dark and so I miss some things.  I have passed through the entrance to the facilities a million times, and really never took note of these eagles. There are two of them, one on each side of the cobblestone driveway.  Well, today I stopped and photographed one of the two eagles.  They are magnificent!

Then I read this plaque just under each of the eagles.  The information here is really interesting.  If these magnificent eagles graced "Grand Central Depot" where they were placed in 1898, why would they be removed in 1910?  Want to know why?  Because William K. Vanderbilt II who built his home here was the president of the New York Central railroad!  I guess he could do anything he wanted!  The second thing, really cracks me up.  They refer to Grand Central Station as we know it now as Grand Central Depot!  I think of a depot as a small railroad station somewhere out on the line, not the main terminus in the middle of a city!

And I photographed these magnificent columns once again.  You could do a search in the upper left for the word "Vanderbilt" and you will see other views of these columns.  But I liked this composition today.  Here is what I wrote after some research on the columns, in an earlier post:  So I Googled the columns and am stunned by what I found!  These six marble columns are ancient and come from Carthage, now Tunisia!  When William K. Vanderbilt II (1878-1944) began building Eagle’s Nest, his Centerport estate and the home of the Vanderbilt Museum, he installed them here.  Each column is 14 feet high, 59 inches in circumference, and weighs 4,000 pounds. The Cipollino marble was quarried on the Greek island of Euboea.  I am blown away by all this new information!

 

A Car in the Rain

I photographed this scene the other day when it was raining harder.  I put on my rain gear and decided to go for a walk.  You can see the water in the foreground rushing down Laurel Avenue.  I am not sure why the car is stopped at the top of the hill with the door open, but it makes the picture.  I love this cobblestone street.  This street, picturesque as it is, has a hidden hazard, though.  This street is much steeper than it appears.  I think there is a sign up where the car is, that says "No trucks down this hill." Probably once every three months I will come by this street to find that a truck is hung up.  The bottom of the truck hits the street when the truck gets to the bottom, and the front bumper hits Laurel Avenue and the back wheels are hanging in mid air!  It takes a tow truck to extricate the truck from that predicament.  Pretty, but deadly.

 

Azalea Blossom in the Rain

There was a gentle mist coming down two days ago when I went out to the car to go somewhere.  I needed to put my telescope in the car to take to a talk I gave and so when I walked around to the passenger side I brushed up against this Azalea bush.  I thought I would lean over and sniff the blossoms in case they had a scent, but instead I noticed all the water drops on the pedals!  OK, THAT'S a photograph!  So much more interesting than just the flower alone.  The water made it so much more interesting.

 

Abby and Her Radio Telescope

This is Abby and she gave a talk tonight at our astronomy meeting.  She has been a member of our club for a while now.  She is a senior in high school AND is headed to UCLA for college next year, to study astronomy and astrophysics!  This is a radio telescope she built to receive transmissions from space of the 21cm. hydrogen line which is radiated by some astronomical objects.  She is amazing - last year she spent a week at the Green Bank Observatory in West Virginia where the largest steerable radio telescope is located!  That's where she got the idea to build this radio telescope.

She explained in her talk everything we would need to know to build both this "horn antenna" and the radio receiver underneath it, made from a 1 gallon can, containing some electronics!  This is amazing!  She got a great reception and much applause at the end.  What a wonderful project this is.

 

The Tree Where I Stop

I stop at this tree every day I ride.  It is at the top of a short hill and it is one of my checkpoints, so I always stop and write down my time.  These roots are amazing and I am thinking this is a really old tree, based on the roots.  I did a search and based on the bark and the shape of the leaves, I think this is a Beech tree.  I would love to know how old it is.

 

The Rider Pauses

On my bike rides I have checkpoints and I keep track of my times as I pass each one.  I always want to see how I am doing on one ride compared with another.  After a winter with not much time on the bike, my times are slow, and then during Spring, they gradually get faster, which is fun to see!  Anyhow, there are a couple of places along the route when I stop to write down the times, because I can only remember three different times before I forget.  This is one of those stops at the top of a hill and when I saw this shadow, I thought it was a picture.

 

Little and Big

The Fern bank is such a joy and it is so beautiful, especially in the spring when they Ferns first come up.  There is one problem with the fern bank, however.  We have Grape ivy vines that are always trying to take over the ferns, and tiny maple trees that sprout every spring as well, as well as some other weeds.  it is a constant battle to keep the fern bank clear.  Well, the other day it was time to do my first weeding and clearing of the ferns.  On my way down the driveway, I happened to see these tiny flowers which jumped out because of their brightness.  I loved the comparison in size between the giant ferns, and the tiny flowers.

 

Cherry Blossoms

These Cherry Blossoms, ( I HOPE) they are Cherry Blossoms all over the ground and the road caught my eye as I came around a corner on one of the roads I usually ride on.  It was like snow on the ground! the blossoms looked a bit tired, so I was wishing I had come by the day before.  The scene was so beautiful seeing so many blossoms.  After I took this photograph, I decided I would do one of the tree which still had lots of blossoms on it, in hopes someone would be able to identify the tree from this second image.

 

One Last Image

One last image that I took when leaving the upstairs gallery at ICP.  I happened to turn around for one last look and saw this silhouette of a man sitting back on a couch, nearly in the dark, looking at his phone.  So I took maybe 6 frames, some closer and this one a wider view.  Just an interesting silhouette in an uncommon looking room. My last post from my day in the city last week.

 

ICP

I keep talking about the International Center of Photography, also known as ICP but I have never taken a photograph of the galleries to show you what it looks like.  The galleries are in a large space two stories high.  You can see three walls of photographs here on the lower floor, and the second floor galleries are walkways around the open space with photographs on all the walls there.  What got me to take this photograph were the two figures, one on each floor and they were one above the other, which gave me a center of interest - the "something else" which makes a photograph more interesting.  Please click on the image because it is so much more interesting to look at when it is larger.

 

I Have No Idea

We were walking away from the International Center of Photography looking for a place to have lunch, when we passed these figures on this wall.  I have no idea what this is about.  But I think I recognize Ray Charles and I think the blonde woman is Annie Lennox.  But I don't recognize the others.  I have the feeling that this is some kind of art installation.  I am not sure if the graffiti is part of this, or if someone tagged the wall after the sculptures were up.  It is unusual for me that I am not able to come up with more information, but even Google couldn't help in this case.  Do you recognize any of these people?

 

Subway Puzzle Pieces

I had to wait a long time, for some reason, for the downtown subway to ICP the other day.  So, naturally I am standing on the platform and with nothing else to do, I am looking around.  Then I see this scene as I look across the tracks for my train, and over to the platform on the other side to the uptown platform.  I am enjoying the "windows" that appear in the concrete supports and walls. which are made up of concrete columns that hold up the station, and openings in the concrete wall that separates the two tracks.  So now I have my "checkerboard" and I keep the camera to my eye as people walk by on the other platform, all going in different directions.  The people are what make this photograph interesting, in the end,  I think.

 

The Electric Stairway

At the International Center of Photography, you take an elevator from the ground floor up to the third floor, where the exhibits begin.  Then when you have seen everything on the third floor, you take the stairs down to the second floor.  When I saw these stairs illuminated like this I nearly fell over.  It looks like some outer space thing, I think.  What makes it so cool looking, and so brilliant in design, is that there are channels under each railing and in the recess of each railing are strings of LED lights!  What a cool way to light the stairs!

 

Blinding Light

When I got off my train, I walked a fair distance to get to this new stairway that runs directly up from the Long Island Railroad concourse to the street.  A real shortcut, compared to other ways of getting up to the street in the old days. But on this day, the sun was out and a lot of scaffolding up on the street had been removed and now all of the light up on the street poured into the opening and reflected off the polished stainless steel of the escalators!  I had never seen it this bright!  It literally stopped me in my tracks.  Well, for maybe 5 seconds and then I had my camera up to my eye and stood here for a few minutes trying to get interesting silhouettes in the foreground.

Relaxing on the Stoop

 

Another photograph of some citizens of Manhattan.  When Stan and I left the International Center of Photography, we went out the back door and this is what we faced!  It is the strangest thing.  All the buildings on this side of Ludlow Street look like this.  There is graffiti everywhere, and I think that perhaps this entire block is set to be demolished at some point in the not too distant future.  All the buildings like ICP on the other side of the street are modern buildings in beautiful condition.  I only discovered this fact when I used google maps to check out this location and saw all the buildings marked in graffiti.

Riding the Subway

Riding the subway is such an interesting experience.  It's a United Nations, when it comes to riders.  When you sit in your seat, you are facing a bunch of other people opposite you.  Socially it is an unusual situation to be looking at other people face to face and not that far away from you.  So you look up at the ads or the floor, or to the left and right at other riders who are not directly across from you.  It is something I love about the subway because I love looking at people, but the rules are, you don't stare.  So you pass your gaze along and only look at people for a second and usually you don't make eye contact.  Those are the rules.  I thought these two were an interesting couple.  I love the woman's bright green NY hat and her bright red shirt.  My camera was in my lap, sideways, and I could not come up with a way to point it at them, even if it was in my lap.  I know they would have seen that and been suspicious. Then I noticed others using their cell phones vertically in their laps!  So I got my phone out of my pocket and had it in my lap, and it was tinted forward at 45 degree angle and I pretended to be touching it and swiping it, and then I tilted it back a bit until it was vertical and then I clicked the shutter a few times, and was not noticed at all.  This photography stuff is hard work!

Star Child

I went to the city today to meet Stan and see the 50th anniversary exhibit at the International Center of Photography.  After we left, we were walking down Broome Street to the subway.  We walked right by her before I noticed her and it was too late to take a photograph, so we kept on walking.  When we got to the next corner, I told Stan I had to go back to try and get a photograph.  So I walked out in the middle of the street because there were trucks parked along the curb that shielded me from her.  So then I turned around at the end of the block and walked by her again on the sidewalk, with my camera ready.  I set the focal length to 35mm and held the camera down at waist level, and as I approached I kept clicking the shutter.  After I went past her, I stopped and looked at the photographs, and I was not close enough to her!  So, out to the street again, back down to the start of the block, set the focal length to 50 mm and walk by her once more.  My pointing was perfect with the camera right at her and she was larger in the image, and I was undetected, and I got the shot.  Third time's the charm!  She looks like a child, until you look closely.  She is on a coffee break no doubt with a cup of coffee on the stairs, a cigarette in her fingers, and she is relaxing reading something on her phone.  Just a typical New York scene.

 

Our Astronomy Meeting Tonight

We had a different kind of meeting tonight.  Instead of everyone facing forward listening to a speaker, we gathered in a semi-circle and had a group discussion about the Artemis mission which will return astronauts to the moon.  It is a huge, complicated project and a number of companies are all working together with NASA to accomplish this mission.  A number of our members are following this closely, so there was a lot to be learned from different people offering information.  And instead of everyone sitting there quietly, it was a lively back and forth discussing advantages and disadvantages of the program.

We are seated this way because there were members at home also taking part in the meeting using Zoom, and everyone could see them on the projection screen at the front of the room.  It was so nice having a change of pace in how our meetings are conducted, and it was so successful that we will be trying this again in the future!

 

Driftwood

I have been trying to get a photograph of this driftwood for quite a while now.  The problem is that I have to shoot through a chain link fence because this little beach is on the property of the petroleum storage facility down by the old power plant.  You can see the effect of the chain link fence from the darkness in the corners of the photograph.  But other than these flaws, I think it is a lovely landscape photograph, with two pieces of driftwood and the straw from the marsh grasses.

 

Cat-In-The-Box

Cat-In-The_Box, Jack-In-The-Box.  You get it right?   :-)  We ordered something small from Amazon and it came in this box which is about 9" by 12" and 5" high.  I left the empty box on the living room floor and I was surprised, but I shouldn't have been, to find Sam curled up in the box.  It looks as if he doesn't fit, but actually he does.  So it was his favorite resting place for a day, and then the next day it was completely ignored.  Such is the life of cats!

 

Emergence...

We have this lovely little triangular garden in the back corner of our property that I made out of stacked brick, with no mortar.  In it Kathy planted these giant Hostas years ago and when they are fully in bloom the leaves are perhaps one foot long, more or less.  I have never happened to pay attention when the shoots first emerge from the ground before, but for some reason this year I took note of them, and what I found interesting that each of these shoots looks different as they emerge from the bare ground.   I thought you might find these interesting.  I will be sure and post a photograph of the garden when it is fully in bloom.

 

Light and Shade

Because we stripped the wallpaper from the walls in the upstairs bathroom, I have to work extra hard with using joint compound to fix every little ding and imperfection on the walls so that when I paint, the walls will be beautiful.  In this corner of the bathroom is a wooden box that runs from floor to ceiling and it contains the vent for the soil pipe, that black 4" diameter cast iron pipe that was used in old houses.  That iron pipe is the drain for the toilet and tub and sink.  It needs to be vented out through the roof.  So I have had to tape the interior corners using a new nylon tape that looks like a gauze bandage.  And then I apply several coats of joint compound so I have a perfectly smooth interior corner after it has been painted.  Anyhow, as I was looking carefully for imperfections, I suddenly noticed the subtle play of light and shadow.  It seemed so ethereal, as if wasn't quite there.  So I had to photograph it, of course.

Just to give you a better idea, I backed up to show the whole scene.  The detail photo, was taken of the center part of this photograph.  And now you know more about plumbing as well.  You're welcome...   :-)

 

I Was Standing in Line...

So I was standing in line at the fish counter while the young man behind the counter wrapped up my piece of salmon that I was going to have for dinner.  I happened to look down and saw all of these whole fish.  They looked as if they had been carefully arranged as if they were swimming upstream or something.  My next thought was "Oh man, I don't have a blog photo yet, and this may be it!"  Then I thought "Oh no, I don't have my toy camera with me!" Then I realized that I had my new iPhone with me and that has a really good camera built in, so I quickly got it out and snapped four photographs and then the man waiting on me handed me my package.   Whew, a blog photo, just in time!

 

This Magnificent Bridge!

I showed you my photograph of Manhattan from the Throgs Neck Bridge, which I took while stopped in traffic on the bridge.  So I have a confession here.  I love the new Tappan Zee Bridge which is named after a former governor of New York State, Mario Cuomo.  I actually got to photograph him once, before he was governor.  Anyhow this is a stunning bridge and deserves to be photographed when I cross it.  So before I cross the bridge I set the camera on manual focus and put it on the seat next to me.  If I see a shot I like, I pick up the camera and rest it on the top of the steering wheel and I keep watching the road and snap the shutter.  Easy Peasy.

 

The Ferns are Coming Up

I love when the first ferns come up out of the ground with their fiddle heads which then unroll.  These plants are so delicate and I never tire of photographing them.  The main fern bank is in front of the house, but some ferns have migrated under the famous Japanese maple tree.  I tried photographing these ferns with my normal camera in color, but I was not impressed with what I was able to get, so I got the camera converted to infrared and I knew these ferns would stand out against the background.  I love the sort of ominous black branches coming in from the top of the frame.

 

What a Mess!

I could also title this blog post "Fun With Plaster!"  We needed to re-do our upstairs bathroom.  We re-did the bathroom maybe 5 years after we bought the house, and I put down a new plywood floor and a new vinyl floor covering, and ripped out the lathe and plaster walls and replaced them with sheetrock, after re-doing all the plumbing and electrical wiring.  I used cement board around the bathtub and then I tiled the wall after installing new fixtures in the bath.  We wallpapered the walls with a beautiful dark green wallpaper with a nice pattern on it.  I also put new sheetrock over the lathe and plaster ceiling.  Over the years, I am guessing that it was the moisture in the bathroom that caused little cracks to form in the ceiling.  The edges of the cracks rose up above the level of the sheetrock, like tiny mountain ranges.  So I had to begin the process by sanding the entire ceiling to make it flat again.  Then I primed it and then did a finish coat so the ceiling looks brand new.  Man what a messy job.  I even bought myself this fashionable Tyvek coverall to keep a lot of the plaster dust off me.  Kathy stripped the old wallpaper off and I will be painting the walls when we are done.  I will be sure and post a photo of the finished bathroom.  Stay tuned.

Doctor Jessica Li !!!

I have talked about and posted photographs of Jessica a number of times on the blog.  The short version is that when she was a high school student and 14 years of age, she showed up at one of our ASLI meetings and said she wanted to join and that she wanted to build a telescope!  So after High School she went to Stony Brook University and graduated with three majors, including engineering and astronomy.  Then she worked at Brookhaven National Labs for a few years and then headed off to the University of Arizona to work on her PhD.  Today I received a post card from her that she had defended her PhD thesis and is now officially Doctor Jessica Li.  Man oh man!  How cool is that!  This photograph was taken at an observing session at the Vanderbilt in 2015.

She came home with her husband to visit their parents back in 2022 and stopped in one afternoon and it was really nice to catch up with what she has been up to. The FIREBall-2 ultraviolet balloon telescope for one thing!

And then in 2023 she came home again, and arranged to give a talk at ASLI where it all began, 15 years ago!  Because she was speaking she invited two of her High School teachers to attend.  Richard, on the left was her physics teacher, and Linda, on the right was her science teacher.   It has been amazing and a joy for me to follow along with her journey!  And what a joy to hear that she is now a PhD!

 

Whitestone Bridge and Manhattan

OK, DON'T PANIC!  I have always wanted to take this photograph, which is a view of the Whitestone Bridge with Manhattan behind it,  as seen from the lead up to the Throgs Neck Bridge.  This is impossible to do while driving of course, but on this day, with perfect conditions for the photograph, while I was on the approach to the bridge, I happened to be in the right lane and traffic stopped!  I was driving alone and my camera was on the rider's seat.  So I quickly grabbed it and shot through the closed window!  How lucky I was to get this!  I see this sight every time I head back to Long Island over the bridge, but it is impossible to photograph it.  Until yesterday.

 

Telescope Heaven!

Today was the first day of the Northeast Astronomy Forum, held at Rockland Community College.  I have been going to this event for more than 20 years, and perhaps 30 years.  It is a monster event for those of us interested in astronomy - I believe it is the largest event like this in the United States.  You can find anything and everything related to astronomy here, including telescopes!  BE SURE AND CLICK ON THIS IMAGE AND IT WILL OPEN UP TO FULL SCREEN.

This is one vendor's booth, as seen from the balcony overlooking the field house. I mean, look at all the stuff!

Here a couple has to run the gauntlet of at least a dozen refracting telescopes.  Not an easy thing to do at this event!

This is the Celestron telescope display.  Look at the size of some of these telescopes!

This is a display of classic Unitron telescopes, which were the kind of telescopes every amateur dreamed of opening back in the 1950's.

 

Hostas!

For some reason this year, I have been fascinated with the Hostas that grow in the garden next to the house.  There were tiny buds coming out of the ground, and suddenly they exploded up from the dirt!  I could not believe how quickly they gained height!  So I have taken pictures when they were small and then when they were taller.  When I was taking the taller photos from ground level looking up, I suddenly looked  down into the leaves and saw this beautiful image, with the water drops all over the leaves!  Maybe later on I will show you the short and tall versions of the plants but this is far more beautiful.  Be sure and click on this to see how beautiful it is!

 

Pick Your Favorite, Please...

After I photographed the tree at the Vanderbilt Museum, I walked over to these antique columns that are in a semicircle at the entrance of the Vanderbilt Estate.  The land drops away from here for several hundred feet, down to the water and it is a spectacular view off to the left of this photo. These six columns are a thousand years old and come from Carthage, now the modern Tunisa.  They stand 14 feet high and weigh 4000 pounds each and were installed when the estate was built in 1912.

So I am torn about which photograph I like best.  Color is such a part of how I see the world and in creating photographs, but I love black & white photographs a lot!  So I converted this photo to black & white and even now I can't decide which photograph is my favorite.  Please help me out here, and vote for your favorite photograph of the two!  Save me!  Thank you!

 

Tree and Sky at Dusk

I wasn't sure that I had a good photograph for the blog tonight.  I think I still have a photo or two from our trip to Rochester, but I was not sure. When I got to my astronomy meeting tonight just a bit early I decided to wander around the parking lot before walking down to the planetarium.  I spotted this tree from across the parking lot, and walked over to it and then started walking around it while shooting photographs.  This was the last photo I shot because the tree was the most silhouetted from this point. I love the shape of this tree and it's bare branches!   And below it in the background, that building is the Marine Museum and the Hall of Fishes.  Someday I should visit that!