Juncos

Yesterday, a flock of juncos moved through my yard. I startled a couple of them as I stepped off the deck.

Another sure sign of fall. I have seen a few here and there over the past few weeks, but this was a small flock.

They are so small. Their beaks are impossibly tiny. And these were more sooty colored than black and white. I had to look closely to see where the grey ended, and the black began.

Planetary Conjunctions

One of the things that I love about teaching astronomy this year is that it forces me to stay up late or get up early and see the astronomical events for each month in our area. My students have been watching the "dance of the planets" in the eastern sky each morning this month.

In this photo, you can see Venus, with Jupiter below it to the left. Mars is there, too, but it was too faint to show up in this picture. I saw Mercury last week, but have not been able to see it since then.

Time got away from me. I also wanted to post this picture from the lunar eclipse:

Lots of extraneous light bouncing around there. I have a really basic telescope, and just held the camera up to the eyepiece.