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| | | Deep SkyBeyond the Heliosphere - Star Clusters, Nebulae, Galaxies Galore |
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| | | Turkey 2006Eclipse trip to Turkey, March 22 - April 2, 2006. Included visits to Izmir, Ephesus, Selcuk, Aphrodisias, Hieropolis, Pamukkale, Denizli, Antalya, Perge, Aspendos, Side/Manavgat, and of course Istanbul. This is the terrestrial side of the trip only; the eclipse pictures are in the Eclipses and Transits album under Astronomical Images/Solar System. |
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| | | West Coast Wanderings - August 2021Pictorial record of an expedition to the Pacific Northwest in August 2021, with numerous sojourns along the way - the Bay Area, Stockton, and Angwin in California; Bend, Oregon; the Seattle area and Pasco, Washington. |
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Angwin, California
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On August 6 we arrived in Angwin, where Sandie's younger son Lief lives with his lovely wife Janeta, and sons Liam and Jensen, not to mention their golden Lab, Leila. Angwin is located high in the hills above Napa Valley; it's a most picturesque and pleasant area, although in recent years the terrible California wildfires have taken their toll. We sojourned in Angwin for several days, staying gratis in a pleasant apartment, as arranged by Lief with his stepsister Michelle and his dad and stepmom, Arnold and Bethel, who most graciously made the place available. While Sandie spent most of her time visiting with Lief, Janeta and the kids in their little house on Toyon Street, I took the opportunity to wander around Napa Valley and shoot pictures. I also accompanied them to visit the palatial estate on Crestmont Drive owned by Lief's deceased grandfather, Yacob Nashed, which is now in escrow pending its sale. This was a very fortuitous opportunity - although I had visited the house on previous occasions, I had never taken any pictures of it, and this was the last chance I ever would have to make a pictorial record of this extraordinary property for posterity.
61 files, last one added on Sep 16, 2021 Album viewed 26 times
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Rees Residence - Stockton, California
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Sandie and I visit the residence of two of our favorite people in the world, JoAnn and Doug Rees, in Stockton, California. The visit was arranged by our treasured friend of many years, Diana Howell, who happens to be JoAnn's sister. JoAnn and Doug are longtime litterateurs, and a few years back they purchased an old but venerable house in a pleasant Stockton neighborhood, which house they then proceeded to renew and remodel into a veritable Utopia. They graciously let me shoot a myriad of photos of their property, and I have assembled the best of them here, with the only qualification that the SD card where photos originally resided somehow became partially corrupt, so that I lost most of those shot in the back yard; fortunately the cream of those I shot inside the house have survived.
28 files, last one added on Sep 17, 2021 Album viewed 14 times
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Bend, Oregon - High Desert Museum
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Sadly, our schedule only allowed us one day in Bend, but at least we were able to fulfill my long-cherished ambition to visit the Bend High Desert Museum, which I had never managed to do during all of my previous visits. The Museum had cosponsored (with Oregon State University) the venue where we viewed the Great American Eclipse of 2017, and our hosts Chuck and Elouise Mattox, who are members, highly recommended it and even furnished the passes for our visit, one of the privileges associated with their membership, in addition to providing us with the benefit of their company (always a delight) on our tour of the Museum. We were not disappointed. We only had one complaint - the Museum is so extensive that we wore ourselves out long before we could see even a large fraction of what it had to offer, so we'll have to go back again...and again...
48 files, last one added on Sep 18, 2021 Album viewed 14 times
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An Afternoon in Edmonds, Washington
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On the second day of our stay in the Seattle area, Sandie and I, together with Sandie's elder son Nick, visited Chuck and Elouise Mattox's daughter Sarah and her husband Mike at their fairytale house on the shore of Lake Ballinger in Edmonds, Washington, which turned out to be only a few short blocks from our B&B. Although Sandie and I had been to Sarah and Mike's wedding celebration in Bend (2001), we hadn't seen them together since then and we were anxious to renew our acquaintance. Sarah performs as a mezzo-soprano with the Seattle Opera, and Mike is a senior software developer formerly with Microsoft, now with Electronic Arts, Inc., a leading publisher of video games, and they tend to be rather busy people, so I was uncertain that they would have room in their schedules to meet with us. As it turned out, I need not have worried; they most graciously hosted us on the patio of their lakeside residence on a Saturday afternoon, and we spent several hours engaged in civilized conversation of a kind we can only experience with a very few people of our acquaintance (although, to be sure, we visited several of the others on this trip). And the ambience of the setting was amazing. We had a fabulous time, and we're most grateful to Sarah and Mike for their hospitality and their company.
39 files, last one added on Sep 21, 2021 Album viewed 18 times
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Fremont District, Seattle
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On Sunday, August 15, 2021 Sandie, Nick, Jane and I hopped into Red Sonja and headed for the Fremont District of Seattle. I was bent on visiting two sites in particular: the Fremont Troll and the Statue of Lenin, located close together on North 36th Street. After that, I thought, we could go wherever our fancies took us (that turned out to be the Gas Works Park, to which I've devoted a separate album). In the captions to the pictures presented here I could record only a small fraction of the essential facts available on these famous (or notorious?) attractions; for more adequate information on the Troll, see for example the Wikipedia article at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fremont_Troll, and for the Lenin statue, a good account may be found at https://seattle.curbed.com/2019/8/27/20830552/seattle-fremont-vladimir-lenin-statue-history.
31 files, last one added on Sep 23, 2021 Album viewed 11 times
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| | | Death ValleyDeath Valley National Park is an awesome place and second only to Joshua Tree NP in ease of access for us. Sandie and I are fortunate in having friends who are quite knowledgeable and very enthusiastic about visiting it themselves and in our company. We chronicle our visits with many photos, with a separate subsection of this category devoted to each trip. |
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| | | Southwestern SortieA road trip to New Mexico, Texas and Oklahoma, including a ride on a scenic train from New Mexico to Colorado, October 22. |
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1,685 files in 47 albums and 13 categories with 0 comments viewed 4,828 times |
M42 - The Great Nebula in Orion2 viewsA narrowband image of the Orion Nebula, captured with a one-shot color CMOS camera and an IDAS NBZ nebula enhancement filter.
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Sultan Ahmet Square1 viewsAt the end of the square opposite the Obelisk of Theodosius I, seen in the foreground, stands the Walled Obelisk, built in the 10th century by the Byszantine Emperor Constantine Porphyrogenitus. The Walled Obelisk was originally covered with bronze plaques, but these were plundered by the Latin occupiers during the Fourth Crusade, and now only the stone core remains.
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Ultra-modern Mansions0 viewsNo throwing stones here.
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Istanbul Street Scene0 viewsOn our way to the Grand Bazaar.
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Two Miscreants in Ephesus4 viewsWho let them in?
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Main Dome of the Blue Mosque2 viewsThe Main Dome has 28 stained-glass windows. The Mosque also has four secondary and eight tertiary domes.
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The Pottery Barn1 viewsOur next stop after the Basilica Cistern was a real tourist trap, in the best sense of the word - a shop where ceramics of astounding beauty were made, exhibited and sold.
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Pawnbroker Balls2 viewsThree golden balls are traditionally associated with pawnbrokers. This usage originated in medieval Lombardy, Italy, where merchants hung the balls outside their shops to proclaim their métier. However, there doesn't seem to be any pawnshop here, unless...
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M108 and M97 in one frame2 viewsBarred spiral galaxy M108, nicknamed the Surfboard Galaxy, about 28 million light years away; and planetary nebula M97, the Owl Nebula, 2030 light-years away, both in Ursa Major.Nov 17, 2023
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IC2118, the Witch Hunt Nebula2 viewsFaint reflection nebula in Eridanus, usually known as the Witch Head Nebula, but it doesn't look much like a witch's head in this view, shot with an IDAS NBZ nebula enhancement filter, so maybe this version is best titled the "Witch Hunt Nebula." About 900 light-years away; illuminated by the nearby supergiant blue-white star Rigel in Orion.Nov 17, 2023
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Westerhout 5, The Soul Nebula1 viewsEmission nebula in Cassiopeia, 7500 light-years away. Also known as Sharpless 2-199, LBN 667 and IC 1848, although the last is properly the designation of a star cluster within the nebula. Eastern neighbor of the Heart Nebula.Nov 17, 2023
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The Heart Nebula1 viewsEmission nebula in Cassiopeia, 7500 light-years away from Earth. The Fish-head Nebula is also seen as a cancerous outgrowth from the Heart Nebula at lower left.Nov 17, 2023
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M23 - Open Cluster in Sagittarius1 viewsIn front of an extensive gas and dust network. Around 300 million years old and 2050 light-years away.Nov 17, 2023
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M33, the Triangulum Galaxy1 views2.73 million light-years away; third largest member of the Local Group of galaxies.Nov 17, 2023
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M77 and Friends2 viewsBarred spiral galaxy in Cetus (left side of picture), about 47 million light-years from Earth. A Type 2 Seyfert galaxy with an active nucleus. The spiral galaxy at right is NGC 1055. The spiral galaxy NGC1072 is also seen as a tiny oval near the bottom center of the frame.Nov 17, 2023
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NGC 5907 - The Splinter Galaxy1 viewsAlso known as the Knife Edge Galaxy. About 50 million light-years from Earth. Located in the constellation Draco.Nov 17, 2023
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