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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 56 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 37 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 45 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 44 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 29 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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| 1,722 files in 47 albums and 13 categories with 0 comments viewed 422,890 times |
The Theater at Hieropolis274 viewsThe theater was undergoing restoration during the time we visited. You could still walk up the hill to see it, and some did - and shot some magnificent pictures - but Sandie and I did not, which I regret.
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Calligraphy245 viewsI greatly enjoy the elegant stylized Arabic script decorating these plates, although for all I know it may say something like "Death to Infidels" or "You are the illegitimate offspring of an unholy union between a donkey and a camel."
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Tile Mosaic228 viewsI don't know whether there is a specific artistic term that applies to this type of composite-tile design, so I just call it a "tile mosaic." Regardless, I found this a particularly pleasing example of the genre.
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Gold Inlay280 viewsOver 420 pounds of gold were used in the construction of the Dolmabahçe Palace.
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Balloon240 viewsThat's one way to get a nice bird's-eye view of Istanbul.
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NGC 4725328 viewsA one-armed spiral galaxy in the constellation Coma Berenices, about 41 million light-years from Earth. This is a Seyfert galaxy, meaning that it has a very active nucleus; it is also a barred spiral and has a prominent ring structure. It is interacting with NGC 4747 in the upper left corner of the frame, resulting in severe distortion of both galaxies and producing the spectacular tidal tails seen with NGC 4747. The smaller spiral galaxy to the right of NGC 4725 is NGC 4712.
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Pavilion Windows233 viewsGilded grates of one of the gorgeously decorated pavilions in the harem.
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NGC281 - PacMan Nebula, narrowband version223 viewsA narrowband version of the PacMan, obtained with a one-shot color CMOS camera and an IDAS NBZ nebula enhancement filter, with H-alpha mapped to red and O-III to blue.
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Sh2-290 - Planetary Nebula in Cancer211 viewsAlso known as Abell 31 and PK 219+31.1. Ancient planetary nebula, about 2000 light-years away, one of the largest in the sky but very dim.Jul 10, 2025
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Sh2-311 - Emission nebula in Puppis145 viewsSharpless 311 (Sh2-311, NGC 2467, Gum 9, LBN 1065 + 1067) is a bright nebula located approximately 20,500 light-years away in the constellation Puppis.Jul 10, 2025
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Sharpless2-313 - Planetary Nebula in Hydra186 viewsAbout 400 light-years away. Also known as Abell 35 or PN G303.6+40.0.Jul 10, 2025
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Sharpless2-180229 viewsDiffuse emission nebula in Cassiopeia, quite dimJul 10, 2025
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NGC2359 - Thor's Helmet188 viewsAn emission nebula in the constellation Canis Major. About 12,000 light-years distant and 30 light-years in size. Associated with the Wolf-Rayet star WR7.Jul 10, 2025
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M74, Spiral Galaxy in Pisces247 viewsGrand design spiral galaxy with two clearly defined spiral arms winding counterclockwise from center. About 32 million light-years distant.Jul 10, 2025
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Messier 67 - Open cluster in Cancer200 viewsSometimes called King Cobra or Golden Eye Cluster. Distance 2600-2900 light-years. Estimated age 3.2 to 5 billion years.Jul 10, 2025
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M44 - The Beehive Cluster220 viewsOpen cluster in the constellation Cancer. Around 600 light-years distant and 600 million years old.Jul 10, 2025
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