Sunrise

It’s easier and easier to catch the sunrise these days. The trees have lost all their leaves and the time is later with the days still shortening. The two images in this post are from two recent days.

The color changes very rapidly – no time to wait around. I scurry to find my camera and step out the front door. The neighborhood is quiet. I wonder if there is anyone else nearby savoring the moments of color that start the day….and feel privileged that I do have the time. Somehow the rest of the day is always better having started this way.

I’ve read that ancient cultures sometimes had special rituals at sunrise and it is easy to imagine how the coming of the sun would be welcomed after a cold December night. They lived in closer contact with the elements of our planet than we do today. I feel the kinship with those ancestors while I watch the sunrise; knowing more about our planet, the season and the reason the sunrises with such color does not make it less special. Perhaps we should appreciate it even more.

Enjoy a sunrise where you live!

Sunrise

There are two things that make sunrise pictures easier at my house by November: the sunrise is late enough that I am normally already up and ready for the day by the time it happens and the leaves are off the trees so our front porch makes a reasonable vantage point. These pictures were taken about a week ago. It was a very cold morning and I appreciated that I could observe through a window until the color was just right….and then step outside for a few seconds. These pictures were taken about a minute apart. The color shift from pink to orange very quickly!

Staunton River Star Party

My husband and I spent last Monday and Tuesday at the Staunton River Star Party (held at Staunton River State Park). The park is an International Dark Sky Park….lots more stars visible than in the area where we live. The park prepared well for the event – with star party themed jack-o-lanterns, red cellophane on all windows were white light my leak, and paths marked with red snake lights or small red LEDs on stakes.

The observing field already had a lot of people setting up by the time we got there but we managed to get a spot that was close to one of the electrical hubs – good to be able to run equipment directly and/or easily recharge batteries during the day. We started to unpack and quickly discovered that we had forgotten our tent! Fortunately we did have the tent-like cover for the back of our SUV and some extra tarps. My husband and I managed to sleep inside the car on an air mattress (it helped that he was observing until the wee hours of the morning since the space was a narrow enough that we could only roll over in unison)!

We tied one side of a tarp to the roof rack and used tripods we had brought for our cameras to hold the corners away from the car. The wind came close to knocking the tripods over before we hung heavy equipment bags as weights. Having the tarp helped during the day when it got a bit warm in the bright sunshine.

I took sunrise and sunset pictures too: Sunrise on Tuesday morning. Note the various tents, trailers, awnings and cars…the whole field looked like this with a lattice of drive lanes to provide just enough organization so vehicles could get in and out.

Sunset on Tuesday evening. There were enough clouds at sunset that everyone was looking around for signs of clearing…and it did by the time it was fully dark.

Sunrise Wednesday morning – a few hours before we left. There were quite a few crows greeting the sun and they seemed to like the bare tree – stopping there before moving about and sometimes coming back to perch again for a little while.

The clouds on that last morning looked like they were losing part of themselves as they floated into morning.

The dew was heavy both nights we were at the star party and people generally called it a night before 3 AM. Those that did not have heaters to keep condensation off their mirrors had to stop earlier. I took pictures walking around during the mornings when the telescopes were generally neatly covered.

 

I took one short hike and found more fungi than I expected. There were a few colorful trees as well. Otherwise – I was feeling relaxed and lazy with the flurry of star party activity going on all around me.

Through a Hospital Window

The view from my mother’s tenth floor window at the new William P. Clements Jr. University Hospital was of downtown Dallas…

And bridges.

Reunion Tower was easy to spot

And Southwest planes taking off from Love Field.

She was only in the hospital for one night...and it was an easy night. She slept well and we were up to see the sunrise. Reunion Tower’s lights were still on and the office buildings still glowed from the night lighting.

Then the horizon turned red and orange

Before the sun popped over a nearby building.

The pedestrian and shuttle structure for Southwestern Medical School snakes away from the hospital and around other nearby buildings.

April Sunrise at Home

Being on Daylight Savings Time makes it easy enough to catch a sunrise this time of year. I noticed as I came downstairs last weekend that the time, light and clouds were aligned to photograph the sunrise from my front porch (with our two cats meowing behind the door keeping them inside).

Pretty soon the trees will be full of leaves and the horizon from the front of our will be too high for sunrise pictures. Why don’t I get up a little early and find another nearby vantage point with a clearer horizon? For some reason, I only do that when I am traveling!

Airports and Airplanes in Winter

Our trip to Tucson a few weeks ago had all the pluses and minuses of flying in the winter. It was snowing when we drove the airport….and continued on as our flight time approached. Our plane arrived at the gate with snow patterning the airflow over the body of the plane. We were delayed by an hour boarding the plane and then had to be de-iced which added a little more time on the ground in Baltimore.

Fortunately we did not miss our connecting flight in Little Rock to continue on to Las Vegas and then Tucson so our trek to Tucson was just a little bit delayed. I was prepared for delays with plenty of reading material and healthy food (fruit, veggies, protein bar, nuts). If we’d been delayed much in Las Vegas, I would have taken the opportunity to charge my electronics in the airport. Comfortable clothes - with layers - is important too. I appreciated that I had been able to get my coat in my checked luggage so I was not lugging very much through the airport between planes. Is there anything unique about those things for winter? Maybe not. I supposed I’ve just had more lengthy delays in winter and so I think about them more when I fly during the winter months.

A joy of the flight back from Tucson to Baltimore was the view from the window between Tucson and San Diego in the early morning - a lovely sunrise! And in January it happens late enough that it is easy to be awake to see it.

Tucson Sunrise

January is a great time of year to observe the sunrise in the US since it does not require getting up inordinately early. The added advantage in Tucson is that is it not overwhelmingly cold. We wore hoodies and headed out one morning last week - driving to the parking area in the eastern district of Saguaro National Park at the end of Speedway.

It was not a great place for sunrise because the mountains made for a tall horizon. But I liked the soft light on the desert scenes.

Then I started taking closer views of the plants. There were two kinds of Cholla

A prickly pear with colorful thorns

A wounded saguaro

And young saguaros with their Palo Verde nurse plant.

And finally - just as we were leaving - the rocks of the mountains caught the morning color.