Monday Meme: Holy Leatherface, Batman!

Night Sky Photography -- 10-13-2024 -- Jupiter & Mars With Early Morning Winter Stars

Salutations once again, fellow stargazers!

Now that autumn here in North America is here, the morning skies overhead an hour before sunrise will begin to feature the stars and constellations of the Winter Circle, most of which will begin rising after about an hour before midnight the evening before.

Both the planets Mars and Jupiter can now be seen inside the Winter Circle with the Red Planet near the Constellation Gemini the Twins and Jupiter inside the Constellation Taurus the Bull.

Early this morning, I stepped outside and set up my tripod in the front yard, focusing my camera up at the two planets, as well as the brightest points of light near them, and took several very clear photographs. Because of the wonderfully clear morning sky overhead, I managed to capture not only our nearest planetary neighbors, but all the beautiful stars of four of the Winter Circle constellations -- as well as Sirius, the brightest star that can be seen from Earth.

In the first photo, I labeled both Mars and Jupiter, as well as all the major stars of the constellations around them and in the second I outlined the constellations themselves, including the location of the Winter Triangle asterism.

Looking up at those beautiful stars and planets in a clear autumn sky, its almost hard to imagine just how far away most of them are.

The closest of them, Mars, is actually over a hundred million miles from Earth at present and getting slightly closer as the planet moves in its orbit towards its opposition to Earth in January of 2025, and will appear to be getting even bigger in the early morning sky over the next couple of months. Even at its closest approach, Mars will only be about 60 million miles from Earth since this opposition puts the small planet will be near its aphelion, or the point farther away from the Sun in its orbit.

In my final photo of the post, I labeled not only the planets and the major stars and the location of the Orion Nebula, but I also added the exact distance from Earth to put into perspective just how massive our nearest galactic neighbors are. Also keep in mind most of those points of light that we see comes from light that took decades in most cases to reach our curious eyes.

With that in mind, I bid all of y'all a wonderful day. More evening photography will be coming soon, until then keep your eyes to the night skies, y'all hear.

Monday Meme: It Was The Worst Accident I Ever Seen

 

My Visit To Lando Days 2024

On the first Saturday of the month of October every year, the small rural unincorporated community of Lando, South Carolina holds its annual fall festival: Lando Days.

The community of Lando, which sits about two miles from the town of Richburg in the eastern part of Chester County, South Carolina, was once the site of a former textile mill village centered around the former Lando-Manetta Mills -- now currently the Lando-Manetta Mills History Center Museum -- with a population of several hundred mill workers and their families.

Today the rural Southern community has fewer than 100 people still residing there following the loss of the textile industry in South Carolina in the 1990s.  

Like most fall festivals down here in my corner of Dixie, Lando Days has dozens of tents with vendors and food trucks selling everything from homemade handicrafts and antiques to snow cones, barbecue and cotton candy. Live music and a small park for the kids are also present, as well as a small vintage car show display.

There was also a Bloodmobile set up so that people could donate blood for a drive to help the recent hurricane flooding victims in neighboring North Carolina and Tennessee. I'd recently donated blood for the same cause only a few days prior, so I was unable to offer any more today.

The following photos were taken by your favorite blogger on a visit to Lando Days 2024 on Saturday, October 5 of this year.

Some friends of mine from the Rock Hill, South Carolina
Camp #1569 Sons of Confederate Veterans with their own table
set up.

I hope y'all enjoyed my photos from Lando Days 2024. Until next time, have a wonderful Dixie Day y'all!

Night Sky Photography -- 10-05-2024 -- The Very Young Crescent Moon & Venus After Sunset

For my first night sky photographs for October 2024, I present to y'all two photos I took this evening of the Very Young Crescent Moon with the planet Venus in the evening sky about 40 minutes after sunset. Both photos came out very well in the cloudless sky at dusk. I used a tree in a nearby empty field in the foreground to line up the two heavily bodies nicely.

Venus is now in the evening sky following the earlier sunset in autumn here in South Carolina and appears as a very bright evening star. Its usually the first "star" to appear after sunset, so spotting it right now in the evening sky dome will be easy this month, even without Luna as a starting point.

The next time these two meet will be on the evening of Monday, November 4th, when the pair will appear to be even closer.

More night sky photography coming soon. Have a wonderful evening and be sure to keep your eyes to the night skies, y'all hear!

Monday Meme: The Ghosts Of Our Youth