Lunar eclipse 2022

The last lunar eclipse I had clear skies for came back in 2014. I did a bit of astrophotography for that one, and managed to put together a crude animation of the event. It didn't turn out great, because I had no plan going in, but was a neat proof of concept. For the 2022 eclipse, which May 15, I planned to do better.

Except that I forgot about it completely, until Lisa stuck her head into my office and asked if I was interested in watching the eclipse, which had already begun. Argh! There wasn't time to set up my telescope (762mm focal length!) and calibrate its equitorial tracking, which meant I would not be repeating the animation trick this time around. So instead I settled for using my Canon FD 500mm f/8 reflex lens (converted to EOS mount by yours truly) on my tripod-mounted 7D. The results of this setup were... okay. Adjusting the camera on the tripod was a real pain. You forget just how convenient an equatorial mount is for making tiny observational adjustments until you don't have it. The 500mm lens I used is, in fact, a small telescope. Emphasis on small. Still, it performed as well as can be expected and respectably documented the event. Next time, though, I'm going to plan better...

Now Playing:
Chicken Ranch Central

Sherwood Forest Faire

A day late and a dollar short as always. I'd intended this post to go up earlier, but life, you know? Took the family to the final day of Sherwood Forest Faire on Sunday, and had a good--if rushed--time. When we lived in Temple, we'd make annual trips to Scarborough Faire (which opens this weekend) but the four-hour drive from New Braunfels is simply too long a haul to do with any regularity (we've only been back once in the past decade). Having a viable ren fest less than two hours away (and 15 minutes from my mother-in-law's) is very nice. Plus, we're kinda sorta familiar with Sherwood's lineage. We attended the first couple of Cavalier Days way back when that defunct fair was held outside of Smithville with no permanent structures. Once Cavalier went belly-up, I participated (in costume) in the poorly-organized, one-day-only Underhill Village Fair in Austin, put on by some Cavalier refugees. That was an experience, and largely responsible for my not participating in any more ren fairs. Excalibur Fair followed shortly thereafter, back in Smithville, and despite some good word of mouth, I never attended. Despite a promising start, Excalibur crashed and burned when they tried to relocate it outside of Lockhart.

Which brings us to Sherwood, established 2010. We've never been before, but Monkey Girl and I have made it to their Celtic Music Festival and were impressed by the amount of permanent buildings and investment they've made in the place, outside of McDade. Sherwood has flush toilets which Scarborough didn't have until the late 90s. We also noticed some old standbys from the Texas Renaissance Festival--the water wheel, carousel, etc.--have relocated to Sherwood. They're building a full-fledged castle on one end of the grounds, and overall the property is well-developed for being such a young event.

I took my 500mm reflex lens along, hoping to play around with it and get some good candid character shots on the day. Alas, the crowds and scattered forest confounded me more than I'd expected. On top of that, despite recent rains in the area, the sandy ground was bone-dry and dust quickly coated everything, so I didn't keep the camera out for long. Still, I got a few interesting shots, and learned that my manual focusing skills are crap when it comes to moving targets. Hopefully, next year I'll get to try again, and maybe take in more of the acts for a change. I'll confess I love that first image. That sticker's placement is perfect, and makes me smile.

(ARGH! I just discovered Google is "enhancing" images uploaded to Google, which accounts for the skewed colors. I'll try to upload corrected images tonight.)

Now Playing: Mike + The Mechanics The Living Years
Chicken Ranch Central