I have a couple friends that I’ve been friends with since high school. This year, two of them have daughters graduating high school. High school! That just seems impossible.

One of the girls is really active in FFA. After State Fair, when her animals were looking their best, she asked me to take photos of her and her 4 legged friends. She shows sheep, goats & dairy cows.

Here are a few of my favorites:

I love that in this high tech world she has a passion for agriculture & animals. I know she’s going to go on to do great things.

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Most of August was warm, dry & uneventful. However, one night there was a fantastic lightning show that I really could have enjoyed had I not been so nervous about the trees around our house catching on fire. Here in the PNW we get thunder & lightning. But no real great show. It lasts a few minutes and moves on. This time it went on strike after strike for a couple hours straight. I spent those couple hours in awe of nature’s wonders, but also running through my mind the course of events that needed to happen when/if I notice something catch fire. Thankfully, there wasn’t a fire.

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I’ve had my DSLR camera for over a year & haven’t tried taking star pics. A few nights in the last couple weeks I finally gave it a shot. I’m not sure I got exactly what I was looking for, but I did learn a few things. The most important thing I learned is that star photography is tricky. The shutter needs to be open awhile to let in enough light for the stars to show up. Yet, if you leave the shutter open longer than 10 – 15 seconds the stars are no longer round objects, but start to get streaky. And, not the cool streaky look from extremely long exposures, but an out of focus, not pretty photo. I took moon pics, too, & found them to be my fav’s.

I probably should have stayed up until the wee hours of the morning waiting for the moon to go down, so I could get the stars in complete darkness. I’ll have to try that next time.

Even if I didn’t get the shot I was looking for, the night sky has been beautiful this month.

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On June 5th, Venus crossed between the Sun & Earth for the last time in our lifetime. I was home that afternoon & was determined to snap a few pics. It turned out to be a huge pain. I thought ahead to pick up solar glasses so we could look at it, but I didn’t think about a way to photograph it. So, I googled it & found out I could use a No. 14 welders glass filter. Farmer John has a welders mask & he gave me the glass – although, it wasn’t quite a No. 14. It didn’t work great, but was better than nothing. I also tried holding the solar glasses up to the lens & trying out a variety of other items as filters. These pics are a mix-match of a variety of make shift filters & using both my cameras. I wish the sun was not just a bright white circle in the photos, but at least I can see the tiny black dot that is Venus.

THE SUN & VENUS

Top Left: 4:40 pm. This was the first photo where I was able to work out all the kinks & actually see Venus.
Top Right: 5:10 pm
Middle Left: 6:15 pm
Middle Right: 6:32 pm
Bottom Left: 8:38pm. Not only is Venus about to go passed the sun, the sun is about to go behind the mountain.
Bottom Right: 8:40 pm. The sun & Venus have now gone behind the trees. Show’s over.

MORE SKY PICS FROM THAT DAY

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