The Beauty of the Aurora in Western New York!

I would have rather loved to seeing the northern lights in Spain but we haven't been there since 2018! I probably have a huge hill of old mail and dust awaiting my return to my apartment! 

I'm currently waiting for a 24-240mm Sony lens and it would have been very well-used last night. Instead I took my only wide full-frame 20-70 lens and that was luckily adequate for the whole show. I would have been happier with a lens just a hair wider, and thought of taking the very sharp and lightweight Sony fisheye adapter though that would not fit onto the lens I took!

Looking across Lake Ontario to Toronto at left

         

All the people amazed with the celestial event!

                          

The structures of Old Fort Niagara under the aurora

I even turned my camera to the south, snapping this image of the aurora over the bright Moon!

On the way home, we stopped at the Youngstown NY yacht club waterfront. 

Below and above images created while at the Youngstown NY yacht club waterfront

Again it was still easy to see the aurora, again with streetlights glaring and eyes again totally unadjusted to the darkness....  or rather, the brightness of the aurora! 

After the fact and looking at the Space Weather webpage hours later, again, I think it was so awesome that unknowingly, we had arrived at our selected viewing area of Fort Niagara during its peak levels; it apparently was almost a KP9, which is the highest it can get!! When we arrived at the fort, even with UNadjusted eyes to the darkness, I could see the lights faintly, through my three times operated-on eyes!!

Over the years the wife and I have discussed going somewhere where we could be guaranteed easy viewing of the aurora borealis... Iceland which is fairly "close" to us, and northern Norway, where even my brother has been now to view the dazzling colorful displays! 

Have you seen the northern lights yet?

Who can resist the Beauty of Trees?

There's a lot of gorgeous Trees in western New York....  heck, I've seen a lot of gorgeous Trees in my travels but still, Trees are a sight to see! 

Do you love Trees too? I just can't hug a Tree....  my many allergies causing me to be sneezing year-round, plus I despise insects and ants!

All of these fabulous Trees can be enjoyed on the grounds of the fabulous Niagara Falls State Park! Really! In some of the pictures, you can see parts of Niagara Falls, Ontario, Canada in the background!

Wings over Batavia, NY 2024 edition finale

It's done and over with, and we really enjoyed this years edition of a favorite area airshow: Wings over Batavia. 

What we really enjoy though were the fireworks. Granted, an airshow is usually very interesting but this one has just so many acrobatic planes doing their whirls and spins, and once you've seen one planes roll and spin, you've seen them all.

 

What we DO enjoy immensely are the fireworks show that end the day's aerial event. A plane flies in the dark spewing its load of fireworks, and eventually it continues to fly as fireworks launched from the ground explode with color and sound! 

I've included a few memories of the fireworks....  can you pick out the plane? 

Enjoy these few memories!!!

 

 

 

  

 

 

 

 

  

 

 

Killing Time at the Falls of Niagara

Just a few memories while at the Falls to enjoy the fireworks. For the past two weeks we have been returning to the Falls and recording the fireworks from different spots. Of course we have our favorite spots...  less people. Quieter. No problem with parking. Good security. BUT to get to other spots ain't a bad thing either!

 

When will we ever sleep?

I love newer technology. Better. Modern. Hopefully cheaper. The wife and I have debated for years on buying a telescope. Then it needs this to look through via a camera to snap pixs. Need a laptop and apps/programs to find stars galaxies and stuff, but now you need a gyro to make it turn.... the list and needed additions go on and on. We've been reading in recent months of the See Star s50. It's a "smart telescope". Sure, I'll bite: does it do tricks and serve tea? Then online, I've been seeing mentions of it with images in recent months and weeks. Nice images but nothing to brag about. Then a few days ago, the wife saw a post by someone online with images that were supposedly created using this SeeStar. These were better, MUCH better than the images I've been seeing. These were like images, really nice images!! We commented on the images and the person who posted explained that yes, it was created using the seeStar and other than using it, it was easy to obtain! A week later, we both now have a SeeStar, plus images!! The first two days of having it, it was cloudy and cold... freezing and windchill below freezing. No problem... we practiced indoors and used it to death so we knew how to do what we needed to do and hopefully have it do and find what we wanted it to seek and display. The next day after shopping, Sheila noticed it was partly cloudy and the moon was visible, though clouds were passing in front. We quickly got out our SeeStars and began setting up. Within minutes, we had our first images of the waxing crescent Moon. Turning around, we noticed the Sun was visible too. Ran inside the house to get the provided sun filter and got it turned around quickly, and started snapping the Sun. It hadn't been a full 24 hours yet since it arrived, and we now had our images of the Moon and the Sun! A few days later we imaged M42, the Orion Nebula. I sent a copy of the Orion Nebula to a friend, and he quickly replied stating he was surprised and shocked to see such great results already but only after a few days of its receipt, and having no real prior experience with telescopes at all, we got such great results! I felt exactly the same way: I was and remain so shocked that with NO prior training in telescopes, and not even reading a manual, I basically got these pixs which were - to us - so fantastic, nobody would believe we got them within days of its receipt! Now as Winter slowly crawls to bed with us, and Spring finally arrives, then summer, my only huge worry and question: when will we ever find time to sleep?