Periscopic images of Pearl Harbor

A picture of the USS Missouri and the USS Arizona Memorial at Pearl Harbor taken through the periscope at the submarine museum.

Looking through a different periscope at the early ICBM's at Pearl Harbor.

Practicing with my new Solarscope for the Transit of Venus

The image of the sun with a sunspot.

The orange tube has a lens which focuses the image on a convex mirror which makes the bigger image of the sun.

I think I am ready with my main device for viewing the transit of Venus.  This is an eight year old dream of mine to own one of these Solarscopes.

Practicing solar photography in anticipation of the Transit of Venus.

I made a quick solar scope with binoculars, a clamp, a cardboard shield, and a white paper screen.  You can see at least three sunspot clusters that I confirmed are real using a real solar observatory website.

All this is practice for the transit of Venus that we will observe in Hawaii on June 5th.  There will be much more professional observers there so this is my backup to the backup.

Irises of A Spring Morning

Dew kissed irises
sunlit, illuminated 
Violet and cream

Azaleas blooming

I am going to call these lavender leopard azaleas because of the spots.  I don't think they are actually called that.

Daffodils and Tulips of Spring

Just as the daffodils are fading.  The tulips are following right behind.

A beautiful picture before some animal chews off the flower.  Seems to happen every year.

ZIPNBYU license plate accurately describes motorist's behavior

This license might not bring out the "better natures" of their fellow drivers.  I won't conjecture as to what kind of person would have a ZIPNBYU personalized license plate.

Up close and personal with Hyacinths

I wish you could smell these hyacinths as well as see them.  I think scent is 70% of the experience.

A close up of the flowers on the stalk.  Enjoy.

St. Patricks Day means Green (Ketchup!)

Readers of this blog will remember that I am a big fan of ketchup, so when Burger King had free French fries and green(!) ketchup on that weekend, I had to go try it.

Of course I needed to order onion rings to have a complete test.  The ketchup was a dark green and looked more opaque than a red ketchup.  There was definitely a pigment to get the color required.

As expected all of that pigment could color more than just ketchup.  My tongue was also colored green.

Perhaps the ethics committee should have intervened before this self-experimentation, but the subject survived with a final conclusion that green ketchup tastes like regular ketchup.

Happy Pi Day!

You know the drill.

3.14159...

Enjoy!