Just yesterday, I had no idea there was going to be a lunar eclipse this morning. Then I skimmed an article somewhere and got the impression it was only going to be visible on the east coast, And then I read about it on Bad Astronomy and realized I had it backward. Not only would I be able to see part of the eclipse, but I’d be able to see the moon in totality! All I had to do was get up early in the morning and find a place with a clear view of the western horizon. I considered driving down to the beach at 5am, but thought I’d start out by seeing how visible it was from home. As it turns out, I should have gone to the beach to start with, but I had some good viewing before I left.

So I set my alarm, woke up at 5am (plus the snooze button), and went out to see what I could see. To my surprise, I actually had a decent view of the partially-eclipsed moon from across the street. It was about half-covered at this point (as shown in the first photo above). So I stayed out there for a few minutes deciding what I wanted to do, went back in to have some coffee and breakfast, then went back out shortly before 6 to watch as the umbra covered the disc the rest of the way. I found it interesting that it didn’t look particularly reddish this time, just brown.

Awesome viewing, though it was clear the moon would dip below the roofs of the houses soon. I needed a less obstructed view.

As soon as the moon went into totality, I went back inside, woke up Katie just enough to let her know I was going, tossed the rest of my coffee in a travel mug and hightailed it down to the beach.

The eastern sky was already light when the total phase of the eclipse began. As I drove, I crested a south-facing hill and saw the southeastern horizon lit up deep red, with silhouettes of Saddleback and the San Gorgonio mountains in the distance. (Keep reading – I’ll come back to this.) I came so close to stopping, but figured eclipses are only visible from here every few years. Sunrises happen every day. So I kept driving.

I went to an area of Redondo Beach or Torrance (I’m still not sure exactly where the city boundaries are) where a street runs along the top of a cliff, with occasional stairs leading down to the beach maybe 30 feet below. There’s parking along the street, and benches where you can watch the waves or the sunset…or this morning, where you could watch the eclipse. There were maybe a dozen or so people spread out along the cliff, several of them with tripods. Clearly I wasn’t the only eclipse hunter who had thought of this spot.

Unfortunately, I got there too late. By the time I parked the car, the sky was light enough and the moon was behind enough haze that it was virtually invisible. It would have been a great full moonset under ordinary circumstances, but the refracted earthlight just wasn’t enough to light it up against the dawn sky.

Everyone still there was packing up.

I stayed for a few minutes, then decided I might as well catch the sunrise while I was out. The closest place I could think of that had a clear view of the east was the hill I’d crested earlier, which had a good view…except for the the skeletal towers of a cluster of power transmission lines. I wasn’t the only one out to watch the sunrise, either. Aside from the people walking their dogs in the park nearby, there were two other guys standing around by their cars (carefully not parked near each other), looking at the eastern horizon.

I’ve always found it interesting that you can see distant mountains silhouetted at dawn and dusk that you can’t see during the day. The San Gabriels at left are often visible from the South Bay (just as they are from Orange County), but it’s rare to be able to see Saddleback from out here. And the mountains in between? Very rare. I think they’re the San Gorgonio range.

If you look carefully in the higher-res version, you can see that there’s another mountain sticking up behind the Santa Ana Mountains, near the north/left end of the range. I’m not 100% certain, but I think it’s San Jacinto!

Anyway, I walked a little ways down the hill to where the towers didn’t block the spot where the sky looked brightest, and waited. It wasn’t very long — I’d cut things pretty closely — before a bright spot appeared just a little above the horizon. Oddly, it looked like it appeared between the horizon and the tops of the mountains south of Saddleback, which I chalked up to the same sort of refraction that causes the sun to look higher than it actually is.

After the sun cleared the mountains, I stared to head back to my car, when one of the guys asked me, “You’re here for the eclipse, right?” It turned out that he’d misunderstood an article describing where and when to look, and so he went out to a spot with a view of the eastern horizon a little after 6:00. The moon had been behind him (and a hill) the whole time. I showed him some of the photos I’d taken earlier, so he at least got to see them second hand, and then we both drove off.

As I drove home, I noticed other people out just looking at the view. At one point I caught a glimpse of Downtown Los Angeles, with several skyscrapers reflecting the sun like columns of light.

I’m not usually up that early in the morning these days, especially not on a weekend. I’m more of a night owl. But sometimes I can definitely see the appeal.

The beach was absolutely deserted when I arrived (not counting the gatekeeper who dutifully collected $6 for parking), which made sense — it had been a cold, rainy day in November, and it was almost sunset besides. The sand was all wet, covered with tiny little pockmarks from the rain.

Rain was still falling in Santa Monica to the north and somewhere inland in the South Bay — possibly Torrance or Redondo Beach. Lit from the side, Santa Monica looked like there was a golden haze above the city.

It was clear enough that I could see the silhouette of Catalina Island off in the distance to the south (though I didn’t get any good photos of it). I was surprised at how much more I could see from the beach than from my office window, only a couple of miles inland. (I have to remember: LAX is huge.)

As the sun dipped below the horizon, it lit up a column of clouds red from below. Even afterward, it lit up the edges of distant clouds just barely visible peeking over the horizon.

The rain started up again as I left, getting stronger as I drove inland. By the time I got home, I was ready to use an umbrella just walking from the garage to the front door. About a minute later, it really opened up, and I made the mistake of going out to check the mail. Instant soak.

Full photo set (8) at Flickr.

One day a few weeks ago, I tried to make it to the nearest beach I could in time for sunset. I missed…but while on the mostly-deserted beach I caught some nice views of pink underlit clouds over the Santa Monica Mountains, and this view of a closed lifeguard tower at El Segundo Beach.

Then there was the clear afternoon when I went exploring the Palos Verdes area, looking for public parks where I could see the LA basin. Not much luck on that count, but as sunset approached, I decided to see if I could make it up to Del Cerro Park (more photos from this spot taken during daylight) up at the top of the bluffs. I did, and because the park is actually higher than the next hill over, I got to watch the sun set over the ocean and behind a hill at the same time.

I stayed up there for a good 20 minutes after sunset, watching the sky darken through twilight. It was incredibly windy that evening, and even from a thousand feet up with no direct sunlight, I could still watch the waves between the mainland and Catalina Island, moving slowly through the strait like tiny ripples in the direction of the wind.

This was the view that surprised me the most: Bright orange (a little more magenta in real life than it looks here in the photo) on the underside of the clouds, but plain gray on the sides.

Here are a couple of views of the rainbow and Downtown Los Angeles in the distance, a little bit earlier.

Looking northwest across LAX toward the Santa Monica Mountains. The sun is out of frame to the left. Oh, who am I kidding? It was behind a building, so I aimed at what I could see.

More photos: LA post-storm rainbow & sunset

When I was twelve, I went with my mom, brother and a family friend to see the Space Shuttle land at Edwards Air Force Base. It was the first mission after the Challenger disaster, and the orbiter was Discovery.

I took a roll of slides using a manual SLR camera and (for the landing itself) a telephoto lens. With the last shuttle mission ending tomorrow, I decided to track down the slides and scan them.

From what I remember, we drove out the night before and slept in the car. It was still pretty dark when we got up, even though the landing wasn’t until mid-morning.

We were out on the edge of a dry lake bed, far enough away that we couldn’t see the landing strip.

There was a bit of a festival atmosphere, with vendors selling food, sodas and souvenirs. Mostly, though, everyone was clustered as close to the fence as they could get to see the best view.

I put on a telephoto lens for the landing itself. When Discovery first came into view, it was barely a white dot in the sky…even through the camera.

Here’s that same shot, cropped so that you can see it at the original scanned resolution. What’s amazing is that even at this distance, you can make out the shape.

My grandfather, who had given me the camera and was teaching me a lot about photography, showed me how to make prints in his dark room. I made an 8×10″ of this shot of the shuttle approaching the landing strip, though I think today I would go for the next one instead:

I took the telephoto lens off after the landing. This should give you a better idea of just how far away we really were from the shuttle. NASA wasn’t taking any chances with civilians!

Here’s the line of cars waiting to leave the base. I don’t remember how long it took to get out, but I do remember that we shut the engine off for a long time waiting for the cars in front to move.

On the way out, I caught one last shot of the shuttle in the distance. You can just barely see it near the center of this photo.

I’ve uploaded the full set on Flickr. I know the photos themselves aren’t fantastic — we were several miles away, and I was only twelve after all, but there’s something special about photos you took yourself at an event you witnessed personally.

Believe it or not, this is looking *away* from the sun. Sun rays are (at this distance, anyway) basically parallel, and a trick of perspective makes it look like they converge toward the sun or, in this direction, toward the point exactly opposite, like looking down a long hallway.

Ever since I read that these were possible under the right circumstances, I’ve been hoping to spot them and (if possible) photograph them. I saw some once while looking toward the mountains a year or two ago, but they were too faint to photograph. Naturally, when I finally saw them again, I was driving, and didn’t have time to stop and aim. Amazingly enough, one of the photos I took just pointing the camera out the window actually caught the rays!

Contrast enhanced to make the rays more visible. You can also check out the unmodified version.

I kind of wish that sign wasn’t in the middle there, but my Photoshop (well, Gimp) skills aren’t quite up to it. Maybe I’ll give it a shot with context-aware fill at some point.

It was awfully hazy toward the north, though, and you can see the San Gabriels are fading into the haze toward the left of the frame.

These were taken at the same spot as the loooong snowy panorama from January 2008, the Misty Mountains from December of the same year, and the cloud window panorama from January 2010. (I should really just come up with something to tag all the photos I’ve taken there.)

After a few minutes, the train hit exactly the right angle to catch the setting sun itself reflected in all the downtown buildings! It was bright enough to completely overwhelm my cameraphone, as you can see.

Several trails run from the entrance around the edge of the park, and one goes inward to an area that’s currently closed off. Because…well…take a look:

I couldn’t help but take a picture. It went so perfectly with this sign I found in Hawaii near the active lava flows:

Actually, the afternoon reminded me of that evening as well in that I went hiking without really being prepared for it. So in this case, I only spent about 30 minutes in the park, but it was a perfect de-stress and mental recharge.

Keep in mind that this is Southern California. Winter is when the wilderness (such as it is) turns green, and while temperatures are often in the fifties, it’s not uncommon for them to climb into the seventies or higher.

Who knew this was just minutes away from suburbia?

Actually, the park is nearly surrounded by suburbs. It’s a long finger (running along the canyon) with hills full of expensive houses to the west, newer suburbs to the south and east, and a little more wilderness to the north. Somewhere in the suburbs to the south, there used to be a Boy Scout campground called Camp Myford. When I was in scouts during the late 1980s and early 1990s, I was one of the counselors at the very last Cub Scout day camp held there, the week before the bulldozers came in to build new suburbs. If I have my bearings right, the gate is still there, not far from the intersection where I occasionally stop to take photos of Saddleback and the nearby hills.

I hiked along the Eucalyptus Trail, through that grove of trees up a hill to a viewpoint and the intersection with the East Ridge Trail. The first part was great. The second? No shade, no switchbacks, and a very steep trail full of ruts that I suspect is a converted firebreak. Lots of people were walking, jogging, or even biking (I’m not sure how they managed that part), but after only a few minutes of going up and down those hills, I decided it was time to head back.

Nice view, though!

In a couple of spots I saw posts that had been damaged by fire. I’m not sure when they were damaged, but if it was in the Santiago Fire back in 2007, that means it got a lot closer to homes in that area than I thought.

I have a few more pictures in a photoset on Flickr.
At some point I’ll have to go back when I’m actually prepared to hike!

I got off the freeway to catch the train out to the office last Tuesday morning, and saw this incredibly bright sundog off to the east. I couldn’t get a parking space, so I had to drive the rest of the way, but I did get a couple of photos.

The sun is off-frame to the right.

I’m not sure why the bright patch was so elongated and well-defined. My guess is that a smaller cloud in the foreground happened to be in exactly the right spot to reflect the sunlight.

I had to shorten the exposure in order to actually get some detail on here, like the bit of color spectrum in the middle.