lone star over the Broad Water

[big pix]

This was shot early evening .......Camera on the end of marina walkway about 20cm off the water looking towards Southport.........Sigma 12-24 24mm end 1/4 second exp, f7.1, iso250, shot as RAW file

cheers
bp

[/b]

[waspo]

Great pic! Love the colour and water, but I'd clone out that hot pixel in the sky! J/K

[robw25]

wow ! i love this one !

cheers rob

[sirhc55]

This is a lovely shot made more interesting by the title - nice one bp

[big pix]

This was shot about 2 minutes earlier when the sky was not as hot, and a bit of a turn to the right with a pano style drop........

cheers
bp

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[Willy wombat]

It would have been great if you could have painted the boat in the second picture with some kind of light.

[Gordon]

When was the pic taken? Somehow I dont think its a "lone star" at all, but 2 planets, Venus the bright one, and Mercury just above it and slightly left. On the original image Saturn may well be visible somewhere on the left side of Venus and Mercury, and below them, although its possibly behind the end of the cloud.

Both photos are very nice though

Gordon

[big pix]

Gordon ....... I was sooting north west at a guess.......on the coast facing north and a little west...... if that helps...... but it was a bright star and there was a smaller one not so bright near by. The shot was taken just on dark, about 5:45 - 6:15......I did not see any others as I was more involved shooting an overall scene and trying not to have my D70 take swimming lessons off the end of a floating walkway at a marina.........

cheers
bp

[Gordon]

Gordon ....... I was sooting north west at a guess.......on the coast facing north and a little west...... if that helps...... but it was a bright star and there was a smaller one not so bright near by. The shot was taken just on dark, about 5:45 - 6:15......I did not see any others as I was more involved shooting an overall scene and trying not to have my D70 take swimming lessons off the end of a floating walkway at a marina.........

cheers
bp

I was wondering what day, but if you were facing ~ west in the past week or so, there is no doubt it is Venus and Mercury If you examine the originals closely, maybe adjust the curves/levels, you will probably find Saturn to the lower left of the pair. Its only a little fainter than Mercury, but harder to see in the brighter sky lower down.

Gordon

[mic]

Nice bp, very nice,

Yes Gordon is spot on Venus & Mercury, you know it's not a star bp if you go out and it doesn't twinkle at you, it will have a steady light, as it is a planet reflecting light from the sun back to us and not making it's own light like a star. Or our Sun.

Mic.

[BBJ]

BP, you amaze me and these are great shots. Wow must be nice to live in such a nice place with great places to photograph like this.
Mate fair dinkhum i love these shots.
Done well.
Cheers
John

[Gordon]

Nice bp, very nice,

Yes Gordon is spot on Venus & Mercury, you know it's not a star bp if you go out and it doesn't twinkle at you, it will have a steady light, as it is a planet reflecting light from the sun back to us and not making it's own light like a star. Or our Sun.

Mic.

you didnt quite get it right there with the twinkling explantion mic

Planets generally dont twinkle (but will if the air is unsteady enough) not because they are reflecting sunlight, but because they are a non-point in the sky, ie they have a diameter, even if you cant resolve it with your naked eye.
Warmer pockets of air are rising up through the atmosphere day and night. Daytime we call it heat haze, the night time equivalent is scintillation, commonly known as twinkling. The apparent diameter of these air pockets when viewed from the ground is very small, but larger than the apparent diameter of all stars. The disk of a planet generally is large enough that several to many of these pockets of rising warm air will be across the disk, so the effect is averaged out. They act like small lenses, refracting and dispersing the starlight (or reflected sunlight from a planet), causing the starlight to deviate a noticeable amount- which we see as the stars jiggling around and changing colours. The effect is much more obvious near the horizon because we are looking through a much greater thickness of atmosphere. Planets seen low down usually twinkle too.
I've seen Venus very low over a distant horizon appear as 3 seperate images through a telescope, red, green abd blue! To the naked eye they were merged into a twinkling point with lots of colour.

Gordon

[Atorie]

Bp.. love these shots... I actually prefer the second one you posted... love the look of the water.

[Catcha]

WOW thats a great shot and interesting angle........well done second one I prefer

[big pix]

Gordon ........ the shot was done on 2nd june 05.........

mic and Gordon thanks for the lessons in Planet & star watching, as I did not see the bright light in the Sky till I was PP ......... But I will be keeping an eye on the sky for future shots......

thanks
bp

[mic]

Close but no Cigar I won't argue with an Astronomer.

Thanks Gordon for putting what I thought was pretty close far away, I guess thats why you're an Astonomer knowing things far away.

Mic,

[marcotrov]

Love the shot too bp. Holds some mystery for me.
marco

[KerryPierce]

Lovely shots, BP. Very nicely done!