Kevin's Watch

Harry's getting to be a big boy!

Aww! Too cute.

Are Harry's ears as soft as they look?

Sorus wrote:Aww! Too cute.

Are Harry's ears as soft as they look?

yes.

he's rather willful but he's the sweetest dog I believe I've ever met.
he loves everyone and lets cats and small dogs roll him.
he gives big sloppy smooches (usually after he's thoroughly licked
areas of his anatomy you'd rather not have on your face) and sounds
exactly like mary tyler moore when she used to say "ooooohhhh robbbbb!"
to dick van dyke.
he loves the old yeller theme song and will kiss you copiously if you sing it to him.
he goes to puppy school (now in his 3rd class, Advanced) and has many bubbies in class and at the dog parks.

as a cat person I couldn't have asked for a better dog than harry.

He's awesome.

Here's the newest addition to my brood:

I love me those ragdolls!

Is that what she is? The shelter was calling her an Angora, but I was thinking Turkish Van. Quite possibly a mix of all of the above. She does have some ragdoll characteristics, but she also really likes water.

omg she's GORgeous!!!!!!

she looks very happy!

She is a happy, chirpy cat.

I hadn't really planned on adopting, as I am broke and my living situation sucks. I lost two of my older cats to cancer last year, which had me down to three. But I've always had four cats, and I've almost always been broke and my living situation has almost always sucked, and that hasn't caused the world to end yet. I'd been telling myself for the last year that the next cat I adopted would be a short-haired polydacytl - probably black. As I said on the last page, I don't choose my cats. They choose me. I was lost the minute she hopped into my lap and gazed up at me with those big blue eyes, but it took me a week to commit myself. Fancy-looking cats tend to get adopted fairly quickly, but it's kitten season right now, and everyone wants a baby. She chose me, and sometimes it's just meant to be.

first flower in my garden........FINALLY!!! Weather really rough this year.

April and May had been pleasently populated with days of cloud. But June is being dry at its best. Only a day or two with cloud this month. Here is a picture of a May surreal:

Above the sleeping Sandia mountains clouds flit freely as if a dream

Halos for lurch, not very high quality, however.
Apparently the luminous clouds we talked about are called noctilucent clouds and yes I've seen those, but not photographed them.

Visible sundogs


With a faint 22 degree ring


Perhaps the best ringshot ever spat out by my point-and-shoot Canon...


Faint Swedish sundoggies


A moonhalo, difficult to capture

WOW!,,Satu , I was just reading about some spectacular halos and arcs and etc etc being sighted in Finland very recently. You saw them too! Thanks for sharing the sights. There are some incredible shots of Arcs and Halos I've never heard of, over at Atmospheric Optics , taken in Finland recently also.

Do you see the whiteish lines coming out of the sundogs? They are the beginnings of a parahelion circle or arc..When they circle all around the sky and meet, including inside of the halo, you get your mind blown. Its a sight that will make you sit down and think about things. I suspect conditions are very good in Finland for you to see a parahelion arc any day now.

A hint...put something over the sun..that way you get the arcs and halos better. It also means slower exposures so watch for movement ( shake)..A paper plate at end of a stick ..or held at arms length..will work. Cover the sun and expose for the arcs and halos. With the sun blocked..you may also photograph things that are not apparent to the human eye,,because the sun washes them out. ..At the top of the halo,,you see another arc..for example.

Thanks Satu!

Below are a few shots of the clouds that passed overhead Sunday morning in Albuquerque ( June 23). The color came from the iridescence derived from being close to the sun. The ice crystals in the clouds makes for iridescence . So they are pretty high up and rippled or..alto stratus undulatus. high, stratified and rippled. The undulatus is caused by wind currents going in different direction and speed , passing over or under each other. I have a lot of fun with these type of clouds and the other reality of them.

Those are excellent, lurch!

And nice halos, Frosty!

lorin wrote:

Holy cow!!!! That is awesome!!!!!!!! Looks like dragons and phoenixes to me!

Alas, lurch, but those above are canned halos of history from 2013 and 2012. Glad you liked them, though.
I missed these, what with still being in Santa Fe and that particular spot sprawling hundreds of kilometers away from where I live. It's been rainy and overcast since I arrived. But I'll keep half an eye directed to the skies during my weekend hike!

All my halo shots have resulted from entirely unplanned situations; these are difficult to predict apart from the very cold, cloudless winter mornings (-25C or below). Sometimes I see them while standing on the bus stop. I will try out those tips but might get funny looks from fellow commuters if I had a paper plate on a stick along with me every March morning. ;-D

Would love the see a parahelion arc!

I like those fluffy clouds upon Sandia. I've noticed that those seem to carouse around mountains for the most part; something I rarely see on my area. What type are those and do the air currents around high peaks have something to do with their formation?

Frosty,,Below are 3 pics taken June 23 there in Albkry. To answer your question, yes, mountains, hills and the air currents they cause, have everything to do with the strange clouds. The most common of these different clouds usually spotted around hills and mountains,,is the alto cumulus lenticularis...another way of saying,,a pretty high cloud that is shaped like a bean ( lentil)..They are smooth rather than cotton ball fluffy..and..generally, they are rather stationary,,Think of an ocean wave coming to shore. It rolls in and rises up and crests. Lenticular clouds are the crests of atmosphere rolling thru. The lenticular is formed by the moisture condensing out of the air because it is rising up to a colder temperature area. Cold air holds less moisture, so the cold air creates this cloud that has a lot of ice in it,,hence the smooth, rather than than the fluffy. But the atmosphere keeps moving and very soon the cloud drops to a warmer layer of air and the cloud moisture condenses back into the gaseous state of the atmosphere..So lenticulars condense out of the air and back into the air in a very short space. As long as that space doesn't move, the crest creating cloud making space, then the cloud doesn't move. It just pops out and pops back into the atmosphere in the stationary space. So the first pic is B&W of a few variants. Notice the smooth and the shapes and even the top one is dropping a virga tail( unusual ) and the one on the right is getting curved by the strong wind. So in that area the wind currents a pretty choppy, radical,,from running into the Sandi mountains and being forced to rise up to get over.

The second shot is more of the same except there is an unusual " Pileus" phenom..Pileus meaning a cap or hat..People go a whole life time without ever seeing a pileus..I've seen hundreds in the desert here, and caught this one easily over Albkrky. Basically the atmosphere has to be near saturation and the atmosphere simply going around or above a slow moving cumulus is enough to condense a " cap" or " hat" ,Pileus, on the cumulus cloud. Normally pileus form on top of fast rising columns of nimbus in a moist atmosphere.. I see the most during monsoon season ( now).

The third shot..is just inexplicable. It began as a classic lenticular ( lenny) ,,with the Sandia right there pushing the air up and creating a crest..classic..and then that cube formed up on the one end of it..Very strange,,but thats what mountain currents do and why its fun to keep an eye on the sky above mountains...What is even more interesting..is that whatever created the cube is also somehow related to the lenny above the cube.

That last one is clearly a spaceship.

Fist and Faith wrote:

lorin wrote:

Holy cow!!!! That is awesome!!!!!!!! Looks like dragons and phoenixes to me!

I can see that - possibly peacocks too, but dragons are more interesting. I can picture it as a full-length tapestry, which seems an odd thing to say about glass, but it's beautiful.