Another sign of spring - a colony of Great Blue Herons building their nests.
No herons in this one - just sunrise coming behind the leafless trees and the glassy surface of a pond.
My first view of comet C/2011 L4 Pan-STARRS.
Not really ideal viewing conditions, with some clouds, and the comet still following the sun so closely at sundown, but still not a bad view of comet C/2011 L4 PanSTARRS.
Comet C/2011 L4 Pan-STARRS on the western horizon at 8:00 PM MDT, from the vicinity of Lyons, Colorado.
Comet names are constructed according to a convention of the International Astronomical Union:
A prefix, alluding to the type of comet, that can be any of the following:
- P/ for a periodic comet.
- C/ for a comet that is not periodic.
- X/ for a comet for which a meaningful orbit cannot be computed.
- D/ for a periodic comet that no longer exists or is deemed to have disappeared.
- The year of discovery.
- An uppercase letter identifying the half-month of observation during that year (A for first half of January, B for second half and so on).
- A number representing the order of discovery within that half month.
This comet's name tells us that it is a non-periodic comet that was the fourth comet discovered in the second half of July 2011 by the Panoramic Survey Telescope & Rapid Response System - "Pan-STARRS" - a facility for wide-field imaging of the sky developed at the University of Hawaii's Institute for Astronomy.
C/2011 L4 Pan-STARRS is supposed to be visible through April 2013, and should become more easy to spot as it moves away from the sun from our point of view in the Northern Hemisphere. It will disappear from our view by 1 May.
Lemon in bloom
Time-lapse sequence with a frame every 6 minutes, taken over a period of 36 hours.
From this:
To this:
Colorado National Monument - May 2011
Colorado National Monument lies just West of Grand Juntion, CO, near the border between Colorado and Utah.
The so-called "Coke Ovens", also known as the "Haystacks". The stacks are composed of Wingate Sandstone about 200 million years old, with caps composed of harder material called the Kayenta Formation.
Another view of the Coke Ovens from below in early morning.
"Claret cup" cacti in bloom.
Independence Monument - a 450-foot high fin of Wingate Sandstone with a Kayenta Formation cap is all that is left of a wall that once stretched across the canyon.
Collared Lizard, Crotaphytus collaris. Collared lizards feed mostly on insects, and can run on their hind legs.
Timber Lake
On the west side of Rocky Mountain National Park. Not far from my recent hike from Milner Pass towards Mount Ida, but about two thousand feet lower in elevation and a little further west. The trail starts at around 9300 feet MSL and climbs to the Lake at 11,040 feet. There isn't much that is really steep - but it just climbs all the way - for 5.1 miles.
On the way to the trailhead, I paused to take a shot of some nice clouds near Lake Irene.
Sunrise near Lake Irene.
Although it is only August, the elk can already be heard trumpeting early in the morning. Autumn is not far away.
Purple Finch, Carpodacus purpureus.
Timber Lake from the rock fall at its head.
This might be the largest mushroom I have ever seen - bigger than my hand!
It was a good day for mushrooms.
Unnamed lake just west of Timber Lake.
