Magnificent Morning Run

The Beautiful Greensprings Trail

Morning running conditions on May10th were perfect! Temperature ranged from 58 to 62 degrees, humidity was low, and pleasant gentle breezes ruffled leaves. The smell of honeysuckle lingered in the air and patches of sunlight danced on the trail and trees.

I'm so fortunate to have the beautiful Greensprings Trail only a short distance from my front door. As you can see above, the trail surface is hard-packed crushed stone. It's nearly as fine as beach sand, but not as soft.

The trail runs through generally low-lying land, and includes several short wooden bridges over damp sections. 

The Greensprings Trail is also the largest portion of Jamestown High School's cross country course where Jamestown's powerful district and regional championship teams compete.

On this lovely morning some deer appeared close by the trail.

Just a few meters to the left along this part of trail was a field of winter wheat ripening in the morning sun.

Back on the trail again after the brief wheat field detour, some holly trees bordered the path.

A bit more than a mile along, the trail enters a drier wooded section.

A short journey on the VA Capital Trail is required to close the Greensprings loop. This long wooden bridge is a favorite spot for birdwatchers and photographers.

About 100 meters along the bridge pictured above the Greensprings Trail exits to the right and heads toward another narrower bridge spanning wetlands. 

Midway along this narrow bridge is a sightseeing location yielding an open view of a pond often home to geese and ducks. The pond is part of a complex created by beaver dams. Part of one dam can be seen in the foreground. Park rangers recently opened this dam near the location of the two vertical posts on the right. I don't know why they thought this was necessary.

On this day some turtles were sunning on soggy logs.

Sometimes I'm lucky and see a great blue heron along with his mirror image.

I watched this heron catch three fish. Here he is about to strike.

Bang! Another successful catch!

After swallowing each fish, he retreated to the side to drink a little water and rest.

Exiting the sightseeing bridge, the trail turns to the right and reenters woods.

One day a snake swam in one of the drainage streams.

In the previous image it looks like a black snake, but some markings were visible in sunlight.

About a half mile further I came upon a group of birdwatchers enthusiastically pointing telephoto lenses up into the trees. I asked what they were viewing. "There's an owl!", they said. It took me a few seconds to spot the owl through leafy foreground. Can you spot it in the next picture?

During the previous few weeks I saw many birdwatchers stopping near this location. They told me about a nest containing baby owls. Eventually, a generous area beneath the nest was roped off so people wouldn't disturb the nesting site. I never could locate the nest, especially without my glasses. But on this glorious morning I did wear glasses and carried a new phone along on my run. The owl presented a good opportunity to try new magnification capabilities of the phone camera. The next picture was the best magnified owl image, but there's no substitute for a telephoto lens on a DSLR camera. Looks like the owl doesn't approve.

Birdwatchers pointed out another owl nearby which they claimed was one of the "babies". This owl seems to have its head rotated 180 degrees to look at me over its back!

A few steps beyond the owl viewing I came across several tiny black toads hopping across the path. 

Soon the trail entered a drier section.

Another right turn and the trail entered a wide final section heading home towards the end of my run. One day I came upon this copperhead snake crossing the path.

 

Just a few days after this magnificent morning the annual plague of biting flies began. They make running miserable by bouncing off my head and biting my back, shoulders, head, and neck. Sadly, I won't be able to enjoy this trail again until October when the fly plague ends.




 

Using Seestar's AI Denoise

Smoother Background, Sharper Stars

One of the great things about Seestar is the continual improvement of its capabilities. The mosaic/framing mode allows larger fields of view, and the AI Denoise feature significantly improves image quality. I'm usually a little late discovering these new features, but when I eventually get around to using them, I'm quite impressed.

I recently tried AI Denoise for the first time on April 28th. It smoothed and darkened background sky and sharpened star images. The first image below shows the effect. It's a 10-minute exposure of globular cluster M107 in Ophiuchus. (Enlarge all images for the best view.)

Here's a GIF animation to show the effect of AI Denoise on the noisy original M107 image. Notice how cluster stars become sharper. (I also used Photoshop to adjust background darkness.)

Next, close interacting galaxy pair NGC4490 and NGC4485 in Canes Venatici are nicely visible in the following 60-minute exposure. AI Denoise brought out detail in distorted spiral NGC4490 on the right. The two galaxies are separated by about 3.5 arc minutes.

Finally, the next image is a 60-minute exposure of Hickson Compact Group 44 in Leo. Galaxy NGC3190 is in group center with smaller distorted s-shaped galaxy NGC3187 to its right. Elliptical galaxy NGC3183 is on top and small spiral NGC3185 is at bottom. AI Denoise made faint s-shaped arms of NGC3187 stand out clearly against the background. Examine the enlarged image to see this better.

Here's another animated GIF to illustrate how AI Denoise improved the Hickson 44 image.

After seeing these initial results I anticipated applying AI Denoise to many other Seestar images taken over the past year. Unfortunately, this turned out to be impossible because I had deleted the original FITS files from my laptop and Seestar itself. AI Denoise needs access to original stacked FITS files in order to carry out its magic.

The M107 image above adds one more to my Messier collection bringing the total number captured to 103. Only 7 more to go!

Late April Sun

Sunspots, Filaments, and Prominences

The first clear day after more than a month of clouds dawned on April 28th. During my solar observing session winds were light, and temperature ranged between 66 and 68 degrees. Conditions were nearly ideal.

A mysterious glitch initially made my laptop unable to connect to the telescope mount. The normal USB mount-to-computer communication port had somehow been changed. Who knows why annoying stuff like this happens? After 20 minutes reading equipment manuals I was able to establish a connection and proceed with setup.

This time of year clover mites abound. These tiny red bugs swarm over my backyard patio and garden walls. Inevitably, they end up crawling all over equipment cases. It's a mistake to squash them because they leave a red stain for every kill. I ended up sweeping them off with a Swiffer duster before bringing equipment back inside.

Giant impressive sunspots were missing on April 28th. Only one major dark umbra is visible in the slightly imperfect 12-panel disk mosaic shown next. Some nice filaments appear, including two just rotating into view on the left solar limb.

All visible sunspots can be seen in the cropped center portion of the previous mosaic. The next image can be enlarged to full size by clicking on it. The enlarged image shows nice detail because seeing was good. Biggest sunspot 4076 is above and left of center. Tiny sunspot 4077 is left of center. Sunspot 4072, featuring extremely dim twin umbras, is below center. Sunspot pair 4070 is in the lower right corner.

The next close view of sunspot 4076 with spectacular sinuous filament on the right also shows great detail when enlarged to full size.

Now let's look at some prominences. Image processing reveals prominence locations on the imperfect disk mosaic previously shown above. There are two on the right limb and one on the upper left limb. Once again, enlarging the image shows these features better.

The largest arch-shaped prominence was impressive!

A spiked-shaped prominence and neighboring limb activity showed emissions above giant emerging sunspot 4079 on the upper left limb.

A small spike prominence shot off the lower right limb.

More than a week of upcoming cloudy weather will prevent solar observing in the near future.