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Monday, January 21, 2019

Eclipse

Somehow I didn't hear about the eclipse tonight until I saw photos posted online. Here's a nice photo of the eclipse taken by a friend of mine, Tim McKenna.


Just hanging out in town waiting for spring. I saw where a rare flower species was seen today somewhere in the Big Bend area. I'm trying to find out where, and if it's not too hard a hike for me, I'd like to go see it. The Mexican Tulip Poppy (Hunnemannia fumarifolia) is a yellow poppy that's rare in Texas, only occurring in the Trans-Pecos region, and in Mexico. (Photo found online.)


UPDATE: The finders of the plant won't disclose the location because it's such a rare plant. But they did say it's a 6 mile round-trip hike. A bit too much for me. Just for the record, I'm probably the last person that would ever accidentally step on the plant, not to mention touch it. You should see the antics I go through to avoid stepping on my verbena, which are literally coming up everywhere. I know visitors to CMO will step on them, but it can't be helped.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

I tried commenting via Google, and don't know whether said comment was received but simply ignored, or if it wasn't received at all, so I'm trying again as Anonymous. That so-called eclipse photo is a TOTAL FAKE. The progression of a lunar eclipse never looks like that, and never will. The background was shot with a wide-angle lens (I know my constellations), the Moon image with a long telephoto. Then several copies of the full Moon were made and tinted after the fact, before being composited onto the background. And by the way, that particular background--the building with the TX flag on it--has been the subject of many, many fakes before. In addition, this event took place almost directly overhead for most of North America (and certainly for TX and here in NM), so it wasn't even possible to include foreground elements in the shot! If you want to see what the progression of a Lunar Eclipse looks like, visit a CREDIBLE site, such as one affiliated with NASA or Dr. Fred Espenak or SpaceWeather.com, to name a few. Here are some examples:

http://spaceweathergallery.com/indiv_upload.php?upload_id=151266&PHPSESSID=ue0ta89k2gfeh2fcpo31i2g9i2

http://spaceweathergallery.com/indiv_upload.php?upload_id=151258&PHPSESSID=ue0ta89k2gfeh2fcpo31i2g9i2

http://spaceweathergallery.com/indiv_upload.php?upload_id=151132

It annoys me no end to see this kind of fakery propagated, as it's fundamentally dishonest, plus it serves to call all published photography into question. So please don't take my comments as criticism, but rather view them as intended, which is to educate viewers so that the fakers are unmasked. Thanks, and best regards.

Gary K. Froehlich, PhD
Albuquerque, NM

Carolyn Ohl-Johnson said...

Thanks for the info. I really appreciate it. I replaced the photo with one I know is genuine.