Pity the poor driver

...who thought that taking 42nd Street yesterday evening was a good idea.

In New York, there's always a crowd

I don't know what it was like on the other major crosstown streets, but on 42nd Street, people started congregating an hour before the sun actually set.

More Manhattanhenge

Turned down the exposure, turned up the drama.

Manhattanhenge

A few times a year, the rising or setting sun lines up with the grid of crosstown streets in Manhattan, a phenomenon that has been dubbed Manhattanhenge. The few times that I've remembered it was happening it was cloudy or raining, so last night's sunset was the first time I've actually seen it.

Here's the view from 42nd Street.

Astronomy Tuesday

Most of the objects in Messier's famous catalog of “shiny things in the sky that kind of look like comets but aren't” are nebulae or galaxies or star clusters.

Messier 24 isn't actually an object—it's a gap in the interstellar dust clouds allowing a glimpse of the stars on the other side, some of which are 10,000 light years away.

Image Credit and Copyright: Gabriel Rodrigues Santos

Sunday bird blogging

Here's another picture of the pileated woodpecker in Sapsucker Woods last month.

It's not as sharp as I would like, because it was busy pecking away like a little feathered jackhammer, as you can tell from the bits of tree debris flying through the air.

Saturday reflections

The Loch in Central Park offering a lovely abstract view of late spring in the city.

And this is how I feel today

 Chewed up, spit out, wrung dry. Such a horrible week that I can't even feel that relieved to be done with the semester.

(This cardinal, by the way, is fine, just molting. Strip away the feathers and you can really see the little dinosaurs underneath.)

Sunday bird blogging

I have twice been asked by novice birders to identify a bird that turned out to be the extremely common American robin. Cardinals are not quite that common, but boy, are they easy to identify. Even easier than a robin.

Saturday reflections

I found this reflection in the back window of a car on my phone. I know that I took it last month because my phone tells me so, but where exactly on the island of Manhattan I was, I don't know.

Astronomy Tuesday

I'm in the mood for the abstract beauty of a nebula tonight, and this colorful deep field image of the Cat's Paw nebula in Scorpio checks all the boxes.

Image Credit and Copyright: Stefan Steve Bemmerl & Team Wolfatorium (Hakos/Namibia)

Sunday bird blogging

I wasn't able to get close to this guy, but people get so excited when a prothonotary warbler shows up, I feel compelled to share this less than satisfying picture anyway. There were literally crowds with long lenses lining the banks of the Loch in Central Park for the three days he was in town last month.