Bare-feet.

This day last week, I went to the tekdi with Pooja after work to take a walk under lovely skies which changed form every five minutes!

It had rained, so the earth was wet and kept sticking to our sandals so much so that we couldn't walk properly. Walking barefoot was the only option. Mud caked sandals in hand, we started walking towards the Hanuman tekdi, with our feet covered with a thick sole of mud. We had a lovely walk to the Mandir and back!

 Beautiful day!

Lyrids/Sleepless nights

I slept late last night. It was quite cool and the sky was clear. The moon was setting and as I got into my blanket on my terrace and looked up, I saw a fireball move across the north east part of the sky and I was thrilled! 

That made me lose any little bit of sleep remaining and I searched the internet for any possible meteor showers this time of the year, as I remembered the Lyrid showers from a few years ago. The internet told me that the showers were to officially start on 16th of April and would peak on 21st. So I know what to do those few nights - stay awake and look at the sky! :D 

Then I remembered this blog post I wrote two years ago about the Lyrids... I am super lucky to witness such events!   

And last night...

Wanted to do something different last night. And since I couldn't think of anything, I went up to the terrace, set up my telescope to view the moon through the layers of clouds passing by. Since there was no decent opportunity to take a still photograph of the moon, I took a video of clouds engulfing the moon. Such a wonderful sight!

DASHED STAR TRAILS - FUN!!

I was really frustrated in the evening yesterday. Was discussing generally with Ashwin about things one could possibly do. And he suggested an hour long exposure ... And he's the lucky guy to have a remote release... I don't have one. Last time I tried a star trail, I had jammed the shutter button of the FM2 for 75 mins. That was easy since it was a manual camera. This is hard since it's digital... and all e electronics make me a nervous wreck! But hey, what the hell! It's my camera! I can do what I want with it! I had the idea of jamming the button with some tape and I tried that, but that wouldn't work, till Mr. topper - Ramit gave me the idea of Jamming the button with tape and a little folded piece of paper between the tape and the button. Risky, it is... and that I got to know only later ... But ignorance is bliss, and I was blissfully ignorant which resulted in this pic.
So I decided to charge my camera's battery fully. And I remembered a technique I had read about last year where could play around with star trails. If the lens is covered for a min or two ever five minutes during the entire period of exposure. This gives breaks in the light trail and the line appears dashed.
This was just the time to try it out! So I set out to my terrace with my camera, battery fully charged and lens cap and tripod and my music! So set up the cam and all, and set up the tape and the timer started... took off the lens cap and was walking around in circles on my terrace while it was exposing... 10 mins into the exp... i heard the dreadful sound... the tape gave away... and the pic didnt expose for as long as I wanted it to... But, i was on it again in no time. after a few failed attempts (5 of them) i finally got a good hold with the tape! and the star trail lasted for 49 mins 38 seconds. during the exposure, I was covering the lens with the lens cap every 5 mins for every 2 mins, and hence the dashed line!
There are a few irregularities in the trails due to lack of concentration towards the timings on my part, but it's ok... the first try...
The camera took about an hour for the noise reduction process for the image, and i was getting impatient... but when I saw the final image... I was pretty thrilled!!
I see two dust spots in the image, and can't help it because I play around with the cam so much. changing lenses... the new lens might not be totally dustproof... but the XTi's sensor vibration dust removal thingy helps... like it has so many times before...
I love my cam! And I love making new photos with it!