Chicks are doing good this morning. The 2 mama hens have sorted out whose chicks are whose and the 2 small flocks seem to be getting along fine.
Our small horse seems to really enjoy having baby goats climb on his back: he makes the same face as when you give him good back scritches, and he kept standing in the same spot by the ledge that goats could use to climb onto his back, even though he could have easily walked away. Silly horse (but sillier goats)
The main set of images of Mercury as seen by ESA & JAXA's #BepiColombo mission last night during its fourth & closest flyby yet have now been published.
They're available to download on ESA's website, but they've been enlarged to add logos & captions, making them too big to post on Mastodon 🤷♂️
So here they all in two toots as a preview, resized to the original 1024x1024 pixels, for you to enjoy.
Happy to have worked on them 🙂👍
1/2
The ESA/JAXA BepiColombo mission has successfully completed its fourth of six gravity assist flybys at Mercury, capturing images of two special impact craters as it uses the little planet’s gravity to steer itself on course to enter orbit around Mercury in November 2026.The closest approach took place at 23:48 CEST (21:48 UTC) on 4 September 2024, with BepiColombo coming down to around 165 km above the planet’s surface. For the first time, the spacecraft had a clear view of Mercury’s south pole.
Thunderstorms are a rarity here in the Seattle area so, when I read that we were expected to get some significant activity tonight, I started keeping an eye on lightningmaps.org. When the leading edge of the strikes reached Tacoma, I jumped in the Jeep and headed to Gas Works Park, set up the camera and tripod under an awning, and waited. I dialed in settings that would let me do 5 or 10 second exposures, kept hitting the shutter, and hoped to get lucky.
I did.
Gear: Nikon Z7 II, Nikon AF-S 50mm f1.4G
(Cross-posted from my blog: https://andrewflenniken.com/2024/08/17/august-17th-2024-thunderbolts-lightning-very-very-exciting/)
#Photography #Nikon #NikonCreators #NikonZ7II #Lightning #Seattle #SpaceNeedle
Prof. Sam Lawler
Esther Hanko
DLR_next
Mark McCaughrean
Marcel Mosqi
Phil Plait
Andrew Flenniken Photography
acb