Mars, Pleiades, And Andromeda Over Stone Lions : Three Very Different – And Very Famous – Objects

exploring mountain colors

Springtime willow tree and Eurasian Jays, a view from my window.

“After thirty years of intensive research, we can now answer many of the questions posed earlier. The recycle rate of a human being is around sixteen hours. After sixteen hours of being awake, the brain begins to fail. Humans need more than seven hours of sleep each night to maintain cognitive performance. After ten days of just seven hours of sleep, the brain is as dysfunctional as it would be after going without sleep for twenty-four hours. Three full nights of recovery sleep (i.e., more nights than a weekend) are insufficient to restore performance back to normal levels after a week of short sleeping. Finally, the human mind cannot accurately sense how sleep-deprived it is when sleep-deprived.”

— Matthew Walker PhD, Why We Sleep: Unlocking the Power of Sleep and Dreams (via themedicalstate)

IT’S A BITTERN APPRECIATION POST

Sources & Species in order below!

Fun with Bittern by Richard Pittam   - Eurasian Bittern (Botaurus stellaris)

Face to face with a juvenile Least Bittern by ChristinaAnne.M   - Least Bittern (Ixobrychus exilis)

American Bittern by Flora to Fauna    - American Bittern (Botaurus lentiginosus)

Cinnamon bittern by Shafaet Alam Abir   - Cinnamon Bittern (Ixobrychus cinnamomeus)

Heads or Tails? by Peter Brannon   - Least Bittern (Ixobrychus exilis)

American Bittern juvenile by Michael W Potter    - American Bittern (Botaurus lentiginosus)

American bittern a bit threatened by white egret by Pamela Viale   - American Bittern (Botaurus lentiginosus)

A Siberian jay/lavskrika photographed in Jämtland, Sweden in early September.

A Lunar Corona with Jupiter and Saturn : Why does a cloudy moon sometimes appear colorful? The effect, called a lunar corona, is created by the quantum mechanical diffraction of light around individual, similarly-sized water droplets in an intervening but mostly-transparent cloud. Since light of different colors has different wavelengths, each color diffracts differently. Lunar Coronae are one of the few quantum mechanical color effects that can be easily seen with the unaided eye. Solar coronae are also sometimes evident. The featured composite image was captured a few days before the close Great Conjunction between Saturn and Jupiter last month. In the foreground, the Italian village of Pieve di Cadore is visible in front of the Sfornioi Mountains. via NASA

The magic of complements.

skrunklies

some stock image woodpeckers for your viewing pleasure

peeling those sour rainbow gummy strips into long thin strings and putting them into cheap energy drink to create something im calling battery acid spaghetti will update once ive finished it

Colors of the Moon : What color is the Moon? It depends on the night. Outside of the Earth’s atmosphere, the dark Moon, which shines by reflected sunlight, appears a magnificently brown-tinged gray. Viewed from inside the Earth’s atmosphere, though, the moon can appear quite different. The featured image highlights a collection of apparent colors of the full moon documented by one astrophotographer over 10 years from different locations across Italy. A red or yellow colored moon usually indicates a moon seen near the horizon. There, some of the blue light has been scattered away by a long path through the Earth’s atmosphere, sometimes laden with fine dust. A blue-colored moon is more rare and can indicate a moon seen through an atmosphere carrying larger dust particles. What created the purple moon is unclear – it may be a combination of several effects. The last image captures the total lunar eclipse of 2018 July – where the moon, in Earth’s shadow, appeared a faint red – due to light refracted through air around the Earth. The next full moon will occur at the end of this month (moon-th) and is known in some cultures as the Beaver Moon. via NASA