jwesterman – Page 8

July 11, 2018July 12, 2018

Alaska.

I never did write much about our Alaska trip back in 2009. It was a crazy time in life with work being busier than I can ever remember. Among other distractions there was big changes in my life.

The entire trip was some of the best times in my life yet if you asked me to pick one thing out of the trip that was the highlight of the trip it would have to be what occurred in this story.

There is a back story. Well in advance of the trip we had to choose the things we would do in our excursions. I don’t remember all the details but by the time I got around to picking what we would do we didn’t have many options.

Fly Fishing was definitely on my list. But on the day that this occurred the options I wanted were no longer available. The only option left was the most expense of all of the options. That option was to fly in an old de Havilland Beaver to the top of Denali.

Gloria had already chosen what she wanted to do that day so that left me and the girls. So I signed us up to do this together. It was approximately $300 per person for a 1 hour flight. I shrugged at the idea of spending this kind of money for such a short period of time not knowing what I would see. Little did I know it would be on my top 5 of things I’ve done in all my life. Right up there with swimming in the Great Barrier Reef or walking on the Great Wall of China.

I had two youngsters with me, one that didn’t like to fly much. Which is a little odd because she flew so much with me as she was growing up. Being a pilot with an airplane she really had no choice but to come along with me most of the times we flew together.

So the building up to getting on the plane was stressful for some, suspenseful for others. None of knew what we were about to do. There was some speculation that we would not make it to Denali at all because of the frequent weather that is almost always around the mountain. The people at the airfield said that the flight could even be cancelled if things got real bad.

So it was everything from “it’s not happening” to “it could be clear”. If it didn’t happen there were no refunds. We didn’t have any time to do it again another day so we were either going to go or not but we all knew we had one chance.

It did happen!

The plane was a de Havilland Beaver (DHC-2) with a Pratt and Whitney PT6 Turboprop conversion. It was very quiet. We flew with K2 Avation out of Talkeetna, Alaska.

I flew in the co-pilot seat to and from Denali. Pure bliss. The entire time. All of it.

The Date is July 17, 2009. It’s just one of those days that will stay with me a lifetime.

June 5, 2018

Sunrise June 2, 2018.

This sunrise was pretty good start to finish. Instead of posting on Instagram I thought I’d post it here without any edits.

I have programmed a Raspberry Pi to do these sequences each morning. It takes three per day. It’s a part of a larger project I’m working on that will take over a year to complete. This is a byproduct of that project.

It’s typical this time of year to have this low lying fog on the less windy days. Between the big season changes brings wildly varying temperatures causing the fog. We’ve had so much rain in the months of May and June which has contributed to the moisture content of the ground.

I hope you have a good day today.

Enjoy!

June 1, 2018

The hunt, the kill and the meal.

This morning, as I was having breakfast before work on my gazebo, I noticed our resident hawk hunting from atop one of my telephone poles. It turns out to be a pretty good vantage point for birds of prey to watch over the property for small furry creatures flitting about. So I got my camera out, powered it on, turned on all the servos to shoot from a distance of 400 or so feet away and then just sat there observing her behavior while she hunted.

To get these three photos took about 30 minutes. The time between just looking around and taking flight was less than a second. As soon as she jumped I took about 10 shots within a second. In that time she totally panned through the image crop. I tried to follow her all the way to the ground but she was obfuscated by the tower and tall grass.

I was putting my camera away when I noticed she was back on top of the pole with her catch. With a little patients I got the hunt, the kill and the meal (a small rabbit).

When I got home last night I noticed a new swift nest of mud and feathers under the deck by the basement door. They are skilled at putting a nest where creatures like Mongrel can’t get easy access to them. I have a thermometer under there that they have attached their new nest. I suspect they will have new birds up there soon.

The swifts are fun. When I cut the grass they fly all around me catching all the bugs that try to make an escape. They are skillful fliers and very curious about everything around them. They seem to fly close just to get a look at me when they are not catching bugs.

Most of the angels I know or have known have broken wings.

Garden angel. Broken like the rest of us.

Oh, and I’ve been wondering at times when I know it’s windy that I do not get any wind indiciation on my sensors. I figured out why the other day! A meadowlark has decided that he/she can sit on top of the sensors and, without moving, can get a 360º view of everything around it. Ha.

A meadowlark on my wind direction sensor.

I hope you have a good day today.

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May 29, 2018May 30, 2018

Happenings from around home.

It’s been a while since I have posted so I’m going to drop a photo or two from the last couple of days. After doing some work in the yard having not done so for 7 days we cleaned up and went for a drive mapping out some new roads around home. As is often the case, we were blocked by a passing train. This one hauling 150 cars full of coal headed to Washington.

It has been raining like crazy around home. On Sunday evening it rained 10 inches near here and subsequently washed out many small bridges where we were driving closing most of the routes we would normally take for an evening stroll. At first we thought it was official maintenance of the roads but quickly learned it was mother nature reclaiming what is hers.

Switching gears… I don’t like crows, in particular, but I liked this photo from a long lens against a cloudy sky. Probably because of the high contrast.

And, finally, these bluebirds, two of so many on our property have made a nest near the well head. Every year this time the bluebirds are very active. They don’t go anywhere during the winter so they tend to stay close by. They have unmistakable markings that you can see in this photograph. Every year I say I am going to put up more bluebird houses because there are so many nesting pairs. I need to get out there and build them.

I put all this stuff near the well head to keep farmers from running it over when we harvest the hay which you can see getting tall in the background. It does not interact well with farm equipment. Usually the farm equipment is the loser of any battle with only minor scrapes on the well. Concrete and steel are a formidable competitor to anything other than concrete and steel.

I hope you are having a nice day!

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March 21, 2018March 24, 2018

March 21, 2018 Snow Storm

It seems like I just posted a blog on a snow storm!

The last couple of days has been preparing for another n’easter to come in to the mid-atlantic area as two low pressure systems collide near my home. With the crazy weather brings some interesting photo opportunities; especially for black and white high contrast photography which I enjoy so much.

The Doukénie’s are nice people. I got to know the owners of this winery with my previous work. I’ve since lost track of them but drive by their place all the time as it’s on a road less traveled.

This corn field is on my regular running/walking route. I give them shit because they use harsh chemical to treat their land. You can’t see any of that under the blanket of snow today.

Drone photography has really changed the way I look at the earth. The first time I saw my first photograph from the drone I knew it was going to be something that would take the world by storm.

Back then I had the DJI Phantom 1 which did not have a camera mounted to it. Instead, I mounted a then unknown camera to the bottom of the drone … my GoPro (the original).

I remember being in my living room seeing the picture for the first time and saying something like, “Oh My!” which got my entire family’s attention. They wanted to know what I was looking at. It was something like you see here.

Producing the photograph is skill. The equipment is pure science.

My “new” drone is the DJI 2. Even the DJI 2 didn’t have a camera so I bought a third party gimbal, wired it into the GPS of the DJI as well as into an OSD module.

The OSD, short for On Screen Display, superimposes all of the flight data into the video transmitter which I also procured and wired into the drone. All of this runs on 5 volts of dc power that I get from the drone itself.

Then I put my “new” GoPro 4 in the gimbal and tie that into the entire system.

When I fly the drone I have my FPV, or First Person View, goggles on my eyes and it is as if I am hanging from the bottom of the drone. It is literally like flying an airplane. I have the exact same instrumentation as an aircraft all displayed in front of me.

I control the drone with 2.4ghz DSS. The video downlink is 5ghz analog. It’s worth noting that the use of 5ghz downlink video is not something normally approved without a license. But I do possess the FCC license to do this.

This camera system that I created is not as fancy as the stuff you can buy today. Since that stuff wasn’t available when I built this I did what I could. It takes a photograph every 5 seconds as well as shooting 1080p 30fps video at the same time. So I get a little of both vs one or the other. But I do have to stay on my target for 5-20 seconds to get the photo I want. That is if I want it in high resolution and not from the video grab.

The video is not the latest 4k with all the latest technology. But for what I am doing with it I don’t need that either. For me and this system anyway, that is just a camera change. Not a drone system change. I just haven’t gotten around to swapping out the camera mainly because I don’t prefer GoPro cameras any longer as they are too expensive compared to all the other technology out there that can do just as well for 25% of the cost.

This is me behind my “camera” this afternoon

I’ve thought about buying a new drone over the past several years and, so far, I haven’t seen anything I’d prefer. There are smaller ones that fit in your pocket but don’t take better video or photos.

I think the next drone I have will be much more sophisticated in the use of aerodynamics. Like quieter props. These are not quiet machines. But they take awesome photos!

February 28, 2018

The geese are headed north.

It’s still cold at night and cool during the day. Right now its 35º at midnight and we have a fire going in the fireplace keeping the house warm. The fire keeps the house warm without running the air conditioners. At this temperature, anyway.

When I got home today and walked out in the back yard and notice two things immediately. First there were all these geese flying north in big “V” formations. One after the other. The second was the grass is turning green again.

The ground is still super soggy with all the rain and snow we’ve had recently. That must be helping it all start to look like spring. I’m hoping we don’t have any hard freezes from now on since the flowers will be up soon and the trees will start to leaf out. I’ve seen that kill a number of trees here.

I hope it’s warm and sunny where you are at too. Have a good day!

February 22, 2018

February 17, 2018 Snow Storm

Last week we had this snow storm come through here that was interesting to observe. Listening to the radio you’d think we were going to be buried under an apocalyptic layer of white stuff.

It was OK because as much salt as they put on the road if we had enough water it would just become a sea and we could all be sailors again. All that salt has to have a negative impact on the environment. In particular, the water. If we continue to put all this salt on the road our fresh water is going to become saline! We should all stay home instead. Or use something else.

Here is a short video of that day.

Have a good day!

February 20, 2018February 20, 2018

Big snow. Then no snow.

On Saturday, 18 February 2018, the day started cool in bright sunlight. There was a winter storm warning for later in the day where they said the weather would change and become overcast and quickly dump 3-5 inches of snow on the ground. I didn’t believe them until it started snowing.

It was about 30º and the air was very moist making the snow sticky which quickly covered everything.

The next morning I got up and flew my drone to take some pictures of the snow covered landscape knowing that the temperatures were about to rise and it would likely all be gone soon.

My home after a snow storm February 18, 2018

Virginia snowscape looking towards my home.

And, no kidding, it didn’t take long. By the time 5pm rolled around the sky was super clear and sun uber-bright casting long high contrast shadows everywhere.

Mongrel at sunset on top of a bird house

With Mongrel on top of the bird house I noticed it cast a cool shadow on the ground behind us. I snapped a few photos. He’s on the house because the ground it totally saturated with water. It’s like walking on a big sponge out here.

So many places are doing without water. This just doesn’t happen to be one of them.

Mongrel really doesn’t like having his picture taken so I have to be coy about all this photography thing. When the camera is pointed away he will do his own thing. The second I put the lens in his direction he complains. So if I shoot a photo of him you now know it’s extremely quick and has to be right the first time or he’ll move off.

This winter the temperatures have been so cold, colder than I remember previous years being. For several weeks we had temperatures consistently below freezing with lows near zero every day.

That changes tomorrow with a high of 75º in the afternoon. I’m really hoping I can peel off and get a motorcycle ride in during the evening hours. Work is busy so that may not happen.

Maybe spring really is only a few weeks away.

Other than droning I got to fly some of my other aircraft during the calmer parts of the days without precipitation. That was fun but I have no photography of that. Also spent a ton of time with my radio hobby but not photos of that either.

It’s been a fun, long weekend but that all changes in the morning.

Oh, it is morning.

Off to bed.

February 11, 2018February 12, 2018

Potomac River in the Winter

Today I had to run an errand in Baltimore.

The weather there and back was in and out of the rain and fog with a temperature range between home and Baltimore of about 20º. It’s just so odd that the temperature spread would be that different in such a short distance.

The ground is still very cold as is the temperature of the waters near home. When we went across the Potomac river we couldn’t see past the windows in our car. But when I came back across the river this is what I saw:

It’s often not easy to get a photograph like this. I’d say that most photography that you don’t see every day has some element of crazy in it. I tried to describe it here.

I’m not posting these high resolution pictures on Instagram or Facebook because they take out all the detail. Since these shots were made by hand with very high ISO in low light they are already “grainy” which would look worse after “enhancement” by the big box social media sites.

As I stood on the river bridge like a crazy man the sky color changes like it always does as the sun sets lower in the sky. The colors changed from blue/grey to pastel. I did my best to capture that here:

If you want to see more detailed photographs you can touch the images. Following is a map showing the GPS coordinates of where I was standing to take these photos and video. I was on the west (left) side of the bridge.

I hope you have a great week ahead of you!

February 5, 2018

Winter came back!

Over the weekend we had a small winter storm that changed the landscape back to winter.

I still feel quite fortunate that we have not had a major winter storm this year where we had to shovel 3+ feet of snow like previous years. And now that I’ve said that I’m sure it’ll happen. Ha. Either way, I’ll be ready to shovel snow or chill and enjoy the last 5-6 weeks of winter. All of us are ready to get outside more so the quicker spring can come the better.

Busy work week so I’m off to finish some of that.

Have a great week!