Photos Etc.

NGC 7000 is more commonly called the the North America Nebula. It gets its nickname from its coincidental resemblance to our continent—if you squint and pretend a little, you can see Mexico and Central America to the right, and the Gulf of Mexico and Florida center-right. The nebula is a glowing cloud of hydrogen gas a couple hundred years across and between 2,000 and 3,000 light years away. I’m still learning how to use the Dwarf, so I recognize the limits of this photo. Despite its flaws, however, I’m delighted to have this photograph. It doesn’t look like much, but I first learned about NGC 7000 when I took my first college astronomy class in 1988, and it always was a favorite.

Note the pinkish color. NGC 7000 glows pink because that’s what molecular hydrogen does when it’s hit by the radiation from nearby stars. It has enough gas to probably form millions of new stars with giant clouds of dust, visible as dark clumps and tendrils. Stars are currently forming in “Central America” and “Canada.” The fun of a nebula like this is when giant stars inside of it or just outside periodically collapse and explode. The shock waves from these explosions, called Type II supernovae, travel through all that gas and cause a bunch of eddies and disturbances. Given enough time, the eddies collapse and eventually form stars, sometimes accompanied by planets. Wait a few billion years in a place like this, and who knows what might happen on one of the planets that will form?

City of sin …

My new school is about three miles from the ocean, but since it’s the Boston area, the drive takes 20 minutes, 30 with traffic. Yesterday, I was stuck at school for a meeting that would happen later in the evening. Since I couldn’t go anywhere til then, I headed over to the beach to kill some time. The route put me in a town called Lynn. Despite being beachfront real estate, Lynn has a rough reputation. (Locals, feel free to drop your favorite Lynn rhyme and mine in the comments below.) Anyway, I walked around a bit at a park called Red Rock, which wasn’t too bad. It was hot and breezy. The only sense I got that I was in “the real New England“ was that the women sitting here and there in lawn chairs seemed a little grouchy, brandishing lit cigarettes and beer cozies. They were my age or older, swearing at each other, accents on glorious display. I didn’t have a camera other than my phone, so I just wandered around, overdressed, and watched some planes come in toward Logan. Toward the end, I met a nice Turkish man who was fishing from the rocks. We chatted despite a bit of a language barrier, and I found out he had been here three years. He asked where I was from, and figuring he hadn’t heard of Oregon, I said California, which I guess is just as true. I wished him welcome and good luck, and headed back to my meeting.

My Kingdom for a Chair

I didn’t know much about Cuttyhunk, other than it was “undeveloped” as Cape islands go, and tiny. I did learn that the island was one of the first places visited by the English in the 1600s, even before the Pilgrims arrived. After that, Cuttyhunk switched hands back and forth, lost all of its trees, and it experienced other forms of a rich history. (Here: feel free.)

I had the chance to spend the day there one recent Sunday. I got up early, threw a camera, etc. into a backpack, and drove 90 minutes to New Bedford to catch the 9 a.m. boat. A round-trip ticket cost $62, plus $18 for parking. The ferry is small, sturdy, and reasonably comfortable. I was able to buy a cup of coffee, walk around a little on deck, and pet a very sweet dog named Ollie. The trip took an hour over mellow seas, and by the time we pulled in to the harbor, the low overcast had lifted and out came the sun. The day promised to be a winner: 80s and mostly sunny.

The island is dotted with a few hundred houses, most owned by New England’s “established” families who have used the island as the kind of sleepy, summer retreat. I imagine it’s what Nantucket and the Vineyard used to be before they became whatever it is they’ve become. Conversely, Cuttyhunk feels about a hundred years slower. People get around by walking or driving a golf cart. There are no bars. In fact, alcohol isn’t sold anywhere on the island. I’d heard on the boat that the one restaurant does serve a great breakfast, but only until 11 a.m., so I hoofed it over as soon as the ferry let me off.

I arrived at 10:30, and the breakfast place was still packed. The food looked great, but the hostess half-apologetically told me they wouldn’t be able to serve me because “usually we stop seating by 10 on weekends.” I was annoyed, but what’re you going to do? The lady did point across the island to a bunch of buildings on a dock about a half mile away.

I got back to the boat with time to spare. I shared a table with a lovely couple from Brookline, who told me all about their history on the island. As we pulled away from the dock, the man pointed out the window at a crowd of several dozen people, most of them in their 20s or younger, all waving goodbye to the boat. A tradition! And after the boat moved off a safe distance, many of them jumped into the water.

Other than the sunburn on my legs, the trip was pleasant. Confession: I didn’t really enjoy the Cuttyhunk experience until my phone died about halfway through. This once again proves that phones suck. Can you imagine not having a phone for a week and being stuck on an island like that? Just laying around, taking three-hour naps on a threadbare couch under an open window, curtains pushed in by a soft, steady 2 p.m. sea breeze. Airbnb doesn’t appear to be a thing on the island, but actually, you know what? Good. So unless I somehow marry into one of these New England families that I hear so much about wherever I go, Cuttyhunk will have to remain a place where I visit but never rest my head on anything other than a backpack. Even with that, I’ve had worse Sundays.

I recently purchased the Dwarf 3 telescope, which is designed to make astrophotography more accessible to those of us who don’t like spending six hours outside in the dark, fumbling with equipment that we can’t afford and don’t have the patience to learn how to use. Based on my first three deep sky images, I think the Dwarf 3 is going to be a lot of fun. I’m going to have to learn. how to use the manual setting and get out of auto mode, and once I’ve done that, spend more time gathering images and then learn how to process them on my own. But for about 20 minutes of processing time each, these three galaxy photos aren’t bad.

This is the first post in my new photo blog, which I hope I’ll keep revising. That’s my grandson, taking the train with his dad and me. The original destination was Boston, but we stopped halfway there to get ice cream. It gave us about 45 minutes to walk around the town of Winchester a little, let E play in the park, and then get back on the return train. I do love that photo of E. He’s such a sweet, beautiful boy.

I hope this site can be a better place to show my “non-revenue” photography than the two Instagram feeds I try to update a couple of times a week. I’ve been making money with photos officially since 2015, with a bit more quality in 2018, and at a halfway decent level once the pandemic died down. The trouble has been separating the photos I take “for me” from the ones I take for clients, especially with regard to social media. I have mostly given up trying to have my business side become more than what it reached last year—25 weddings plus a half-dozen other gigs, with revenue just north of $40,000. That’s about all I can handle with a day job, especially the one I just started.

To now, I’ve tried to share my photos on two separate Instagram accounts, plus my wedding website. But I’d like a larger stage for the personal photos, even if few people will see them at all, and those who do will still be on their phones. But here it is anyway.