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Got Fungus?

It was a cold rainy day on the Maine seacoast. Spring is still making it's debut. I shot this pic today with my iPhone. A nice example of a fairy ring. Rings like this are caused by a fungal mycelium that is growing outward in a circular pattern. As the fungus grows and breaks down all of the organic matter in the soil, it liberates a large amount of nitrogen compounds which fertilize the lawn. Apparently, these things can grow quite large over the years and can become hundreds of feet across.

Jupiter

A couple years ago, my sister Holly got Andrew and Jonathan a very nice Orion telescope for Christmas. We hadn't really used it too much. Guam had the lovely condition of light pollution, hot humid nights, and large predatory flying insects.

We broke the telescope out tonight, and it was a perfect Maine evening for stargazing. 54 degrees and clear skies. Andrew had an assignment for his science class to observe the moon. So we spent some time doing that, since it was a nice 3/4 bright moon.

I had also downloaded the Star Walker app for my iPad, and we were having a lot of fun identifying all of the constellations that we could make out. If you have an iPad or iPhone, the Star Walker app is definitely worth the $$.

What really caught our eye was the brightest object in the sky other than the moon, the planet Jupiter. We focused the telescope and to our delight, not only could you see Jupiter and its bands, but you could also see all four Galilean moons.

I got this wacky idea to try to photograph what we saw later tonight. So I took the telescope back out and used my iphone to capture a couple shots. Not bad for a camera phone! It's a little overexposed, and you can't see the bands on Jupiter, but you can clearly make out all four moons.