For the #BirdOfTheDay theme #PerfectPoise here's a Maui 'alauohio viewed through the limbs of old-growth 'ohia #birds 🦉🌿📷

Yep, good thing I got that new filter (sigh)

For the #BirdOfTheDay theme #AmongTheRipples here's an Ae'o making some of her own. :) #birds 🦉🌿📷

For the #BirdOfTheDay theme #rocky (any bird standing on a rock) I've got a Black-crowned night heron standing down some rivals during mating season. This is HIS pool. :) #birds 📷🌿🦉

New imaging train just dropped. : ) Got a nice new filter drawer and a 2" dual band 3nm filter for narrowband. Now it's going to rain for two weeks lol 🔭

Large Pointy Boi on my backyard fence! (Conehead katydid) #Invertebrates

Portrait of a kitty exhausted by play #Catsky #CatsOfBluesky

For the #BirdOfTheDay theme #Lifer , I have to go to my experience of the decade, seeing the endangered ʻakiapōlāʻau in the Hakalau Forest Reserve in 2024. There are fewer than 1500 individuals left. <3 #birds 🦉🌿📷

I hear today's #BirdOfTheDay theme is #orange? Hopefully vermillion is close enough LOL. Here's a bit of a unique image, I caught an I'iwi in some interesting light while perched on a snag in Haleakala National Park #birds 📷🌿🦉

For today's #BirdOfTheDay theme, #Cutie here's a matched pair of very young Ae'o just learning their way around Kealia Pond NWR. Staying close to the security rock LOL (turns out they needed it, a bit later a Black-crowned NH made a circle and they did hide behind that rock) #birds 🦉🌿📷

For the #BirdOfTheDay theme #EbonyAndIvory (birds with black and white plumage) here's a unique angle on an Ae'o...this individual has one of the more prominent white patches over the eye I've seen, might be from the Molokai population. Such beautiful birds... #birds 📷🌿🦉

So our wonderful and amazing friend @drivebymuses.bsky.social just gifted us this truly incredible haiku collection. I'd love it even if I didn't like haiku, it's gorgeous. : )

For today’s #BirdOfTheDay theme, #QuietReflection (any bird paused in thought), here's a lovely Maui 'alauahio thinking honeycreeper thoughts in an 'ohia tree in Haleakala National Park. #birds 🦉🌿📷

For today's #BirdOfTheDay Theme #RedBeakFeetEyes, any bird with a red beak, feet or eyes, we get up close and personal with an ʻAlae keʻokeʻo (Hawaiian coot) #birds 📷🌿🦉

For the #BirdOfTheDay theme #LivingLandscapes where the environment is as important as the bird, my rotund I'iwi friend is tired of everyone laughing and so is voicing displeasure from the 'ohia tree habitat that is home. :) #birds 🦉🌿📷

Today's #BirdOfTheDay theme is #LifelnTheBalance — Celebrating birds captured in precarious or unexpected positions. So of course we have an upside-down I'iwi...anything for mamane nectar! #birds 🌿🦉

Cormorant posting! Here's one I got on vacation in Stratford, CT 🦉🌿📷

Here's the Goofball Round I'iwi looking even more Goofy and Round. :) (Just kidding, little one, you're beautiful!) #birds #borbs 📷🌿🦉

Found it for ya (Internet Archive). Frodo, if you can't even do this in your living room, Mt Doom may be a stretch. :)

🦀see a crab, post a crab 🦀 A photo of a crab similar to the crab art but huge (Second-largest hermit crab in the world, in fact. Anniculus maximus, Molokini HI) Gotta love hermits that live in Triton's Trumpet shells. :)

So as I mentioned, went on a misty, windblown sun-shower hike in the cloud forest yesterday, and there found the Roundest I'iwi. More pics of this one coming but had to get this out there. :) #birds #borbs 🦉🌿📷

Obligatory Spiderman panel:

OK, this is what RAW data looks like, a single 3 min subframe before any debayering or processing. I circled the cosmic ray strike for you. :)

Here's the annotated version of the above, showing LOTS of galaxies, the closest of which is M100 at about 53 million light years. 🔭

OK, here's M100 and several other neighbors at the Coma Berenices end of the Virgo galaxy cluster. You can see the two satellite galaxies, the upper of which has drawn out a faint trail of stars, gas and dust from the larger spiral. #Astronomy #Astrophotography 🔭

And we do indeed have galaxies! M100 and friends, single 3 min subframe. : ) 🔭

Hey, looking like third time is the charm , it's on this evening! Going galaxy hunting once I get the focus on the new guide cam set and calibrate. Sundown in 20 min! #astrophotography 🔭

For today's #BirdOfTheDay theme, #Black here's a serene pair of ʻalae keʻokeʻo in monochrome. #birds 📷🌿🦉

For the #BirdOfTheDay theme #LongLegs , of course you get an Ae'o! This one in a rare moment standing on land and backlit so you can see those legs to best advantage LOL. #birds 🦉🌿📷

So I did leave, and that was a good call. Current view at summit via our trailer cam: Wet fog.