Long post, but this one is important to me so I hope you stick it out!
In January I reached out to Artemis II Commander @astro_reid with a simple ask- was he open to capturing the moon like I do for my colorful moon photos during the flyby?
He humbly agreed, and we worked out a plan to incorporate into the photos captured as the crew approached the moon. The premise was simple- just capture enough photos in a burst to allow for image stacking to improve image fidelity, potentially to reveal color no human has ever captured.
What he brought back was nothing short of magnificent. When I initially stacked the raw photos, it exceeded my expectations by far. The color came right out of the seemingly gray images, and showed details I've never seen before. It's possible nobody has. The lack of atmosphere meant a lot of color normally absorbed and scattered was present, so even the "near side" features looked exotic and unfamiliar.
This view of the moon from an alien perspective made the usually-familiar lunar surface fresh and exciting, and the color we were able to resolve gave us valuable insight to the complex geological history of it's battered surface.
Then, I faced a bit of a moral dilemma.
I wanted people to be able to own these images in print- but I wouldn't feel right to profit off of them. As an active NASA astronaut, Reid certainly can't. He took these photos as part of a taxpayer-funded mission. If I couldn't split profits with him I didn't see a way to do this ethically, so I decided to release the images initially with no print offering, despite many requests!
Then, it clicked. After doing some research- I decided that I should do a print sale where the profits go 100% to charity. That way I can make prints available, do some good in the world, and it doesn't feel like an ethical conflict.
I'm pleased to share my first EVER entirely-for-charity print release.
At the end of this sale all proceeds with be donated to UT MD Anderson Cancer Center. It feels fitting. I will follow up in a future post with a receipt from the donation, so you know how much we were able to donate. When I released this to my email subscribers only, we were already able to raise around $15k. Amazing!
The limited edition fine art print is now publicly available, you can grab one of them at the link in my bio (also linked further in the thread) for a short time.
Thank you for helping me do something good with my platform. Seriously... it feels amazing.
@Dr_mz13 I’m surprised more people aren’t dying. I can’t believe the amount of ads on social media platforms telling people that they’re diabetes (insert disease here) are from parasites. Makes me want to scream 😱
Millions of acres of Latin American forest have been cleared for coffee plantations, and some of the birds at your feeder are paying the price.
Most of the warblers, orioles, tanagers, and thrushes you enjoy each summer spend the winter in Latin America's coffee country. Traditional coffee grows beneath a canopy of native trees, and those shade farms can support bird communities.
But much of the industry shifted toward high-yield "sun coffee," which often means clearing trees and growing coffee in the open. The result is dramatically poorer habitat for migratory birds.
So read the bag. The Smithsonian's "Bird Friendly" seal is the gold standard, and "shade-grown" coffee is usually a better choice than conventional sun coffee.
If you want birds at your feeder all summer, they need a forest when winter comes.
On June 21, the summer solstice will deliver the longest day of the year in the Northern Hemisphere. Yet, contrary to what many people expect, this date will not feature the year’s earliest sunrise or latest sunset.
This surprising astronomical quirk stems from Earth’s 23.5-degree axial tilt combined with its slightly elliptical orbit around the Sun. These factors cause the Sun’s apparent path to drift slightly out of alignment with our standardized 24-hour clock time. As a result, across much of the United States, the earliest sunrise actually occurs several days before the solstice, while the latest sunset often happens days, or even weeks, after it.
Daylight Saving Time further accentuates this effect by shifting an extra hour of daylight into the evening, pushing sunsets past 9 p.m. in many northern cities.
While June 21 still marks the maximum total daylight hours, the offset between solar events and clock time serves as a beautiful annual reminder of our planet’s intricate cosmic dance. Our clocks are a convenient human invention, but they remain only an approximation of the universe’s more complex rhythms.
@Dr_mz13 That is. But it’s also a lot of the diseases as well. Most tested were men for years and years. Their results didn’t show up in women (ie heart attacks) so yes, we get brushed off and labeled (anxiety, hypochondria, mental health issues, attention seeking) to this day
@Dr_mz13 I’ve been changing mine every day in this heat. Normal temps it’s 3 days except the front one that gets every day or every other day bc it’s in the direct sunlight most of the time
@imfopinion We always had to strip them. And if we didn’t get a good enough switch, got twice the licks with the new one. I hadn’t thought about that in years. Not many ash trees left after the ash borer infestation.
This was known at my house when I was a child, as a switch tree. When you were to be punished, you would take one of those branches and strip the leaves. Bring it to your mum and get the switch. 😬😬
It's official. Wednesday's storm complex that marched across Michigan has been classified a derecho by the Storm Prediction Center. A derecho is a powerful wind storm that travels over 250 miles in length, produces 58mph winds or greater along it's path, along with producing several 75mph+ wind gusts. This derecho knocked power out to 150,000 Michigan customers and caused scattered to widespread damage.
We typically average 1 derecho every 1-2 years. We believe our last official derecho prior to Wednesday occurred in 2020, but someone can fact check us on that stat.
@bellewitch66 I think it’s a new term. I watch In the eye of the storm on the Discovery Channel, which is where I first heard that term. It shows home footage of storms with interviews of the people who survived them. Rn it’s showing storm chasers stories. Very good series.
@Dr_mz13 I’ve been seeing them all day today. This is through the screen. Make it bigger and you can see they keep sticking out their tongue. I was just watching thru my camera lens (cuz I can’t see) and started recording. I’ve not seen that before.
Just got buzzed by a male rubythroated hummingbird and just saw the little female at the feeder. I just hadn’t been out here long enough. I’m sitting too close to the fountain they like to drink out of. 🎉🎉