A followup to yesterday’s wobbly and cloudy space station trail – this one is the one I actually wanted to do and it turned out quite well. I cut down from 128 to 80 seconds, which was actually perfect since the exposure ended just as the ISS was beginning to fade out and vanish behind the tree. There’s still some sensor glow in the top left, but otherwise it’s still not bad for a camera that was built for a maximum of 15 seconds exposure!

A late night post – my first try catching the International Space Station with the S5. Not perfect by a long shot, just a try… problem was, my tripod seems to wobble and pushing the camera to a 128 second exposure with CHDK is not really advisable because it causes some blue sensor noise in the top left. But the image is cleaner than the S2 with its maximum of 64 seconds ever was. I’m still experimenting, there’s another pass in an hour which I’ll also try to get if the weather holds up.

The not-so-little (okay, 1cm long perhaps) jumping spider hamming it up on the balcony table :-).

I did this corner once before with bare trees, but here’s a green spring version :-).

The saga continues… here’s a closeup of the nest, carefully taken from the ground. It’s getting crowded in there! With the binoculars, I spotted three little heads popping up earlier – I haven’t been able to catch them with the camera yet, but if you look closely you can definitively see the trio cuddling in the nest here.

A wall of… pink :-).

Something different and unusual for #MacroMonday with the sub-theme Books over on Google+.

Another photo of yesterday’s mystery bird, identified as a Bachstelze / White Wagtail / Motacilla alba.
I actually saw two of these foraging around the lawn today, but they left shortly afterwards.

Only one beak today, but clearly visible and with a bonus daddy bird taking off in the upper left! I’ve only been able to see two beaks at the same time, so I’m not sure how many are really in there. This is a 1024×682 100% crop from an 8 megapixel image, the only way to get close. I’m shooting this from a second floor window from a distance of about 15 meters, the only spot from where I can look directly into the nest without getting close from the ground – that’s why it’s looking slightly blurry and digital.

The Daisy & Buttercup Edition :-).