Sundown

Shakey Air returned to the skies last night. I hadn’t looked at my drone for over a month and it was sulking on top of the refrigerator, where all drones live in our house. I had been busy working on a new project, one that’s taking up just about all of my time of late. I am not sure how I came upon this idea, but it is one of those things that falls in line with my interest in photography. I remembered long ago, getting a telescope from my brother-in-law in trade for some other trinket, I guess, and that telescope brought to mind that I could lift my eyes to the heavens and view what God has created and is still mystifying scientists and astronomers to this day.

I retrieved my telescope from its resting place, brushed the dust off of it and began to contemplate what it would take to point it at the sky with a camera attached. One thing led to another, and next thing you know I’ve got electronic parts spread all over my desk with the hopes of automating the tracking of the telescope as it pans across the sky.

I have been looking around to see how to accomplish this little task on the internet, and what I have found has surprised me. The sources of information for my project pretty much dried up around 2017. These days, the guys that have done this little task, post a picture of the creation, exclaim its wonders and how cool they are for building it, and that’s it. 2018 seems to be a watershed for this change in people and the internet.

So, the drone got ignored, and if we are being frank here, Minnesota sunrises and sunsets have not quite lived up to what I witnessed in Kansas. I took a break from my puttering around with micro electronics and looked at the cloud forecast for the coming evening. It looked sparse, but I was tired of the whining that was coming from the top of the Fridge, and waited for sundown. I also stuck my Pi camera out the window to the East and told it to record the sundown. Flying the drone was easy, like it should be. I told it to lift off and then brought the drone straight up to about 200 feet and started taking images and video. What I saw was not great, but you work with what you have. The fact that with ALS, I can still fly a drone and take images of God’s creation, the glory goes to the Lord. As should everything that we do. “Give unto the LORD the glory due to His name; Worship the LORD in the beauty of holiness” (Psalm 29:2)

What we witness in the world around us and the sky above and including us, was made for God’s glory. Isaiah 43:7 “everyone who is called by my name, whom I created for my glory, whom I formed and made.” Be aware of this as you see a beautiful sunrise or something you see on the internet, like what I am offering here. Give He who created you, the glory due to Him.

There were clouds and even a little color…


Here is a panorama, the West is on the left for those of you directionally impaired types, the East is on the right.

This is what my Pi camera saw. Close, but not quite a good sunset.

Here the drone is landing and being a very well behaved flying machine.

Since the Pi camera spent the night outside, I let it know it should do the sunrise, and it did.

This was taken the night of July 27th to the morning of the 28th. Stars marching across the sky. More like little pin pricks of white on a black background. We tried and we failed and will do better next time.

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Rainbows & Sunsets

As I mentioned in a previous post, I have a Raspberry Pi, which is a very small computer that can do many things. I have used them for sensing temperature, tuning on lights when you walk into a room, determining distances of objects, making a robot, and running my HAM Radio. I keep one outside our upstairs East window when it’s not raining. It will do as it is programmed to do, you set it and forget it. And I did. Went to sleep and in the morning, I remembered that I had left it outside last night and downloaded the images it had saved. In the first 40 frames, a rainbow, with a hint of showing a double rainbow. The whole thing in real life lasted for about 30 to 45 seconds. Neat!

The Pi Camera also caught a thunderhead in garish red before the sun went down. Also very neat.

I will leave you with Genesis 9:12-17. God’s Covenant of the Rainbow.
12 God said, “This is the sign of the covenant which I am making between Me and you and every living creature that is with you, for all future generations; 13 I have set My rainbow in the cloud, and it shall serve as a sign of a covenant between Me and the earth. 14 It shall come about, when I make a cloud appear over the earth, that the rainbow will be seen in the cloud, 15 and I will remember My covenant, which is between Me and you and every living creature of all flesh; and never again shall the water become a flood to destroy all flesh. 16 When the rainbow is in the cloud, then I will look at it, to remember the everlasting covenant between God and every living creature of all flesh that is on the earth.” 17 And God said to Noah, “This is the sign of the covenant which I have established between Me and all flesh that is on the earth.”

I recommend you picking up your bible and paging through it, after seeing a rainbow, a beautiful sunset, or whatever has caught your attention and give glory unto God Who made heaven and earth, The sea and all that is in them; Who keeps faith forever; Psalms 146:6

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Clouds

I have always been interested in atmospheric phenomena, which is a fancy way of saying I like watching clouds. Living in Kansas, I would have to say was the best cloud watching to be had.

This was looking west from our place in May of 2015. The spring in Kansas is burning season and the plume of smoke took on the colors of the sky.

Coming back to Minnesota, I was pleasantly surprised with offerings here.
A bit understated, but nice colors. 

I have a Raspberry Pi Zero, which is the size of my thumb. It is a micro-computer that can do many things, but mine has a camera. I set it in my East upstairs window and let it take pictures. The image above was from that Pi. It has also taken bird images.

I made a case for my Pi Zero from my 3D printer, stuck it on a tripod near the feeder, added a battery and let it do its thing. This image is of a young Oriole female and a female Downy that had developed a sweet tooth/beak.

These days, I have set my Pi to run a timelapse for a couple of hours and I take those hundreds of images and compile them in a video editor, Shotcut, and it makes a video out of them.

With a Drone, I grabbed this sunset.

The glory of the Lord is shown in each one of these images. I am exceedingly thankful for the gifts of my mind and the ease in which I have learned and any other thing that He has directed me to. I was a history lover and He blessed all of us with a book, written through His hand, of the history of His chosen people and the inclusion of us Gentiles. Not necessarily a history book, but a user’s manual, for all of us.

Psalms 78:23 Yet He commanded the clouds above And opened the doors of heaven;

Proverbs 25:14 Like clouds and wind without rain Is a man who boasts of his gifts falsely. 

My only boast is Christ. Look at the sky and the glory He has made, and let He who created you, open the doors of heaven unto you. Repent, and follow the Risen Christ.

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Shakey Air

Once upon a time, I was content with grabbing my camera and snapping a photo of the birds that came to our feeder. Then, because we live in a fallen world, the Grackles and Starlings showed up and chased all the photogenic birds away. Fine, I thought, we will leave up the nectar feeders and watch the Orioles and Hummingbirds and be content with that. However, the ants showed up in such great numbers, they irritated the Orioles so much that they found less ant plagued feeders in the neighborhood and rarely come now. And I brooded…

I recalled living in a Southern land and having mastery over the skies.

I also recalled getting bit by tiny voracious bugs known as chiggers, as I stood in the grass, piloting my flying machine. I amended my memories of that time, and have relabeled them as bittersweet rather than halcion like.

Not everything is what it once was. While I could stride the land and do many wonderful things back then, I was not at peace, even with all I could do. Little did I know that the good Lord had plans for me, and through the mystery of undeserved grace, (Romans 5:15-17) allowed me to finish remodeling our house and have it be sold the first day on the market, for cash and more than we were asking, and just like that, we ended up back in Minnesota, where we had started, some 19 years ago. Looking back and knowing what I know now, it can only be providence as the way home was smoothed before us.

And then the Lord grabbed me by the scruff of the neck and made it very clear, I was now His. As I said, the mystery of undeserved grace. The last 5 years here have been one of reduction and addition. He took from me the skills of my body, I found out I had ALS about 6 months after we arrived home. He left me the knowledge I had acquired and kept my mind sharp and questing. He added to me a living heart and one that loved His word. I was allowed to learn about charismatic ministries and found them to be a false gospel and a false hope. Our only hope is Christ. (John 4:13-14) He led me to teach bible study and to disciple believers hungry for the word. As of last month, He allowed me to preach in our church when our pastor was on vacation. All of it a mystery to me as to why He pulled me from Hell’s grasp and blessed me with life.

Back to the brooding. I was not displeased with life and how it had turned out. The peace (Romans 5:1) granted to me, completely undeserved, but available to all believers, was a blessing beyond all understanding. Even though I have very little feeling in my feet or hands, and am pretty much housebound, I do not feel disabled. People are taken aback at this, expecting a tale of woe. I am at peace and serving the Lord, what’s to woe about?

I had a thought that I could fly a bit as quite a few people have mentioned to me that they would like to fly a drone too, so maybe this could stir up a conversation that includes the Lord. Since I don’t get out much, I have been amazed as people have been directed to me who need to hear about Jesus or maybe their faith needs a bit of stirring up. I don’t know how it works, but God’s got the details all worked out.

My fingers are a fair bit less responsive than the last time I was flying a drone, but somebody built an app (Litchi) to automate most of what you have to do with flying a drone and taking pictures. And since I have Photoshop, I can do a series of photos and let Photoshop stitch them together. That’s what we have here, from my first flight. Since Photoshop uses an algorithm that dictates how it should stitch photos together, it could care less if you have an odd perspective or shaky fingers or any of that stuff. Thankfully, it also lets you warp images just fine, hence the image you see here is a wee bit bent in areas. Ignore reality and run with it.

You should be able to enlarge the image to see all the details in their warped glory, at least I can on my Mac, I just spread my fingers apart on the touchpad. Your mileage may vary on whatever platform you use.

“There is nothing wrong with your Computer. Do not attempt to adjust the picture. We are now controlling the transmission. We control the horizontal and the vertical.”

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