“A good snapshot keeps a moment from running away.” ― Eudora Welty
Copyright ©2025 Deborah M. Zajac. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.
PLEASE DO NOT USE MY IMAGES WITHOUT EXPRESSED WRITTEN PERMISSION.
I rarely photograph daytime Moons, but this one was almost true south and outside my window so had to go out and photograph it.
November 30, 2025. A Waxing Gibbous (74.8%) Moon.
more to come…
Copyright ©2025 Deborah M. Zajac. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.
PLEASE DO NOT USE MY IMAGES WITHOUT EXPRESSED WRITTEN PERMISSION.
I went out with a friend to try to see if I could find and photograph C/2025 A6 Comet (Lemmon) on October 19th. I didn’t go too far from home just up into the Pinenut Mountains a little bit. l took my 50mm lens so I would be able to see a wide space of the sky and hopefully see it. I never saw it with my eyes or binoculars, but when I got home and uploaded my images I was happy to see my camera had seen it. It’s the tiny green dot upper center of the image.
It’s tiny at 50mm but, I cropped this in a bit for a better look.
The next night I went back to the same spot with my old 80-200mm lens but, I wasn’t able to see it at all. I believe it was too low and behind the hills opposite.
So last night a friend and I went north to a spot I know that had more open sky. It took us a while to find it but, we did. My old lens had a bit of trouble focusing on my newish bigger sensor D810 but, once I uploaded my images I found I had several decent shots of the comet with a hint of its tail too.
It’s always exciting to see a comet and this one is pretty cool. It was 55 million miles from Earth last night and it won’t be back again until the year 3175! Do you think my images will survive for my future family members to see my images made with probably antiquated photography methods and gear? Somewhere between 33 and 46 generations will pass before C/2025 A6 (Lemmon) comes our way again. It boggles my mind.
Did you see it?
more to come…
Copyright ©2025 Deborah M. Zajac. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.
PLEASE DO NOT USE MY IMAGES WITHOUT EXPRESSED WRITTEN PERMISSION.
This week I’ll share some photos I made of the ship we sailed to Alaska on. She’s the largest Royal Caribbean ship we’ve sailed on.
She was built in 2014 and sails under the flag of Bahamas. At the time of her delivery she was the third largest cruise in the world by gross tonnage (168,666 GT). She’s 1,141 feet long (347.7 meters) and 236ft 3inches tall, (72 meters). Her top speed is 22.0 knots and will hold 4,180 passengers (double occupancy), and a maximum of 4,905 passengers, with a crew of 1,500.
On sea days we felt the 4,900+ people on board especially on the days the pool deck was closed due to heavy winds, and rain.
She’s a beautiful ship that we enjoyed a lot. We came off her ready for another cruise.
Have a lovely week everyone!
more to come…
Copyright ©2025 Deborah M. Zajac. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.
PLEASE DO NOT USE MY IMAGES WITHOUT EXPRESSED WRITTEN PERMISSION.
Some of you may recall that He-Man and I took a Cruise to Alaska on board the Quantum of the Seas, a Royal Caribbean Ship earlier this month. I thought I’d start sharing our trip with photos of our stateroom .
We were sailing out of the Port of Seattle so we flew up a day before our cruise departed. We stayed in the north end of town in a Comfort Inn & Suites. The room and hotel were nice, the neighborhood…a little sketchy, but we felt safe enough to walk to the nearby stores and a restaurant for dinner. We just pulled our city street awareness spidy senses out of the archives and stayed alert while walking.
This was the view from our room of downtown Seattle, and Mt. Rainier way in the distance on the left just as the city lights were coming on for the evening.
That parking lot is car dealer spare lot we think.
We took an Uber to the port after checking out of the hotel. Getting through security and checking in with Royal Caribbean was a breeze. Our stateroom wasn’t quite ready so we headed up to the Windjammer Cafe for lunch. I haven’t got any photos of that sorry!
Then we headed to Deck 12 mid-ship to our stateroom hide-away for our departure. We had a stateroom with a balcony on the port side of the ship. The images in the gallery are our main stateroom and view of the balcony, one closet, we had two closets, the bathroom, the big bed…bigger than our Queen at home and there was storage in a cupboard above the bed, the vanity I used for applying my makeup, and over the course of the cruise our Stateroom Attendant left us 4 towel animals. My favorites were the bear, and elephant.
Views from our stateroom balcony-the busy port where people were being dropped off to get onboard, and the port crew loading the luggage, food, and all the things we’d need for the week, and the Seattle Skyline from our balcony on Deck 12 shortly after we left the port.
We’re off! North to Alaska, the rush is on!
This is the movie that made me want to go to Alaska when I was girl. I had this song in my head off and on the whole trip. 😊
more to come…
Copyright ©2025 Deborah M. Zajac. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.
PLEASE DO NOT USE MY IMAGES WITHOUT EXPRESSED WRITTEN PERMISSION.
While birding last week I saw a Cassin’s Finch chick being fed by its parent and made several images of it. Unfortunately, they were facing me with the sun to their backs and in my face. So, the image isn’t great but, what is… is what I discovered once I uploaded my images.
Off to the right of the birds is a satellite flare. I think it’s a Starlink flare/glint which would be the first time I’ve photographed one of those.
Regarding this next image- A friend had been sharing his images of the Moon several days ago with me so, the other evening when I saw the Moon shining out my living room window I was inspired to get up and photograph it.
Here’s the moon at 82.7% percent full. A waxing Gibbous Moon from July 6th.
The bottom crater is Tycho. I really like its crusty textured bits. I know the other large crater off on the left below the Sea of Showers is the Copernicus Crater. I wish I didn’t need a poster to help me every single time with the other sea and crater names, but I do.
July’s Full Moon is called the Buck Moon. It also has several other names like Thunder Moon, and Hay Moon.
The Full Moon this month is July 10th.
Fun Facts:
This full moon coincides with a Major Lunar Standstill in 2025, making the moon appear especially low in the sky after sunset due to its orbital path and the recent summer solstice.
Fun facts gleaned from Space.com
Nikon D850| Nikkor 500mm PF-e| Processed with Photoshop CC
more to come…
Copyright ©2025 Deborah M. Zajac. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.
PLEASE DO NOT USE MY IMAGES WITHOUT EXPRESSED WRITTEN PERMISSION.
Thank you all for the support, and kindness you’ve given me these last few weeks. I appreciate you and your comments so much. 🥰
I wish you all a wonderful Independence Day Week-end!
Purple Loosestife wildflowers
more to come…
Copyright ©2025 Deborah M. Zajac. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.
PLEASE DO NOT USE MY IMAGES WITHOUT EXPRESSED WRITTEN PERMISSION.
This bicycle was popular between 1874-1886.
They’re fun to see ridden but, they were fast, and dangerous. With the exception of the railways nothing was faster on the roads.
They were dangerous because the risk of falling was great. Heading over the handlebars was problematic. So makers tried making the handlebars so riders knees could clear them. They had design changes that included reversing the large and small wheels but, that proved dangerous as well by being thrown off the bike backwards when going uphill.
It got its name from the size of its wheels-the front was large like the British penny, the smaller back wheel was the farthing.
The Penny-farthing fell out of favor when the safety bicycle was invented in the 1890’s.
I saw this bicycle and a few other odd ones in Sonoma, CA back in 2011.
more to come…
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