Day 15: Tonight We Steal

2026-02-21

Hello! I'm still thinking about what I won't do with this blog. And especially all the noise out there on how to write "better" blogs. Makes me wonder about how successful the authors of those advice columns really are — it's like the gold rush: instead of mining for gold yourself, be the merchant and sell equipment (sorry, I'm a history nerd). People just love enticing other people to be better, like them.

Almost makes me proud of sticking to an old camera I got from eBay and being just a normal human. Taking photos is the most fun I have.

To get this photo, I set my camera up on a tripod with the furthest zoom I could go. If I tried to do it without a tripod, the shaking of my hands would have blurred the image. If I remember correctly, that night was partially cloudy, so I waited for the right time where the clouds weren't obstructing the light from the moon.

Every few nights, I wonder if the astronauts are passing by in the ISS, staring down at the Earth.

Recently, astronauts have boarded the International Space Station with smartphones. Makes me realize how little I know about space programs, because my immediate thought was: "I wonder how they keep their phone charged for the time they're up there".

Finally, a better photo of the day project: the Astronomy Picture of the Day. It's been going strong since 1995(!) and deserves your attention, at least for a while. (Thanks to scientist Keighley E. Rockcliffe for sending me a link to the Astronomy Picture of the Day Discord server — I'm surprised that a recent government shutdown would have also broken the APOD Discord bot!)

Cheers,
David