RVs, Mortars And Moonshots

I've decided that the best way to do star photography is from an RV. Think about it. You go to some dark, remote location, set up your tripod, put on your cheaters so your old eyes can read the camera settings and then take some shots while you freeze to death because you forgot to bring a jacket. When you're done, you have no idea whether the pictures are any good because you can't see them on the camera's tiny screen.

No, that's no way to do it. If you had an RV, you'd saunter inside, put the memory card in your laptop, fire up Photoshop and see if you got what you wanted. Using your phone as a hotspot, you'd check the Internet to see when the Milky Way would be visible because you forgot that, too.

Also, if you had an RV, driving 3 hours to get to a darkness class 2, average dark sky, spot wouldn't be a big deal. You could pull over in a parking lot, get some shuteye and then roll home the next morning after stopping at a diner for waffles, sausages and coffee.

Yeah, that's the way I'd do it. If I had an RV. Which I don't. Instead, I'm going to take some experimental pictures of the moon from home tonight, where it's darkness class 6, bright suburban. At least it ought to help me figure out why my Nikon Artillery Piece was throwing an error when we were up at Mount Laguna.

I'm guessing my photography won't look nearly as good as this.

Today's Riot Wrapup

As for mortars, dig this piece on the continuing insurrection in Portland.

Protesters lit fires and looted and damaged businesses in North Portland early Friday morning, Portland Police Bureau said...

At around 10 p.m., police said several hundred people had gathered outside the precinct. The demonstrators arrived with supplies and began erecting a fence that stretched from the south side of the North Precinct to the north side of the Boys and Girls Club. While building the fence, police said the demonstrators blocked northbound traffic on Northeast Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard.

While this was happening, police said demonstrators began throwing items at officers, including glass bottles.

By 11 p.m., police said the demonstrators were moving dumpsters and other barriers around the precinct. Some began ramming dumpsters into garage doors on the west side of the North Precinct to try and get inside the building, police said. When they couldn't get the garage doors open, police said the demonstrators began barricading exit doors so officers and people in custody inside the building could not get out.

At 12 a.m., police said a demonstrator in the crowd began yelling over a bullhorn that they were "going to burn the building down." ...

Police said someone launched a mortar onto the roof of the North Precinct building at 1:40 a.m. and at that point, officers began using crowd control munitions.

At around 2:15 a.m., demonstrators had set the north side of the North Precinct on fire.

Emphasis mine.

You know, nothing says social justice quite like trying to murder the police by locking them in a building and setting it on fire. Well, I mean, mortar rounds say that, too, but you knew that.

Would the last Portland Police officer to leave the city turn out the lights in whatever is left of the Precinct building?