Depending on where the scapeweather.com shots were taken, they may've had some very similar. But no, these particular shots have not been posted there.

The aurora was out bright on Saturday night in Fairbanks. These are a couple I snagged. The vertical streak in the 3 is a rocket going up from Poker Flats, the rocket range operated by the University of Alaska at Fairbanks. They send rockets up to study the aurora, and are the only university campus in the US to operate a launch facility.

Took this while walking the trails near my home. I used the effects feature from iPhoto to turn it B&W.

The framing is really cool, especially as a sequence. You may've done better with a faster shutter. This may've been a good place to use shutter priority mode, with automatic ISO and aperture. Something to play with next time!

My dog after sticking her face into the snow to sniff something.

This was an accidental sunburst through the trees at my home. I do not have a filter on my camera. 1/15s, F/32, 70mm, ISO100

a branch holding the winter so far (and it's only January 18!)

This is my puppy, sitting in my driveway. The shots are the same, but one is cropped. F/5.6, 1/200s, ISO 100, 135mm.

A juvenile bald eagle, probably. Here are a couple shots I grabbed a couple years ago on the Yukon River of a juvenile bald eagle. These are the same bird, just a second or two apart.

I do not live in California anymore. I am currently in Fairbanks, AK. So yeah, a bit snowier here.

I took this picture tonight. I'm playing with using the nearly full moon as a light source for a project this winter. My ultimate goal is something that can be blown up to poster size, so I know I'll want to keep my ISO low. For this shot, was on my Canon 7D, 28-135mm (30mm), f/3.5, ISO 250, 30 second exposure. The moon is in a clearing sky to the left of the frame. Some overcast in the background blocks the stars pretty well, which may be just as well with a long exposure like this.

Thoughts? Suggestions?

This guy was very friendly, and posed for several pictures. Light was low, as it was overcast and around 4pm in the Fairbanks, AK area. He was getting ready to leave us (which is why his tail feathers are blurry). Shot on Canon 7D with 28-135mm IS USM lens, 1/100 sec, f/5.6, 122mm (zoomed), ISO 100

How good is the Bower brand of lenses? I am specifically thinking of something like the 500mm f/8 manual focus telephoto lens or the somewhat more expensive 650-1300mm f/8-16 manual focus lens. I am thinking of these for daylight wildlife shooting.

Bereft of electronics of any kind as they are, I know that these lenses will be cheaper than comparable lenses, but is the glass still of good quality?

I was shooting some autumn leaves on the forest floor late one afternoon and my dog got in the way. Seeing as how digital shots are so cheap to take, I thought I'd see if she would stand still for the 4-second exposure I had set up. F/22 and ISO 3200, Canon 7D with Canon 28-135mm zoom at 65mm.

Naturally, the dog didn't stick around the full 4 seconds. She started wondering off about half way through the shot. None of her in-frame wondering was caught at all, but you can just barely make out a ghostly outline of her in the middle of the frame, just to the left of center. Her back legs are almost clear, and her front legs disappear down into the wood pile.

ghost dog

these are some pictures i took last night. The trees are illuminated with the (almost) full moon. The camera is a Canon 7D with a 28mm-135mm zoom at 28mm, f/3.5, with exposure around a minute, and ISO 400. In the first two pictures, I was focusing at infinity, while the last I tried to get a focus on the trees themselves.