Woke up late last night needing a drink. I looked out the kitchen window while drinking and noticed the moon and Jupiter (though I couldn’t tell if it was Jupiter or Mars at the time). They were close enough together to get in a single shot and I was waiting for an excuse to use my new Sigma 120mm – 400mm lens. So out came the camera and tripod. A close look at the original sized Jupiter pictures and you can almost make out a couple of the larger bands. The moon shots are the better of the two, of course.

Some more pictures in my Astronomy Flickr Set.

Vice President Biden visited Kosovo this week. I was lucky enough to be in a position to be at the airport when Air Force Two landed and Vice President Biden arrived. His departure from the airport was by UH-60 Blackhawk helicopter to where he made a speech at the Kosovo Assembly. I am still working on the set (linked below), but some pictures are up and I think this is the best of the set.

More pictures at my Vice President Biden Visits Pristina Kosovo Flickr Set.

On the 17th, Kosovo celebrated it’s first year of independence. These are the fireworks pictures from Pristina. Weather kept me at home, but many others were out on the street in the snow and cold.

As always, more in the Kosovo 2009 Independence Day Flickr Set.

As usual, Pristina celebrated the coming of the New Year not with one massive display of fireworks, like we would in the U.S., but instead with many displays all across the town. The combined display tends to be quite impressive, but also nearly impossible to capture on camera. I had some extra difficulty this year in that the street light across the street from my balcony was on and bright as could be. Most of the pictures have a lens flare across them because of this.

More fireworks photos in the Pristina Kosovo 2009 New Year Fireworks flickr set.

New Year celebrations in Pristina were not what I expected. Kosovars set-off fireworks for many occasions. I frequently hear and see them at the end of local football (that’d be Soccer for the US) games. Given this, I was expecting some coordinated show over some major buildings. There was no such thing. Instead, it seemed everyone around was using whatever fireworks they had on hand, from large professional sized ones to smaller “normal” ones. The entire city skyline was covered in individuals’ fireworks.

More pictures in the New Year 2008 Fireworks in Pristina Flickr Set.