Christmas With The EMBERS 2007

Christmas With The Embers is a dazzling Vegas-style musical stage show featuring North Carolina's Musical Ambassadors, The Embers of Raleigh.

The Embers Christmas Show is guaranteed to give you many warm holiday memories you and your family will cherish. Plan to include it in your entertainment plans this year.



Look for Christmas With The Embers in November and December of 2007 in many cities along the east coast, the Carolinas and Virginia.

In the Pinehurst/Southern Pines area of North Carolina you can see Christmas With The Embers on Saturday, December 22, at the Robert E. Lee Auditorium at Pinecrest High School on US 15-501 in Southern Pines, NC.

DON'T MISS IT!

-- Dalton Hammond

Moon: Archimedes and Apennines

The seeing was still mushy around my house but here's a what-the-heck view of our friendly Moon taken a few minutes ago. That's Archimedes, the big crater at the left. Montes Apenninus mountain range arcs upward from bottom left.

This was a stack of the best 353 of 1830 images taken with the $79 Philips Toucam Pro webcam working at prime focus F/10 with the Celestron 8" Schmitt-Cassegrain reflector telescope from the Dalton Hammond observation deck.



-- Dalton Hammond

STS-117 and ISS

Space Shuttle Atlantis flies in formation with the International Space Station following the successful STS-117 ISS servicing mission.

This 8-second photo was taken at 10:56 PM on June 20, 2007 looking over the Pinehurst, NC Harness Track stables.

©2007, Dalton Hammond

The Roadrunner

During my visit to the Saguaro National Park several years ago I saw almost every desert creature I've ever heard of. As I was driving along the parkway a roadrunner started running alongside the car, matching my speed exactly and looking up at me now and then, even smiling at me, it seemed. This bird was no more than six feet away and as we went down the road together I was struck by how big it was and how exactly like the cartoon creature it was, cheerfully chugging along at 15 mph.

I decided to try to get a picture but as I reached for my camera the bird looked me directly in the eye one more time, flashed me a mischievous smile then shifted into gear and passed me on foot, easily running ahead of the 15 mph car then cutting across my path and into the sage on the night-hand shoulder. In my mind's ear I heard him go "Beep, beep!" as he ran past the moving car. He never took wing.

At last I finally understood how the coyote felt.

-- Dalton Hammond