Its beauty surprised me

It doesn't take much to intrigue or entertain me. I seldom find myself bored and have little patience with boredom in others. My children never whined "I'm bored!" I always had a remedy for that.
My grand children came from another state to spend a few days with me before transferring to another grand parent for a few days. It was short and we stayed busy. No one got bored. But it's amazing how normal routine things slipped by unnoticed or undone. We didn't get the telescope set up even once. But tonight when I went out the back of the house, there was Venus in its glory. I thought, ' I wonder if I can I get a photograph of it.'

This is the western view from my back lower yard about 9PM. Up the hill, the trees in the forground blocked it. There is a large commercial area including a mall just down the hill to our east, so that probably accounts for the light on the treetops. I used a 210 lens with camera settings and a tripod. There is a little bit of movement in the stars creating the elongation of light. The second was taken just a few minutes later. I tried to experiment some, but these were the best.

These pictures are drastically reduced in size from the originals which were over 7 megs apiece. I hope you like them.