Oh beautiful ...

Oh beautiful, for spacious skies. Source Credit: America the Beautiful.

This blog post is an homage to Jack Borden, founder of "For Spacious Skies," a non-profit organization "committed to promoting the beauty of the sky as a visual feast that anyone, anywhere, and at any time could partake." Source Credit: BORDEN, Jacob “Jack” - Local Newscaster & Founder of For Spacious Skies.

Sometimes the sky is astoundingly beautiful. Friday, 31 July 2026 was one of those days. Click on the following panoramic composite image to see the full-size version.

31 JUL 2026. 2:40 PM. Panoramic view. (15274 x 3806 pixels.)

I decided to share two all sky time lapse videos "as is," meaning unedited, so you can see exactly what the camera/lens combo "saw."

31 July 2026 | 1:34 PM - 1:54 PM EDT | Fairfax County, Virginia USA

6.5mm (~10mm, 35mm equivalent) | f/8 | 1/4,000 s | ISO 160 | 623 photos

Using faster shutter speeds, I was able to capture the dynamic nature of the low level cumuliform clouds by avoiding blown highlights. The clouds were moving generally from north-to-south. Notice the sunstar (a.k.a., sunburst) that is visible in the second video during breaks in the clouds.

31 July 2026 | 2:01 PM - 2:23 PM EDT | Fairfax County, Virginia USA

6.5mm (~10mm, 35mm equivalent) | f/8-ish | 1/6,400 s | ISO 160 | 636 photos

The aperture was "f/8-ish" for the photos used to create the second time lapse, meaning the clickless aperture ring was set a little higher than f/8. What was the actual f/stop? I don't know because the aperture ring for the Meike 6.5mm circular fisheye lens doesn't have any markings between f/8 and f/22, plus the lens is manual only (with no electronic contacts) so there isn't any communication between the lens and camera body.

Related Resources

• For Spacious Skies - Jack Borden (14:15) - a YouTube video by Sam Ruocco
• "Skyku©" poetry - a blog post by Walter Sanford
• Posts on Walter Sanford's Blog with the label "all sky"

Copyright © 2026 by Walter Sanford. All rights reserved.