Wednesday 23 March 2011

Aura Borealis


This photo was taken from the ISS, you can clearly see the aura borealis creating shimmering light patterns on the surface of the Earth. What an amazing shot, seeing the curvature of the Earth must be the most enlightening feeling.


( - . - )


Panda hat anyone ?

Super Moon

19th March showed the moon at its perigree which meant it was at its closest to the Earth (due to its elliptical orbit) since 1983. Although it was fairly cloudy where i was (Cardiff, Wales) It did look impressive rising through the thin clouds at around 7 O clock. Below are some pictures taken from around the world.




Whats really interesting is how and why the moon looks bigger when its closer to the horizon, its still theroized by scientists and astromoners today. If you want to read up about it (you should its interesting) heres a link.

http://www.lhup.edu/~dsimanek/3d/moonillu.htm

Art work for Japan

Quite a long post of some pictures dedicated to the Japan Earthquake/Tsunami. Some really impressive work based around a pretty horrific natural event. Seems Japan is taking its first steps on its long road to recovery.

Aurelien Morini

Bastien Grivet

David Revoy


Éléonore Della Malva

Giovanni Rigano


Olivier Ferra Japon


Clivetache

Clive Owen with a moustache.

Wednesday 16 March 2011

( 0 . - )

The most expensive/cute dog in the world. This puppy will set you back a cool £1,000,000.

Red Tibetan Mastiff

Weekly roundup



Fistbump. Awesome.

The ultimate showdown, Ronald Vs The Colonel

Water spirit representing the Tsunami engrossing Japan

Shutterspeed

Im waiting on a delivery of a shutterspeed remote for my SLR which will mean i can take 30 minute exposures, taking in all the light in the night sky and creating some really awesome pictures. Cant wait to try it out.

This streak is a long exposure shot of Discovery leaving our atmosphere on its last adventure.
Really great photo. The two trails in the sky are the ISS (international space station) and a NASA space shuttle  (Discovery)

Monday 14 March 2011

Computer coloured vs hand

Tsunami

Over the last couple of days following the tsunami caused by the earthquake off the coast of Japan there have been some pretty cataclysmic picture/videos going around to show the true devastating effect this earthquake has had. Il post a couple here that have really made an impact.

A really sad time for Japan and some of its surrounding countries. Although the protocals and the defenses that Japan has developed over the years to protect itself from natural disasters like this have truly helped the country, and not much credit has been given to them for doing this.

Really bloody lucky that it didnt hit a more centralized part of the country, on land or closer in land. Things could have been a lot different.




Thursday 10 March 2011

Discovery's final trip

Discovery first started its space adventures back in 1984 when it became the third operational orbiter. it made its final landing on 9 March 2011 with a cumulative total of one full year (365 days) in space; the longest of any spaceship in the world. Incredibly it carried out 5,830 orbits during its lifetime and travelled a distance of 238,539,663 km. I look forward to seeing its replacement ! NASA has offered Discovery to the Smithsonian Institution's National Air and Space Museum for public display and preservation as part of the national collection.

An orbital sunrise brightens this view of Discovery's vertical stabiliser, docking mechanism, remote manipulator system orbiter boom sensor system and payload bay. What a sepctacular view ! just noticed you can see the photographer/astronaught's reflection taking the snap.

Astronaut Michael Barratt watches a water bubble float near him on Discovery's mid-deck. Kudos to these guys up in space, lucky bastards but im sure they are the best suited people for the job.

Tuesday 8 March 2011

Some pictures of space

Spent last weekend in St Davids in West Wales, walking the coast, drinking too much, reading plenty and of course freezing my ass off looking into space. Took my telescope up with me (Dobsonian 10") and a Nikon SLR with tripod, in order to try to see and photograph some sweet looking skies.

(click these pictures to see the full versions)

The town of St Davids (West Wales) is visible in the distance, light polution being picked up in the long exposure. The brightest star you can see to the right of the center is Sirius and then following right from there is the constellation of Orion.


Really like the clouds on this one, the light polution seeping up from the horizon really makes a cool effect. Luckily the light was only rising from this point, behind me was just coast and a lot clearer.


Probably one of my favourites. The bright point to the right of the central telephone post is actually Saturn. Took me a while to actually find and pinpoint it with my telescope, but seeing the rings was amazing ! Really like the varying colours on the horizon too.



This was pointed towards the darker side of the sky that night. You can just see orions belt on the left with Betelguise above it. Need to learn some more of these star names really ! The long exposure picked up all the light coming out of the barn that was next to the house, the lights werent on for long so i had to be quick about it. Think this was around a 30 second exposure.



Another of my favourites just because of the darkness of the sky. On this side was just mountains and then coast and obviously sea so light pollution was not a problem. Can just make out Cassiopeia near to the center (the jagged looking constellation), bottom most star being Andromeda (our closest neighbour).


This was probably the biggest pain in the ass to take. Its a 5 minute exposure so i had to keep my finger on the shutter in an uncomfortable position for this amount of time, making sure not to knock the camera in the process was a struggle. Got what i wanted though, just wanted to see the spin of the Earth in the stars, as you can see each point of light has a little trail showing its path through the night sky. Shame about the fuzzy light pollution on the edges of this photo.

Thursday 3 March 2011

The Sheenmeister

Charlie Sheen is the man right now !!

His comments are going to go down in internet history !

Heres the top ten:

10 “I am on a drug. It’s called Charlie Sheen. It’s not available. If you try it once, you will die. Your face will melt off and your children will weep over your exploded body.”

9 “I got magic and I’ve got poetry in my fingertips, you know, most of the time, and this includes naps. I’m an F-18, bro.”

8 “If you’re a part of my family, I will love you violently.”
7 “AA was written for normal people. People that don’t have tiger blood and Adonis DNA. . . I have a different brain, I have a different heart. I got tiger blood, man.”

6 “I’m tired of pretending like I’m not special. I’m tired of pretending like I’m not bitchin’, a total freakin’ rock star from Mars.”

5 “We work for the pope, we murder people. We’re Vatican assassins. How complicated can it be? What they’re not ready for is guys like you and I and Nails and all the other gnarly gnarlingtons in my life, that we are high priests, Vatican assassin warlocks. Boom. Print that, people.”

4 “I closed my eyes and in a nanosecond I cured myself.”

3 “The last time I took drugs I probably took more that anyone could survive. I was banging 7-gram rocks because that’s how I roll, I have one speed, go.”

2 “What’s not to love? Especially when you see how I party, it was epic. The run I was on made Sinatra, Flynn, Jagger, Richards and all of them look like droopy-eyed armless children.”

1 “Winning.”


Tuesday 1 March 2011

scumbag wasp

I hate wasps

i see you

Team Zissou kitty.

Monsters


Monsters of my twenteens. Reblogged from somewhere on http://www.reddit.com/

Japanese mascots

Some awesome Japanese mascots.


Cheesus by Hokama Good Cheese Co.

Sumitomo Calamari Ice Cream


Space

Long time exposure of the milky way over switzerland. Such an impressive shot, look at all those stars !!

I took this photo from a NASA funded website where they post a picture a day.. Since 1995 !

http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/archivepix.html