April 4, 2015

Venus and Mars are alright tonight

Looking directly to the West about forty five minutes after sundown last night, Venus is the bright object at the very top corner while Mars is considerably dimmer about three quarters of the way down and a little to right of the center, the bright spot in the sky immediately over the trees on the right is a plane and the star near the right edge of the frame is Sheratan. Tipping the camera at a diagonal was the only way I could get everything I wanted into the frame with the lens I was using.

NEX C3, 4 sec & ISO 400, Auto Rikenon 55 1.4 @ f2.8. That exposure left me with a very bright frame which I darkened with the curves tool in Paintshop Pro to approximate the way the sky looked to the eye, the stars and planets show up much better that way than doing just a "correct" exposure in camera which would have been about one second.

April 3, 2015

Though we gotta say goodbye for the summer

This is the constellation Orion, of which I've been trying to get a really outstanding shot for four months. I have shots of clouds, airplanes, satellites, bad focus, dewed up lens, overexposed, underexposed, banged the tripod, polar alignment off, wrong tracking speed, dead batteries in the tracker and so on...

Orion will only be visible for the next few weeks and then it will be moving behind the sun and basically not observable until September or so, it's goodby for the summer.

I was hiding the camera from the moonlight in this shot, the moon was to the upper left so the trees on the right are brighter and you can see the thin cloud going across Orion's belt, NEX-C3 6 seconds @ ISO 3200 Auto Rikenon 55mm f1.4 @ f2.8.

March 31, 2015

International Space Station x3 + Moon again...

I was out just before daybreak this morning (6:19 EST) and captured three shots of the ISS flying overhead.. Also another shot of the Moon with my Yashinon 200 f4 I took last night.

The ISS this morning was brighter than the brightest star in the sky, Sirius.

All shots with Sony NEX C3, ISS= kit lens @ 18mm f3.5 10 seconds and ISO 3200.



Full res crop of the first ISS shot.







Moon was the Yashinon 200 f4 @ f8 1/640 ISO 400.

March 31, 2015

Is the "religious freedom" law in Indiana also aimed at allowing discrimination against atheists?

Or is that law aimed only at LGBT persons?

What do you think the reaction on DU would be if the law specifically excluded sanctioning discriminatory acts against LGBT persons but did allow for discriminatory acts against atheists?

March 30, 2015

Best Buy: 120GB PNY solid state HD on sale for $39.99 with free shipping..

I just bought two of these, one for one of my computers and another for a neighbor, he had found the deal through an app he has on his iPhone and asked me about whether it was worthwhile for him. If you have a computer with a mechanical SATA HD and don't need huge storage space this should speed things up considerably for a nice price.

http://www.bestbuy.com/site/pny-optima-120gb-internal-serial-ata-iii-solid-state-drive-for-laptops-multi/8191179.p?id=1219315690159&skuId=8191179

You will need something like EasUS Partition Master (free) to swap your OS over to the new HD, this unit does not come with software.

March 29, 2015

Sunspot by Tasco

This is my solar projector setup I put together recently, a Tasco 60 mm x 700 mm refractor scope from a yard sale with a 12.5mm Huygens eyepiece with some wooden pieces and a piece of steel tubing from a folding chair made up for the sun shield and the projector screen assembly. I'm going to take it out to some events I've been invited to soon when it's clear and show off the Sun live. I have to build a cage around the screen before I take it public so no one can get their eye up to the eyepiece end..

Got a picture of a sunspot today with it, my phone camera seems to do a better job than anything else I have of taking the picture of the projected image. There are several smaller spots around the main one, they were quite clear projected out but didn't photograph very well, the granulation of the solar surface did show up better than I had anticipated though.

March 29, 2015

Stop playing with your phone and open the door

My dog, waiting for the truck door to be opened.

March 29, 2015

Yashinon Moon

I have 60's era Auto Yashinon 200mm f/4 screwmount lens adapted to my Sony NEX C3, I took this shot just before the end of twilight tonight with the combination, 1/400th second @ f/8 and ISO 400.

Some of the old glass is really not half bad.



And here is the full frame..

March 28, 2015

Chick-Fil-A is a discriminatory business and made/makes a bundle off of it..

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chick-fil-A_same-sex_marriage_controversy

Around here their already more than healthy business became overwhelming as certain Christians lined up many deep to buy their fast food from the restaurant chain that "supported their values". Quite often you couldn't even pull into the parking lot because the SUVs were lined up out onto the street and Chick-Fil-A is still the most popular fast food by a substantial measure on our local strip of such establishments.

While I think that a store that put up a sign that said they didn't discriminate could probably increase their business that doesn't mean that advertising your bigoted ways won't increase your business also. There are a lot of religious bigots out there and they will spend their money with businesses that tell them what they want to hear.

I never liked Chick-Fil-A that much anyway and stopping eating their stuff altogether wasn't much of an imposition but it's not like my particular boycott made much financial difference to them...

March 28, 2015

Liberals/progressives living in states where they are in the minority deserve punishment

Let's face it, living in a red state with a majority who hate your guts isn't sufficient punishment for being in the minority in that sort of place, we really should work to ensure that liberals/progressives living in red states lose their jobs, their homes and eventually become destitute just like the conservative majority in those states would wish for them.

That will teach those awful liberals and progressives not to be in the minority, the only ~real~ liberals live in blue states.