Atomic Mars

I love atomic fireballs. I love that burning sensation of cinnamon. Inevitably you have to take them out of your mouth unless you’re a total sadomasochist. That little break lets you recover from the burn for a few seconds before taking the plunge again. During one of these breaks, I noticed the red had faded a little and as I squinted to thought “kinda looks like Mars…” Then it hit me: it will be Mars. Rather it will be made to look similar to it, at least.

First I removed some of the red with some water and let it dry. I then photographed it with the lighting I wanted:

After that, I took it into Photoshop and got to work. Removed the background. Feathered the edge slightly. Added a “haze” to simulate the atmosphere. Also added an “ice cap”. Granted anyone that is familiar with the topography of Mars will immediately see right through this. The idea was that it would have the look of an Earth-based large telescope. I’m almost sure I could post this on the internet and pass it off as Mars for quite some time. That is until Neil DeGrasse Tyson eventually called me out on it. 😉

Total project time was maybe half an hour. It was just for fun and to see if it would work. It worked out pretty well I think.

Nothing fancy, but as a bonus here’s the PSD

Apollo VIII – 50th Anniversary – UPDATE 12/23/18

UPDATE: So, I refined the design a little more since, as of this writing, Apollo 8 would have been passing into the gravitational influence of the Moon. Still a day away from making their famous Christmas Eve broadcast.

UPDATE 2: Tweaked the 8 a little because the default “bevel & emboss” function leaves a little to be desired.

Read my blog. It will not surprise you to know I’m a fan of space exploration and astronomy. Want to be humbled? Study astronomy. Only then will you begin to grasp your insignificance in the immensity of all things. That’s ok though because it makes you realize how lucky you are to be able to realize that. Ok, now that’s out of the way.

Apollo VIII (or Apollo 8 to people who aren’t roman numeral nerds) launched in December of 1968. It orbited the Moon on Christmas. It was a genuinely great moment for mankind. The world was in turmoil but a quarter of a million miles away, humans were proving that we can do great things. Yes, the Moon race was politically motivated. I get it. For a long time, I wasn’t comfortable with that for some reason. I moved past that to realize how amazing that entire era of space exploration was. The golden age, if you will. Perhaps we’re on the verge of another?

I’ve been poking around at a couple of Apollo 8 posters. I wanted to incorporate the “8”, much like the mission patch did. I wanted to show a decent representation of the Earth and Moon in their respective positions. The positioning would be that of when the famous “Earthrise” photo was taken. It isn’t done but I wanted to just post it anyway. Expect a few more things related to Apollo in the coming months, and years. It’s been half a century, after all. There are some technical notes below the image.

Final Version:

View draft here

Nerdy Stuff

The “8” is intended to represent both the mission number and the apparent path or trajectory. Basically a round trip but in figure 8. That’s basically what they did but if you look here this is more representative of what the actual path would look like. It’s cool but it doesn’t look at all like an 8.

At launch, the Moon is at let’s say, point A. If you aim for point A then by the time you get there, there’ll be nothing there. You have to aim for point B, where there is currently nothing waiting for you. In the 3 days it takes to travel that distance you will intercept the Moon. Actually, well before that, you enter the gravitational influence of the Moon and Newtonian physics takes over. Eh, Newtonian physics are actually at work from the very beginning but I digress.

The grid is artificial but I added it to give a sense of spatial-ness. The thing is that the grid is not aligned with anything celestial but positioned purely for aesthetics.

The image of Earth is the actual Earthrise photo from Apollo 8. The Moon image is taken from the EPIC camera that’s currently about a million miles away. It has a fantastic view of the far side of the Moon, otherwise, I’d be using an image of the moon that’s from the wrong angle. As much artistic license as I took, I did want to somewhat accurately represent both celestial bodies.

Last but not least, the words you see, such as “APOLLO”, do not exist in space. Hey, you’d be surprised what people believe these days.

The House with a Clock in Its Walls

Our son was an extra a few months back and we’re finally seeing some of the fruits of his labor. It’s very brief but at around 1:23 you’ll see some kids amazed at a basketball shot. He’s 3rd from the left. What’s even funnier is that he looks nothing like that today, about 6 months later. He also got to meet Jack Black. They tell you not to talk to the actors but our kid LOVES to talk so, what’re you gonna do eh? Jack was a good sport and they had a little chat about our son’s favorite Tenacious D song. Also, it looks like a pretty entertaining flick. It’ll be fun to see on the big screen.


This is not the greatest post in the world. This is just a tribute.

2018 Dragon Con Khan Report for The ESO Network

Recently I took a trip up the road to Atlanta to help a friend out with his “preview” video for the upcoming Dragon Con event. If you haven’t heard of Dragon Con, well, here you go. It’s a huge convention with guest speakers, panels and involving virtually anything to do with science fiction, comic books and nearly anything you can imagine.

The video was shot with a kit 14-45mm lens on a GH4 to keep a low profile.  It was handheld as well because while the guys at ESO have panels, the people in the hotels get real irritated when you show up waving a camera around. The “time-lapse” sections were done with the Microsoft Hyperlapse software (You have to email them to get it activated but hey it’s free!). I cleaned up the audio with iZotope’s RX 6 tool. That was the single biggest challenge because cities are just plain loud.

The video turned out well, I think, so, smiles all around. Hope you enjoy your time at DC2018. Protip: Get there early. For everything.

Also, thank goodness for Jukedeck’s, more or less, free music. Just give them a shout in the description and your set. No need to hire an attorney because a patent troll wants $30,000 for a video you made 10 years ago that was watched 200 times because the “free” music wasn’t actually free. I digress!

Seeing Potential In Everything

Most of us take the world at face value. We see, hear, taste, smell, touch (plus lots of other senses). The astonishing truth is that we can only perceive a tiny fraction of the physical universe. Take the electromagnetic spectrum, for instance. We usually see a chart where it’s all smushed together. That makes the fraction that we can see to be on the order of something like 10-20%. It’s far, far less, coming it at around 0.0035%. So, if you had a thousand dollars, 3.50 of that would be visible light.

The point to all of this is that we can take things for granted. Take the time to look a little closer at things because our perception is already so limited. Make the most of it and see if you can find a bit more in something that appears to be rather mundane. This happened to me the other day while looking at a table we recently put in the garage. I’m using it as a table to shoot photos of products or things to sell on eBay. While changing my camera settings I snapped a pic that caught my attention. I noticed that the light reflected in a very interesting way. It’s hard to describe so it’s best to show it.

So, I took the raw photo into Photoshop and my first thought was that it looked like it was radiating light. So, I went into Camera Raw and started pushing and pulling and it started to materialize into what I had envisioned. After some blur, duplication, and other effects, I ended up with something that I liked. To me, it looked sort of like an artists depiction (this artist, to be exact!) of an exploding star.

Here’s the best part. The table top is stainless steel. Iron is used to make steel. Iron is the final element a star fuses before exploding into a supernova (a Type II Supernova, in this case). If stars never died, we’d never have been born. To me, in a way, this is art imitating life and death.

Keep your senses about you because you never know when you might be able to see or hear something in a different way.

Highway To The Danger Zone – Literally

Lightning kills. Lightning itself is 5x hotter than the surface of the sun coming in at a toasty 28,000 C° (50,000 F°).  Also, there’s the electrical energy of around a BILLION volts. That’s 1,000,000,000 volts. Volts aren’t the main concern, albeit they are, a bit. The main concern is the current. Bolts of lightning can rock about 30,000 amps. 1/10 of 1 amp will stop your heart. For some lightning info, you can read about it, here, here and here.

Why the science lesson? No one cares about that stuff, right? Seeing as how the average person, in their lifetime, in the United States, has a 1 in 3000 chance to get hit by lightning, it’s kind of important. You would likely get struck by lightning several times over before you win the big Lotto. So, what?

Let’s go take pictures of this deadly dangerous phenomenon! Seriously, that Danger Zone song applies here. If you can hear it, it can hit you. I do not take the risks lightly and I am very selective on what storms to shoot and how to shoot them.

Do not cheat

My first attempts were by “cheating” and using video as a means to never miss a shot. Problems quickly presented themselves. The rolling shutter that some cameras have, make lightning, uh, problematic. So what you end up with is half the bolt in one frame, half in the next. Along with artifacts like the sensor being overloaded a bit. Stitching them together is hit or miss. Here’s an example of something that cannot be salvaged. Top half? Awesome. Bottom half? A bit over but still, stunning! Together? Meh. At least you can tell what it is but this is not ideal.

You Need Cat-Like Reflexes

You also need luck. Probably more luck than reflexes. I say that because you can’t possibly know exactly when and exactly where lightning will occur. You have a general direction you look in and that’s all the information you have. Also, remember that most strikes are multiples. If you miss the initial ‘flash’ you can still catch the second or third pulse and end up with something good.

A while back it did pay off. I got this shot right from my front door. The storm was dangerously close so, going outside was a no-no. That bolt was about a kilometer(ish) away. I always, always count seconds between seeing and hearing. Just a habit.

Then this one. Extended exposure shows a plane turning. To avoid? Or to land since Atlanta’s Hartsfield-Jackson is nearby? Not sure!

This was just last night. I had the wide lens on to hopefully get the full sky action but, I’ll take it. 3 second exposure to bring out some of the landscape. Extended exposures make night shots easier and the potential is there to get multiple strikes in one exposure.

Conclusion?

So, now I wait to capture the ultimate shot of bolts cascading all across the sky and clouds. Patience and persistence are key. Also, do not choose oncoming storms as they will present far more danger. Do not attempt storms that have passed as the danger is still there and the humidity can cause lens fogging and it’s just not terribly ideal. There ARE exceptions to these but the best route to go is to find a storm that is going to pass off to the side. You won’t get rained on and you’re far less likely to get hit by a stray bolt.

Anything is possible though so plan accordingly, be smart and be safe.

 

SSL Is Here To Stay

Well, it’s kind of always been around in some capacity. Honestly, I never bothered with it for this site, but this one goes back well over 10+ years in some form or another. In a time long long ago, SSL sites were usually just the ones you did banking or shopping on.

That’s all changed now; it affects your SEO rankings and has for some time. I’m not trying to hit the first page of Google by any means but I don’t want them dinging me for not having it. It isn’t something that’s coming, either. The real news is that now Chrome is on on the action. So, rankings and now your browser will straight up tell you that you should probably go elsewhere.

Fortunately, most hosting providers give you one free SSL. Since I have two sites, I had to shell out for this. Small price to pay for peace of mind and that little green lock looks pretty nice up there.

So, say hi to the new and improved (same and somewhat regularly update) blog/portfolio of mine.

Processing JunoCam Images

If you know where to look, you can find more space image data than you’d ever know what to do with. Some are easily accessible and others are trickier because of the file formats and needing to know things like DOS, Unix and/or FTP commands.

JunoCam is the easiest to get to and play with. The great thing is that there is no single correct way to process an image. They leave it open to however you want to do it. If you want to bring out certain colors or try to match true color, the choice is yours. People have done some really amazing things with the data, including making animations of the flybys.

 

I would write up a post about how to process the images but here is a tutorial (mind you this isn’t the only way to go about it)

I’ve taken to trying out using the raw image data as opposed to the slightly more processed files that come with the image set. The resolution is much higher

People do truly incredible things with these images:

Of Fire & Ice

A few years ago we attended a school function. Me being me and always being concerned with the severe weather that was approaching. I was halfway eyeballing the assembly and halfway watching the radar. Ok, it might have been 60/40 because it was a sports awards ceremony. Nonetheless, I ushered my family to the car in a jiff to beat the storm front and it was just in time, too.

I was using a Nokia Lumia 1020 at the time, which I still own, which has an amazing camera; coming in at 41mp. Not kidding. So, there we are, moments after leaving the parking lot I glanced out the window to see quite a sight. Dark blue/green-ish clouds and sheets of rain on one side, the setting sun, beaming through a serendipitous opening on the other. Keep in mind that 30-40% of all the photos on my machine and phone are of the sky. It’s just a thing I do. Because sometimes you see something amazing.

I enhanced the colors a bit to give the impact of how my eyes saw it. All it’s missing is a bolt of lightning. I have those, too. Also, I suppose I should talk about that time where I saw a rainbow every day for six days. Maybe seven. It’s been a while. That’s for another day.