joeblast

The Cool Picture Thread

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Interesting - the ground is still shaking down in Chile, and some scientists say it will continue to do so to an extent for months to come. This is an 88 second exposure taken on feb 28th, you can see the "star trails" are a little wobbly!

 

 

Colin-Legg1.jpg

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This is an 88 second exposure taken on feb 28th, you can see the "star trails" are a little wobbly!

 

Did you take that shot?

Impressive shot.

If so, I assume you're using a digital SLR? What a dream... I'm having fun with my little point & shoot Canon digital. Good fun. But the possibilities open way up with the SLRs. :D

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nah, I actually need to get my lens cleaned, I have a big speck of dust screwing up my pictures! :lol: that was from the spaceweather.com page, someone sent it in there, figured "the ground shaking" would have given it away - it was taken down in chile!

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Yeah, I saw the headline in the news. Haven't read the article yet.

 

Watch out for those mini black holes.

 

Peace & Love!

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if they do get produced, which is highly unlikely at this point, they will evaporate well before being able to so much as reach another atomic nucleus ;)

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Yes, indeed it is further evidence in support of climate change...

 

 

Hehehe. It is? WoW!

 

Peace & Love!

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Hehehe. It is? WoW!

 

Peace & Love!

 

Get with it Marbles its been raining black holes for weeks!!!!

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Get with it Marbles its been raining black holes for weeks!!!!

 

I'm not allowed to speak as I would only get into trouble.

 

Peace & Love!

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skymap_north.gif

 

for us northern hemisphere people...

 

its supposed to be nice in the northeast in the next bunch of days, I'd love to get a chance to see mercury - I've tried a couple times but never have been able to see it, its pretty elusive, especially when you live in a hilly area!

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Remember this one? Stare at this for about 30 seconds and then look at the back of your hand... (look at lot's of things, lol)

 

tn_19.gif

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Pretty cat. Very well fed BTW. Hehehe.

 

Peace & Love!

 

 

 

lol, good observation, MB. She came from a farm up the street, started hanging around our house looking for a quiet place to have her babies, being pregnant and all. At that time, she was probably about a quarter the cat she is now - completely emaciated, missing a couple teeth, with all sorts of diseases and parasites, maybe four years old, she'd led a life on the farm that I wouldn't wish on a dog.

 

We took her in. She's incredibly intelligent and personable. She really is like a dog in many respects. AND she doesn't plan on ever going back to the farm again. She's made herself comfortable here and we let her enjoy herself. She gets fat over the winter, but as soon as the weather turns warm, she'll be outside most of the time and her weight will come down to normal ranges.

 

She's also a mouse-terror. It's happened more than once that she was sitting on the window sill in the living room and suddenly goes into a panic to get outside. She runs down the stairs and comes back up with a mouse in like a minute. Meaning, she spots a mouse moving out on the lawn from the 2nd floor window and runs down to the exact spot and snatches it like it was a snack bar or something. When she first "moved in" and was still mostly outdoors, she was bringing home up to twenty mice every day. All for me, of course. Yum :P

 

 

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Hehehe. Thanks for sharing that. Both my cats were origianlly someone else's but they couldn't keep them. One boy, one girl. Both fixed. The boy is getting pretty old but he was one heck of a mouser and rater in his younger days. Brought me presents all the time from my neighbors' houses.

 

Yes, you didn't mention if your cat was male or female but I know what you mean about fattening up over winter.

 

I am sure you are enjoying having her around. The area of where the picture was taken looks like a wonder place for an outdoors cat.

 

Peace & Love!

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The cat that adopted my mom is really photogenic, I'll have to see if I can find some pics my brother has taken :D

 

 

 

 

 

 

article-1260946-08E11469000005DC-460_964x888.jpg

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See the face? Took this a couple hours ago with my cell phone. There's a small 1000 year old castle above the cliffs:

 

 

 

26841_116811824997137_100000049594585_273999_4892551_n.jpg

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From The Reference Frame

 

If you take a photograph of plants in the infrared, they appear extremely bright, especially the leaves:

495321960_hUNV8-M.jpg

 

In fact, as Sean Carroll correctly explains in The Red Edge, this behavior of the plants on the photographs can be reduced to their spectrum:

rededge.jpg

 

Note that the plants absorb lots of the visible light - the left portion of the picture (except for the chlorophyll bump at 500 nm) - but they instantly begin to reflect the infrared light. The huge jump between the visible and infrared spectrum is known as the red edge. A similarly striking signature has been proposed as a sign of life on other planets. Is that sensible?

 

First, we should understand why the plants behave in this way. This question can be approached in two basic ways: by looking for a microscopic explanation, and by finding the purpose or the evolutionary survival advantage that the plants gain by this behavior.

 

.....

*snip* ;)

.....

 

The abundance of the visible light is also why our eyes are optimized for the visible band. They're not "canonically" or "perfectly" optimized - after all, some other mammals can only see two independent colors, not three, and the precise sensitive bands may be shifted - but it is a qualitative argument why it is more likely for organisms to have eyes that are sensitive to the electromagnetic radiation that is easily available rather than the "rare" forms of light. You simply don't need too sensitive gadgets to "see" if there's enough light.

 

So the plants' processes are optimized for particular frequencies that sit inside the bands where there's enough light so that they don't have trouble to find the light. Again, different plants use different frequencies for photosynthesis: much like in the case of the mammals' eyes, these technical details are not universal.

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the woods in oregon...

IMG_6474.jpg

 

multnomah falls...

IMG_6483.jpg

 

IMG_6499.jpg

 

horsetail falls

IMG_6459.jpg

Edited by joeblast
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thanks :) multnomah falls was great, 2nd tallest constantly running waterfall in the US. 542 feet on that upper portion!

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