Blogs

Another Moon Shot with Registax

Another attempt at a shot of the Moon using 14 images from my HS10 and then stacking them with Registax.

Still unsure whether there is a marked improvement over just one of the originals. Not sure if I need to try and get more images to start with...will try more next time.

 

Reaction Engines Skylon and SABRE

Just been to a really interesting talk by Richard Varvill of Reaction Engines Ltd at the IMechE. It was really interesting and got me really excited.

Reaction Engines Ltd are a UK company who are developing a spaceplane called Skylon. Skylon is a Single Stage To Orbit (SSTO), unmanned, reusable and low-cost (comparable with today's expendable solutions) vehicle, with the intention of being a simple to use solution to putting hardware in low Earth orbit.

To achieve a SSTO vehicle (which has not been done to date) a special kind of engine is required, one that has not been made before or anything similar. Conventional vehicles achieving orbit today use rocket engines for the entire flight, as these work in both air and vacuum as they have their own supply of oxygen (oxidiser in the form of liquid oxygen carried in a tank with the vehicle). They also, importantly, provide thrust when the vehicle is not moving.

Buzz Aldrin Nearly Stranded Apollo 11 On The Moon

Well I never knew Buzz Aldrin nearly stranded the crew of Apollo 11 on the surface of the Moon!! Reading the text (transcripted radio conversations) the implication of what is being said is so frightening, I don't know how they kept calm... if that switch was knackered, they were stranded on the Moon forever!

The Earth Rotates 366.25 Times per Year

Statement: The Earth rotates on its axis 366.25 times per year

That is, when the Earth completes one whole revolution around the Sun (360 degrees), which is a year, it has rotated on its own axis 366.25 times.

This is going to be old news to some people, but I think it will still catch a lot of people out. The obvious thing I am hoping you are wondering here is that you thought there were only 365 days in a year. Some of you will know there are actually 365.25 days in a year, hence the reason for a leap year every 4 years. But where does that extra rotation come from to make it 366.25?

Have a think before reading the solution below. Hopefully the wonders of jQuery will have hidden it from you until you click.

Click here to reveal the solution.

The Moon and Registax

As part of my goal this year to get more knowledgeable on astronomy, I finally got round to trying out Registax to stack some photos I took of the Moon ages with this very thing in mind.

I always wanted to try this out but to date did not have a computer powerful enough to really do it. But that has recently changed as I finally have a decent computer in the form of a Dell XPS 15, which I must say is rather nice! Its an i7 with 4Gb of ram so it will serve purposes such as using Registax perfectly. This is compared to my Samsung N130 netbook, which was my main computer before, with its little 1.6GHz Atom processor.

Anyway, I know with most astrophotography that is built up from stacked images, the source is usually a video feed, which I guess is like having lots of individual photos, but combined in a video. Registax pulls out the individual frames like photos anyway. I had 5 photos that I took on my Fujifilm HS10. I took them as a 'burst' so they were all within about 1 second, so little movement between shots (not that it really matters).

My Writing Blog

This is where I am going to write things...

Embedding Gallery 3 Photo Links in Drupal Page

EDIT. There really is a simpler way, it works on the same principal as my method, just makes use of the embedlinks module in Gallery 3. This is just an easier way to grab the same code. Cheers Dan.

Just thought I would share a way I put thumbnails in Drupal posts, which are sourced and link to my Gallery 3 installation. Rather than hosting duplicates within Drupal itself, which I have done before, this keeps only one copy of the image on my server, in a gallery, where it should be.

Very simply, the gallery is already providing thumbnail links to the photos in the album view. So when looking at the album page containing the photos I want to link to in my Drupal page, I simply turn on something like Firebug in FireFox or Inspect element in Chrome, something that allows me to click on an entity and have it show me the code for that entity.

The image to the left shows and is created by this very method. It shows an album page open, Firebug open and the button to the top of the Firebug window (circled red) you can use to click on the thumbnail you want to use. Firebug then shows you the code surrounding that link. I just copy everything around that thumb, including the <a>...</a> tags.

Macro Photography

Trying out some Macrophotography. I have an FujiFilm HS10 plus a Raynox DCR-150 and also a DCR-250. These macro lenses come with a universal adaptor and they give your camera superb macro abilties (better than the stock macro setting).

Macrophotography is cool! Just Google it and find loads of utterly amazing photos.

I don't have a lot of time to set aside for most of my photography efforts, they are always kinda just whilst I am out and about, opportunistic. The few macro shots I have done so far have been just that. For example, the moth (see first image below) I just happened to find dead in the garden. It was a big one and luckily only just recently dead, so very much in tact, plus it was sunny! This is important for me as I don't have any fancy lighting available, so sunlight it my friend.

 

New Car - Volvo V70 D5 (Now With Pics)

After the demise of the E34, I had to get a new car in a hurry. Had a few ideas of what I wanted to go for and one of them was a Volvo V70. Always liked the shape of them, they have good safety ratings and are pretty big, which is something we still need at the moment. Plus my wife liked the look of the Volvo, so I didn't have to 'sell' it to her :)

A Photo Of The Moon

A photo I took of the moon with my HS10. I used the 'A' (Aperture priority) mode, set AE to 'spot' and maximum F number for the aperture (smallest physical aperture).