 He
already has a neck tie. This year give Dad something truly heavenly
for Father's Day: SpaceWeather
PHONE. IN DEFENSE OF
THE NIGHT SKY: Many of the wonders you see daily on spaceweather.com
are visible because, somewhere out there, last night's sky was dark
enough for astronomy. The problem is, "the quality of the night
sky is deteriorating at an alarming rate." So says UNESCO and
other groups who met last month on the Canary Islands to discuss
the growing problem of light pollution and disappearing stars. Their
Declaration
in Defence of the Night Sky is a must-read for anyone with an
interest in the heavens.
LUNAR ECLIPSE OF SATURN:
Last night, the Moon passed directly in front of Saturn, producing
a rare lunar eclipse of the ringed planet visible from Europe, parts
of Africa and the Middle East: map.
"Such a unique event must be photographed!" says Hanno
Falk who sends this picture from his backyard in Flensburg,
Germany:
more images:
from
Pete Lawrence of Selsey, West Sussex, UK; from
Emiel Veldhuis of Zwolle, the Netherlands; from
Rob Johnson of Liverpool, England,; from
Pavol Rapavy of Rimavska Sobota, Slovakia; from
Günther Strauch of Borken, NRW, Germany; from
Rijk-Jan Koppejan of Middelburg, The Netherlands; from
Amir Hossein Abolfath and Babak Amin Tafreshi of Tehran, Iran;
from
Alex Lloyd-Ribeiro of Durham, UK; from
Peter Zboncak of Rimavska Sobota Observatory, Slovakia; from
Les Brooks of Woodstone Village, Durham, UK; from
Martijn Dekker of Elst, the Netherlands; from
P-M Hedén of Vallentuna, Sweden; from
Stephane Palfray of Etainhus, Normandy, France; from
Philippe Mollet at the MIRA Public Observatory near Brussels,
Belgium; from
Joel Bavais of Ath, Belgium; from
Patrick Bornet of Saint-Martin sur Nohain, Nièvre, France; from
Chris Newsome of Derby, UK; from
Florin Marc & Raul Truta of Targu Mures, Romania; from
Toni Scarmato of San Costantino di Briatico, Calabria, Italy;
from
Davide Cirioni of Vigevano, Lombardia, Italy; from
João Cruz of Leiria, Portugal; from
Enrico Perissinotto of Talmassons Udine Italy; from
Domenico Licchelli of Gagliano del Capo, Italy; from
Patrice Arnaudet of Mery sur Oise, Val d'Oise, France; from
Paco Bellido of Córdoba, Spain.
A TREE IN A DROPLET OF WATER:
Recipe for a great photo: Splatter a pane of glass with droplets
of water. Place the glass in front of a tree. Point a camera at
the droplets and--click!
Photo
details:
Canon
EOS 300D, ISO 200, 1/1000s
Photographer Guillaume Bertrand of Saint Laurent sur
Sèvre, France, invented the recipe, followed it, and obtained the
picture above on March 30, 2007. "I used a Canon
EOS 300D digital camera on a tripod with ISO 200 and a 1/1000s
exposure," he explains.
There's only one thing wrong with the picture. "It's
upside down," he says. "I had to flip it over to make
the tree limbs point toward the sky." Water droplets act as
inverting lenses, so in the
original photo the trees were trunks-up.
Meanwhile in San Francisco, Mila
Zinkova discovered you can fit an entire suspension bridge inside
a raindrop. This photo
captures the Golden Gate Bridge multiplied through the rain-splattered
windshield of her car.
|
