Category Archives: Photography

My God, it’s full of stars!

The Guardian: Astronomy Photographer of the Year 2016 shortlist – in pictures.

“Gorgeous galaxies and stunning stars make up this selection of pictures from the shortlisted entries for this year’s Insight Astronomy Photographer of the Year award. The winners will be announced on 15 September, and an exhibition of the winning images will be will be displayed in a free exhibition at the Royal Observatory Greenwich’s Astronomy Centre from 17 September”.

Link via (and heading shamelessly stolen from) MetaFilter.

View from the ISS

Boston Globe The Big Picture: Scott Kelly’s year in space.

“NASA astronaut Scott Kelly is scheduled to return to Earth tonight after a 340-day mission aboard the International Space Station, where he participated in research on how the human body reacts and adapts to long-duration spaceflight. He also captured views of our planet that unify science and art, sharing them on social media for the earthbound to follow. Even President Barack Obama kept an eye on Kelly’s accounts, asking him on Twitter, “Do you ever look out the window and just freak out?“ to which Kelly replied, “I don’t freak out about anything, Mr. President. Except getting a Twitter question from you.“ Abstract and out of this world, here’s Earth from an astronaut’s perspective.”

A Very Long Walk

Quintin Lake: The Perimeter.

From the About page:

“The Perimeter is a photography project by Quintin Lake based on walking 10,000km around the coast of Britain in sections. The journey started on 17th April 2015 at St Paul’s cathedral and I’m following the coast clockwise. I expect the journey will take around 5 years.

I’ll be walking two to three months per year and the daily distance will be 20-40km depending on the going. I’ll be camping in the wilder parts and staying in guest houses in urban areas.”

Here’s the map of his hike and previous long-distance hikes he’s taken. So far he’s completed about 10% of the journey and is walking near Dartmouth at the moment.

André and I have hiked small stretches of the Coast Path here and there, for example between Durdle Door and Lulworth Cove, and I’m reading through Lake’s posts from the beginning, trying to catch up. I’d love to hike more of the British coast, especially in the Southwest (Cornwall, Devon).

Link via MetaFilter.

Photos from Chang’e 3 lander and Yutu rover camera

A few days ago Emily Lakdawalla posted some images from the moon on her weblog at the Planetary Society: Fun with a new data set: Chang’e 3 lander and Yutu rover camera data.

“Here, for the first time in a format easily accessible to the public, are hundreds and hundreds of science-quality images from the Chang’e 3 lander and Yutu rover.”

Links to the original data and the mirror at the Planetary Society are at the top of the article.

Link via MetaFilter.

Mein Lieblingsvogel

Eisvogel im Schwebflug

Eisvogel im Schwebflug (Aufnahme von Joefrei, verkleinerter Ausschnitt, CC BY-SA 3.0)

Heute bin ich in den Rheinauen spazieren gegangen und habe gehofft, an einem der Altrheinarme mal wieder einen Eisvogel zu sehen. Drei Mal habe ich bereits einen Eisvogel hier in der Nähe entdecken können, aber leider hatte ich heute kein Glück. Wenn sie nicht gerade fliegen, sind sie aber auch wirklich nicht leicht zu entdecken, denn von vorne sind sie sehr unauffällig rotbraun. Dafür habe ich eine sehr informative Seite über Eisvögel mit vielen schönen Fotografien entdeckt:

Gerhard Brodowski: Der Eisvogel.

Der Eisvogel war in Deutschland 1973 und 2009 Vogel des Jahres (hier kann man auch den Ruf des Eisvogels anhören).

Eisvogel (Aufnahme von Lukasz Lukasik, verkleinert)

Eisvogel (Aufnahme von Lukasz Lukasik, verkleinert, CC BY-SA 3.0)