Category Archives: Photography

Space Station Transiting Eclipse

Smarter Every Day: Space Station Transiting 2017 ECLIPSE, My Brain Stopped Working. (YouTube, 8:38min)

What it says on the tin, the eclipse as seen from Wyoming, with a bonus appearance of the International Space Station. The ISS transit across the sun is fast, much faster than I thought it would be even though I’ve watched the ISS cross the sky many times.

Bonus link: Veritasium: Eclipse 2017 (YouTube, 5:20min), including time-lapse video from first contact to totality, viewed from Oregon.

New National Monument in the USA

On December 28, 2016 President Obama declared the Bears Ears National Monument in Utah. There’s no website for it yet on NPS.gov, but some info is available at Wikipedia.

Boston Globe Big Picture: Bear Ears Buttes in Utah.

“Known as Bear Ears for the pair of purple buttes at the region’s center, the newly proclaimed 1.9 million-acre National Mounument will preserve a photographer’s checklist of high-desert drama: spires, bridges, canyons. Yet the region’s true distinction is not its topography, but its cultural significance; perhaps no place in America is as rich with ancient Native American sites as Bear Ears. In October 2015, a coalition of five Indian nations, including the Hopi, Ute, and Navajo, formally proposed the monument, attempting to preserve the parcel’s 100,000 archeological sites from ongoing looting and grave robbing. Last June, in a letter to President Obama, more than 700 archeologists endorsed the proposal, saying that looting of the area’s many ancient kivas and dwellings was continuing “at an alarming pace“ and calling Bear Ears “America’s most significant unprotected cultural landscape.“ “

(No typos added by me; the Boston Globe calls it Bear Ears instead of Bears Ears.)

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.