Life's simple, why change it? » Photography http://www.jbwan.com Jonathan Brazil's view of the world Wed, 28 Dec 2011 13:06:40 +0000 en hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.3.1 Blue sky, bright moon http://www.jbwan.com/2011/08/14/blue-sky-bright-moon/ http://www.jbwan.com/2011/08/14/blue-sky-bright-moon/#comments Sun, 14 Aug 2011 20:58:53 +0000 jbwan http://www.jbwan.com/?p=14070 Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.]]> Such a great weekend for full moons. Just looking out through my living room window, committing the cardinal sin of shooting through the window glass. Who cares? Sometimes a shot is just worth capturing because it lifts your spirits in the wake/advent of less happy moments.

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]]> http://www.jbwan.com/2011/08/14/blue-sky-bright-moon/feed/ 2 Rare lunar eclipse tonight http://www.jbwan.com/2010/12/20/rare-lunar-eclipse-tonight/ http://www.jbwan.com/2010/12/20/rare-lunar-eclipse-tonight/#comments Mon, 20 Dec 2010 18:16:23 +0000 jbwan http://www.jbwan.com/2010/12/20/rare-lunar-eclipse-tonight/ Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.]]>
The last total lunar eclipse in February 2008.

The last full lunar eclipse happened in February 2008.

(Credit: NASA TV)

A rare drama will play out in tonight’s skies: a full lunar eclipse on the winter solstice.

The last one occurred in 1638, according to NASA, and tonight’s may be only the second one in the last two millennia.

“Since Year 1, I can only find one previous instance of an eclipse matching the same calendar date as the solstice, and that is 1638,” Geoff Chester of the U.S. Naval Observatory, who inspected a list of eclipses going back 2,000 years, said on NASA’s solstice lunar eclipse page. The next lunar eclipse on the winter solstice won’t be such a long wait, though. It’s expected in 2094.

Skywatchers expect the eclipse to occur over a three-and-a-half hour period, starting at 10:33 p.m. PT today and ending 2:01 a.m. PT tomorrow. The Earth’s shadow will completely cover the moon for about 72 minutes, according to NASA’s eclipse page. The shadow is likely to have a reddish hue.

A lunar eclipse happens when the sun, Earth, and moon align–with the Earth in the middle. By virtue of that placement, there is always a full moon during a lunar eclipse. Unlike a solar eclipse, a lunar eclipse is viewable for quite some time and is safe to view. Tonight’s lunar eclipse will be visible across North America.

The last full lunar eclipse occurred nearly three years ago in February 2008. The next full lunar eclipse is expected to occur in 2014.

NASA is hosting several events to give more insight into the full lunar eclipse, including live Web chats today and a live chat with an astronomer during the eclipse.

If you’re interested in learning more about the history of lunar eclipses, check out this Wikipedia page. It discusses the first known mention of a lunar eclipse in China in 1136 B.C. and includes other interesting facts about eclipse-related events throughout history.

Further reading: Images: Don’t miss the total lunar eclipse

via news.cnet.com

A must see for anyone with a remote interest in visible things! Set to turn the moon red, in an event not seen since 1638 according to NASA. Can’t wait!

Posted via email from jbwan’s posterous

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]]> http://www.jbwan.com/2010/12/20/rare-lunar-eclipse-tonight/feed/ 0 Adventures in Feedback http://www.jbwan.com/2009/08/07/adventures-in-feedback/ http://www.jbwan.com/2009/08/07/adventures-in-feedback/#comments Fri, 07 Aug 2009 17:44:12 +0000 jbwan http://www.jbwan.com/?p=952 Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.]]> Messing around with a digicam, a laptop, and some video capture software, produces some interesting results. No after effects added, just simple feedback on the audio and the video to create a dynamic, recursive effect, he unashamedly says could be confused with 2001 A Space Odyssey. :) Seriously though, it’s amazing what you get for free with no software.

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]]> http://www.jbwan.com/2009/08/07/adventures-in-feedback/feed/ 0 Schmap it up! http://www.jbwan.com/2008/12/16/schmap-it-up/ http://www.jbwan.com/2008/12/16/schmap-it-up/#comments Tue, 16 Dec 2008 10:02:35 +0000 jbwan http://www.jbwan.com/2008/12/16/schmap-it-up/ Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.]]> Baby GiraffeBaby Giraffe
Originally uploaded by jbwan

Just received confirmation that one of my Flickr available photos was included in the recent Schmap guide to Dublin. Sometimes I spend so much time fussing over lighting, exposure, and other things with my SLR that it’s quite humbling and satisfying to have a no-thought shot with my compact Olympus c-750uz (4MP) receive more recognition than most of my other photos. :) Maybe it was the models that I used in the selected photo – eye-catching Giraffes!

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]]> http://www.jbwan.com/2008/12/16/schmap-it-up/feed/ 2 Colour in the Grey Sky http://www.jbwan.com/2008/09/28/colour-in-the-grey-sky/ http://www.jbwan.com/2008/09/28/colour-in-the-grey-sky/#comments Sun, 28 Sep 2008 14:40:41 +0000 jbwan http://www.jbwan.com/wordpress/2008/09/28/colour-in-the-grey-sky/ Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.]]>
Colour in the Grey Sky
Originally uploaded by jbwan

Snapped at one of the launches during the visit to Waterford of the Irish National Hot Air Ballooning Championships. Great to see the balloons back in Waterford and hopefully they’ll be back again next time. A wonderful spectacle for all to see; floating high over the city and county.

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]]> http://www.jbwan.com/2008/09/28/colour-in-the-grey-sky/feed/ 0 Sorted! http://www.jbwan.com/2008/02/10/sorted/ http://www.jbwan.com/2008/02/10/sorted/#comments Sun, 10 Feb 2008 17:35:51 +0000 jbwan http://www.jbwan.com/wordpress/2008/02/10/sorted/ Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.]]> This weekend I decided to settle down to a task that I have been putting off for a long time now. That task was the organisation of my digital photo library, spread across 3 different computers and a network storage drive. Over the years I have used so many different digital cameras, software packages for organising photos, etc that my digital library was in somewhat of a mess. Using exif data to sort files based on chronological data is obviously the way to go and there are several utilities out there for a small fee that will do this for you. However, I was feeling a little frugal and initially had a crack at parsing the exif data myself using some c# knowledge. It was reasonably successful but too many variables involved in doing it properly. So, I then decided that I didn’t have the time to write a full utility and went looking for freebies. What I found was truly wonderful. A short Perl script that uses jhead to extract exif data from jpg files and then sorts the files into year/month directories and renames all the files to yearmonthdate_time.jpg format. Better again is that the clever script performs a MD5 hash on any file with exactly the same date and time to see if indeed it is the same file, if so it skips the duplicate, if not it copies it as a filename[2].jpg to indicate the legal duplicate. Granted it still took a while to parse through everything but my task was made infinitely simpler by using this little script. Now I have a digital library to almost be proud of. Almost because I have a quantity of files that are not exif timestamped and need to be sorted manually at a later date.

Note: While this utility is great for parsing jpg files, I couldn’t get jhead to parse the exif information from RAW format files. That added a little bit of time to my task but not too much.

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]]> http://www.jbwan.com/2008/02/10/sorted/feed/ 4 Focal Bench http://www.jbwan.com/2008/02/04/focal-bench/ http://www.jbwan.com/2008/02/04/focal-bench/#comments Mon, 04 Feb 2008 12:15:44 +0000 jbwan http://www.jbwan.com/wordpress/2008/02/04/focal-bench/ Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.]]>

Focal Bench

Originally uploaded by jbwan


For a long time I always wondered about whether or not I should learn about Photoshop. I could see myself becoming somewhat addicted to it and the myriad of effects that people can create using it. This weekend I finally bit the bullet and downloaded a trial of CS3 and looked up some tutorials on basic techniques. This is my first effort and I’m rather proud of it even if it’s only a very simple effect. I have a taste for more elaborate effects though so I envisage plenty of study ahead.

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]]> http://www.jbwan.com/2008/02/04/focal-bench/feed/ 0 Red Admiral http://www.jbwan.com/2007/09/11/red-admiral/ http://www.jbwan.com/2007/09/11/red-admiral/#comments Tue, 11 Sep 2007 09:43:17 +0000 jbwan http://www.jbwan.com/wordpress/2007/09/11/red-admiral/ Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.]]>

Red Admiral

Originally uploaded by jbwan.


Sitting down eating dinner in the garden last Saturday, this guy came fluttering by through my shrubs. Hadn’t seen one in a long time up to this.

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]]> http://www.jbwan.com/2007/09/11/red-admiral/feed/ 0 The Vee http://www.jbwan.com/2007/09/05/the-vee/ http://www.jbwan.com/2007/09/05/the-vee/#comments Wed, 05 Sep 2007 12:01:33 +0000 jbwan http://www.jbwan.com/wordpress/2007/09/05/the-vee/ Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.]]>

The Vee

Originally uploaded by jbwan.


I like The Vee, the distinctive meeting place of two hills in West Waterford (well technically it’s in Co. Tipperary but what’s 100m between friendly counties? ;) ) Siân and myself took a trip up there recently to see the scenic beauty and swung by Melleray Abbey on the way back where I saw a nice tree stump in the abbey grounds.

Melleray Abbey

Originally uploaded by jbwan.


Stumped

Originally uploaded by jbwan.


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]]> http://www.jbwan.com/2007/09/05/the-vee/feed/ 12 Summer Calm http://www.jbwan.com/2007/08/29/summer-calm/ http://www.jbwan.com/2007/08/29/summer-calm/#comments Wed, 29 Aug 2007 10:17:48 +0000 jbwan http://www.jbwan.com/wordpress/2007/08/29/summer-calm/ Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.]]>

Feeding Tortoise Shell

Originally uploaded by jbwan.


Daisy, Daisy

Originally uploaded by jbwan.


The more I say the angrier I get so here’s a couple of nice calming photos from my garden yesterday evening. ;)

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]]> http://www.jbwan.com/2007/08/29/summer-calm/feed/ 0