Astrophoto For Dummies
Sky of stars… There is probably no such adult, who wouldn’t recall just that sky from the childhood – in the village or near the sea shore, so deep black sky, with myriads of stars, under which everyone dreamt his own dreams. But childhood passes quickly, one gets lumbered with the fuss of everyday concerns and problems, and many of us forget that it still up there, still so black, enticing with its universal fathomlessness and thousands of stars. To see it we just need to turn the head up.
Shooting high-quality pictures of the sky is not a matter of an expensive camera, the most important is a camera’s ability to work with long-term exposure, starting from 30 seconds.
Talking about technical aspects, it is reasonable to start with a camera. Against the established opinion about the preference of the “many-pixel” cameras, astrophotographers unanimously claim that the most important thing after the ability to work with long-time exposure goes the absence of noise on the pictures. So, if one plans to buy a camera for amateur astrophoto it is preferable to choose a camera with large matrix, but with a moderate quantity of megapixels, so beloved by newbies. The second obligatory condition is the possibility to shoot in manual mode, when sensitivity, exposure, diaphragm, and the compression quality can be adjusted by the user.
In fact, astrophotography is an unhurried accumlation of photons. Celestial objects, be it the Sun or the Moon are very dim, so for the succesfool shooting it is necessary to open the shutter as wide as possible and for the longest time possible to wait for the matrix to accumulate a decent quantity of photons, that is light, for the further processing.
In the camera settings it is also necessary to set the minimal compression of the resulting file – JPEG or TIF. If a camera can shoot in RAW format, it is preferable to use it. The less the compression of the picture – the more raw information it handles and, consequently, the more detailes it will be possible to retrive from it with the help of the specialized software.
To sum up it has to be said that if it is possible to use a reflex camera – it is great, as they have large matrices with little rate of noises, removable optics and safe RAW format. But if your photographic set gives a possibility to shoot with the long-time exposure and has high-quality matrix – you can make impressive pictures of the night sky.
Shooting of the celestial bodies may be divided into two types: shooting with the static camera and shooting with follow. In the first case enough to aim the camera at the sky, fix it, set the focus “to infinity” and open the shutter. Adding to the composition the nature objects (trees, mountains) or architectural objects (churches, castles, any interesting building) one may get a charming shot, linking the earthlife with the infinity of the sky.
Shooting with follow is a little more complicated. We will need a special device, which somehow looks like tripod and makes the camera follow the sky objects. The Earth turns, the objects move along the firmament, all followed by the camera.
One may also shoot with a compact camera and a telescope, but it brings not only the difficulties with the connection of the two devices, but the loss of quality. It is important to understand one thing – shooting of the night sky is equally fascinating with long and short focuses, they just solve different aesthetic tasks.
Talking about astrophotography it is necessary to mention special processing software. There are two main tasks while processing the pictures – to drag the maximum details from the usually dim objects and noise removing.
May be at first all these operations with camera and software may seem difficult. However, here functions simple and general rule – you have to give it a try, if you want to understand something. But if once you will feel your heart thumping because of folding the frames together, and looking on a mini-masterpiece – galaxy or star cluster – it gets filled up with joy, you will not be able to give up astrophotography anymore.
via fotoshkola_net
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November 4, 2010
Astrophoto For Dummies
November 3, 2010
Drug trafficking invades the web
Drug trafficking invades the web
Mexican site, the "Blog del Narco" distills information reliable drug cartels. For their part, drug traffickers have also invested the web. Zoom in on the blogosphere drugs.
In Mexico, where the war of drug cartels has been raging for years, "Blog del Narco" is presented as "the source of the most reliable information." A red logo adorned cannabis herb brilliant: do not stop at the homepage bling-bling. After six months of existence, this blog is to break into the top 100 most visited sites in Mexico.
"An armed group attacked the police in Los Ramones," "In Tijuana, a close of Ismael Zambada (a cartel boss) is held hostage": these are some recent titles published on a site more valuable information that are struggling to get out in the mainstream press. "In areas affected by drug trafficking, there is a certain silence. The media censor themselves, because there are journalists threatened, targeted by attacks or hostage", recognizes Sergio Octavio Contreras , a researcher in communication.
Public Blog del Narco is composed mostly of young people between 18 and 34 years. The authors of this web page, them, value their anonymity. "They have managed so far to evade Mexican police and even the FBI was investigating them," says Sergio Octavio Contreras, interviewed by Europe1.fr.
The Spanish newspaper Qué! has still managed to pull an interview with the authors who present themselves as "two young, each in turn involved in computer science and journalism, and determined to tell the truth."
"For me, yes, they are reliable. Even if I do not know them personally, I have not heard anyone so far put in doubt what they had announced," said Europe1.fr for Alberto López Malax the Spanish journalist who conducted the interview.
To prove his seriousness, the Blog del Narco highlights of "evidence", that is to say, photos, or videos, including some particularly violent, that shocked Mexico. But some of these "tips" have enabled the police to further investigate.
The authors of the blog to provide "neither in favor nor against" any group of drug traffickers. Still, they are so well informed, but also because "the directors are related to the cartels themselves, manipulating them in part," said Octavio Sergio Contreras.
Where some items to the threatening tone where you can read for example: "The perpetrators of a massacre in a rehabilitation center in Tijuana have warned they would kill one person for each ton of marijuana seized."
If the information travels so fast on the internet, it is also because the cartels and drug traffickers have long since invaded this virtual space to develop their "underground culture".
Sergio Octavio Contreras does not hesitate to speak in the sense of "narcored", a "web of drug trafficking" where money, jewelry, beautiful women are paraded as outward signs of success.
Amid blogosphere this drug, the Blog Del Narco is therefore probably only the tip of an iceberg and informative stretching on YouTube, Facebook or Twitter. (Source Europe 1)
Sites on the Internet death in vogue
Sites on the Internet death in vogue
Internet sites dedicated to the memory of death and anonymous or celebrities are multiplying on the web. Overview of these new virtual spaces that sometimes replace the old social traditions around the deceased.
Initiatives are multiplying on the canvas to the deaths of individuals or celebrities, offering services free or pay to maintain the memory, image, links around the disappeared from online friends.
The site www.lecimetiere.net is a "virtual cemetery" to honor the "Missing Angels" as well as adults. You can find photos and messages from individuals proclaim their love as Eve, who writes to his dead daughter: "Hello my beautiful princess that I am glad I found this site so I can talk to you and send you flowers ".Another space is devoted to celebrities, from cyclist Laurent Fignon, the comedian Peter Doris passing by actor Guillaume Depardieu. A last is devoted to world events like the earthquake in Haiti, with slide show of scenes of desolation.
The site www.net-obseques.com , "so that the memory is eternal," proposes the insertion of an announcement of an indefinite time. Fares range from obituaries to 49 euros, on page tribute page souvenir or anniversary of death at 49 euros, with premium pay tribute to the place of a photo album to 69 euros. The site " Memoirs of life "presents itself as the" social network memory ". "Describe the life of the deceased in a place of remembrance, exchange and sharing with text, photos, videos, sound recordings," he suggests, in a space that can be public or private. Dr. Didier Cremniter, psychiatrist, psychoanalyst, who runs a medical emergency team psychological Samu, considers that these virtual sites are a natural evolution in a technical world: "In the global village, death is more experienced as a family phenomenon, it is shared with others, as they did 50 years ago, in villages, when all the people marching in the house of death. "(Source AFP)