Category Archives: Panorama

January 6, 2015 · 22:14

Panoramas From Space!

I’ve been posting panorama pictures that I’ve taken, the newer ones from my iPhone 6+ which has a built-in feature to take them, the older ones generated by software from dozens of individual frames taken by a DSLR.

But before that, there was film…

When the Apollo astronauts got out on the lunar surface during our six landings there, one of the first things they did was to take a survey panorama, using their 70mm Hasselblad cameras. They did it just like I do (maybe that’s where I learned it, back in my lost youth), overlapping frames as you turn.

A group at the Lunar & Planetary Institute has put together those panoramas and they’re yours to peruse, along with all of the original 70mm frames.

JSC2004e52777Photo from Lunar & Planetary Institute, NASA, and Universities Space Research Association

Apollo 17 took fourteen panoramas. This is the “preview” file, i.e., the small, low-resolution version. If you want to see any of the full-sized, high definition files, visit the site.

Then there was the release today of a new panorama from the Hubble Space Telescope, the image of the Andromeda Galaxy being the largest panorama ever made from Hubble images. Over 100,000,000 stars can be seen, so go get your big monitor, load up the huge & zoomable image (if you can get through, their server seems to be a bit overloaded at the moment), put some Pink Floyd on, and go visit Andromeda for an hour or two!

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Filed under Astronomy, Panorama, Photography, Space

December 30, 2014 · 22:16

The Approaching Cold Front

(Late editing note: OK, I was just going to post two really, really cool pictures I took today, but then I got into this whole THING, but if you just want the cool pictures, they’re still there at the bottom. Sorry. *not sorry*)

It does get cold cold here occasionally in La-La Land (not just that wussy cold) and the next couple of days fall into that category. It won’t be too bad down by the beaches (that whole huge body of water heat-sink thing) but here in the valleys it’s expected to get down into the low 30’s and upper 20’s. (I know, my New England friends and family, you go whole months of the year praying for that as your high for the day, but I said “cold cold,” not “HOLY CRAP cold.”)

The timing of this “cold snap” means that the usual New Year’s Day message from the Pasadena Chamber of Commerce (otherwise known as the Rose Parade) won’t be, “Look at how great it is in SoCal where it’s in the 80’s and we’re walking around in shorts and Hawaiian shirts!” Watch for it, there are going to be some very chilly folks in those sleeping bags along Colorado Boulevard come Thursday morning.

A bit further outside of SoCal, they’re expecting a couple of inches of snow in Las Vegas??!! Not only is that going to make New Year’s Eve celebrations there more “interesting” than normal, but the millions of people going and coming from Lost Wages either by air or by I-15 over the mountains will have a whole new adventure to remember. It’s going to be a world-class mess, so stay at home like we are, pull up a comfy chair, pop some popcorn, and watch the chaos.

For the record, the current, “New Year’s Eve Eve” conditions on that I-15 Cajon Pass traffic link look like this:

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That’s soooooooooo much red for sooooooooo many miles – I don’t even want to imagine.

While we almost always get some snow in the local mountains (which go up to 8,000 and 9,000 feet, thus the ski resorts just a two-hour drive from downtown LA) and on the I-5 “Grapevine” (which goes up to 4,160 feet) heading north to Sacramento and San Francisco, but it’s really rare to see snow down on the ground in the LA basin or any of the major valleys.

I’ve seen it once, when we were living in Granada Hills, at about 1,000 feet elevation, back in about 1988 or 1989. We got maybe a half-inch, I made a “snowman” in the front yard that was about the size of three marshmallows.

This storm probably won’t drop snow here (we’re now at about 770 feet) but it will bring snow down to about 2,000 feet, which means that the hills around the valleys will get a dusting.

Meanwhile, we’re also getting ferocious winds, currently 14 to 34 knots in the area, with gusts even higher. So I had better get this posted quickly, before the power goes out!

As Bill Cosby said, “I told you that story so that I could tell you this one.”

This cold front and storm was just coming down from the north as I was leaving the CAF hanger in Camarillo this afternoon and it looked really cool:

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(Remember to click to see the full-sized panorama.)

But as cool as that was out on the ramp, when I got out to the parking lot on the south side, I saw this, which may be one of the best pictures I’ve ever taken:

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And THAT’s why I’m not out looking for Comet Lovejoy tonight!

 

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Filed under Los Angeles, Panorama, Photography, Weather

December 25, 2014 · 21:30

Christmas Lights On The Ground & Things In The Sky

Christmas Night, 2014. We don’t have quite as many lights up this year as we have in a couple of previous years — but we still have more up than everyone else on the block combined, so we’ll call that a win.

Going out to take pictures, it is not lost on me that given a bit of  checking and planning on the timing, there might be other objects to get into the picture with the lights on the house.

Like an ISS pass overhead.

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I was hoping that it would be an “ascending” pass, going from southwest to northeast, so that I could see it rising over the house. No such luck. It’s a “descending” pass, going from northwest to southeast, which my my house means it’s right up in a whole block of street lights.

Here you can see it heading up from left to right. Obviously, trying to “hide” from the nearest streetlight in the shadow of a tree doesn’t help if the tree is covered in Christmas lights…

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But once it got overhead a bit more (and I moved to a spot with slightly less exposure to the street lights) it was nice and clear. Again, heading from left to right, you can see it passing into darkness just as it gets to the top of that tree. See how the streak of the ISS’s reflection suddenly starts to get thinner and lighter just before the tree? It never came out into view behind the tree, having gone into the Earth’s shadow. (Click on the image to see it full sized.)

But even better, there was another satellite passing from the upper right (due south) to the lower left (due north)! That’s a polar orbit. This satellite was also clearly visible to the naked eye.

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Back to looking at the lights, low in the west was a four-day-old crescent moon, high above the house.

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From across the street…

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…at which point I saw a third satellite going overhead, seen here from just below center heading due east (bottom left).

If you’re out in the country on a clear night just after sunset and know what to look for, you can see dozens of satellites. Here in LA, with the haze and light pollution, it’s rare to see two unless something’s docking or just leaving ISS and you see them both chasing each other. To see three independent objects in one night — that’s lucky!

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IMG_6736Finally, using the iPhone’s “panorama” mode while standing in the middle of the yard, it looks like this.

I hope all of you had a great holiday, whatever it is that you might be celebrating!

(Note for the next few nights — ISS passes are expected in the evenings over much of Europe and the US. Check the NASA site or Heavens Above to enter your location and see if you have any sightings possible in your area!)

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Filed under Astronomy, Christmas Lights, Panorama, Photography, Space

December 14, 2014 · 22:27

Forty-Two Years Ago Today

On December 14, 1972, at 05:40:56 GMT, the final lunar EVA ended. It was the last of three moonwalks (EVAs) done by Gene Cernan and Harrison Schmitt over the course of their seventy-five hours on the lunar surface at Taurus-Littrow.

Shortly before the official ending time of that final EVA, as Captain Cernan prepared to leave the final footprints on the moon and climb the ladder into the Lunar Module, he had these words to say:

As I take man’s last step from the surface, back home for some time to come (but we believe not too long into the future), I’d like to just say what I believe history will record: That America’s challenge of today has forged man’s destiny of tomorrow. And, as we leave the Moon at Taurus-Littrow, we leave as we came and, God willing, as we shall return: with peace and hope for all mankind.

The final liftoff from the moon occurred at 22:54:37 GMT and was shown on live television, the only liftoff from the moon ever seen. A color television camera on the Apollo 17 lunar rover was remote controlled by NASA in Houston and the rover had been left parked so that the camera faced the Lunar Module. At the 30:47 mark of this video, you can see the liftoff for yourself.

WARNING: For the sake of your blood pressure and sanity, **DO NOT** read the comments on YouTube for this and other Apollo moon landing videos. The trolls, brain-dead cretins, and conspiracy theorists have taken over. It will just piss you off to realize that there are people out there who are really, honestly, and sincerely that freakin’ stupid.

I don’t know which fact I consider more depressing, that forty-two years down the road we haven’t gone back to the moon and have no plans to go back, or that so many people among us are so ignorant, blind, deranged, and incapable of understanding or even looking at the mountain of evidence that proves that they’re wrong.

The universe is a wonderful place, and we have on occasion done some amazing things. It is often depressing to encounter those who can not or will not see the wonder and beauty of those things, but instead choose voluntarily to live in a shell of fear and ignorance of their own making.

I don’t often quote The Bible, but Matthew 5:5 says, “Blessed are the meek: for they shall inherit the earth.” Yes, they will. The meek, fearful, and ignorant will someday have the Earth all to themselves. The rest of us will go to the stars.

 

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Filed under Astronomy, Freakin' Idiots!, Panorama, Space

November 29, 2014 · 22:39

Panorama: Edwards Air Force Base Flight Test Museum, California

I have a new tool/toy to use/play with, an iPhone 6 Plus. I’ve got a couple of stories to tell about it (later) but two of the ultra cool things is has are: 1) a really good quality built-in camera, and; 2) the ability to take panoramic pictures.

I’ve been playing with this for years using stitching software. (Search for “panorama” and you’ll see the seven that I’ve posted in the last four months.) Stitching can be done with as little as two pictures, by I usually use anywhere from thirteen to seventy-two pictures. When you’re using a DSLR with 8 to 10 megapixels images, allowing for overlap, you still end up with images of (respectively) 9,307 x 3,693 (34 megapixels) up to 76,534 x 3448 (263  megapixels). You can also spend a fair amount of time processing all of those photos through the software

Naturally, I was curious about the quality and ease of use in the iPhone 6 panorama mode. I found that it’s really easy, although it’s much easier to end up with really odd artifacts (something else to play with) of anything moving as you pan the camera. There’s no processing – you just download them off of the camera. The quality was pretty good (on the very far right you can read the plane’s ID on the information plate), a little below the mid-range for the stitched panoramas, but with far fewer artifacts of the kind that show up when two adjoining pictures don’t quite match up during stitching.

This panoramic picture was taken last week at the end of Day Two of the NASA Social at the Armstrong Flight Research Center. (Click to enlarge.) We finished the day at sunset at the Edwards Air Force Base Flight Test Museum.

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This panorama comes from a single image of 13,596 x 2,992 pixels (41.7 megapixels) taken with an iPhone Six Plus.

I was standing in the middle of a huge half-circle of planes, stretching from the:

  • B-52 BUFF way off in the distance at the far left, to the
  • UC-45J “Expeditor”
  • N.F.11 “Meteor”
  • F-84F “Thunderstreak”
  • CT-39A “Sabreliner”
  • Sikorsky H-3C helicopter
  • F-16 “Fighting Falcon”
  • F-111A “Aardvark”
  • NF-4C “Phantom II”
  • YA-7D “Corsair II”
  • about half of the T-28B “Trojan” on the far right.

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Filed under Flying, Panorama, Photography, Travel

November 10, 2014 · 21:30

Panorama: Dayton, Ohio

I find there’s a lot to like about the American midwest. In particular, I like a lot of things around central Ohio. I like the fall colors. Combine all of that…

This panoramic picture was taken in October, 2009. (Click to enlarge.) My kids had been wonderful enough to send me to a favorite convention (Ohio Valley Filk Fest) in Columbus for my Christmas present. My son was able to meet me there for a great weekend. While there we also went to see the National Museum of the United States Air Force in Dayton, at Wright-Patterson AFB. It was a couple of weeks after the peak fall foliage — that time when it’s not quite all brown yet, but not quite still ablaze in fall colors. The last gasp of fall, with winter on the horizon. (Literally, from the looks of it.)

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This panorama comes from seventeen images of 3888 x 2592 pixels (10 megapixels each) taken with a Canon Rebel XTi DSLR, combined into an image of 37,158 x 2576 pixels (95.7 megapixels).

It was a grey and gloomy day, and shows well just how flat it can be in this part of the country. Get up on a bluff that’s a hundred feet high and you can just about see into the next state. I might end up liking some place like Ohio, Indiana, or Illinois, but I might miss the mountains at the same time.

 

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Filed under Family, Panorama, Photography, Travel, Weather

October 21, 2014 · 22:06

Panorama: Las Cruces, New Mexico

A favorite place of mine in the desert southwest is the city of Las Cruces, New Mexico. I’ve been through there several times on cross country trips (I-10 goes right through it) and I went to a wonderful conference there about five years ago.

Coming from the west (i.e., Los Angeles and Phoenix) a dozen miles or so out of town you come over a ridge onto a long downgrade with the whole town laid out before you. About halfway down, there’s a rest stop, where you can get a marvelous view of the city and surrounding areas. (Going west and climbing up this grade in 1980 I looked back and saw the whole valley filled with a thunderstorm and a brilliant rainbow — but no pictures taken, just a fabulous, colorful memory.)

This panoramic picture was taken in May, 2010. (Click to enlarge.) I was on my way from Los Angeles to Mississippi to deliver my son’s truck to him so he could use it while he was stationed in Keesler Air Force Base for a few weeks.

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This panorama comes from twenty-six images of 2304 x 3456 pixels (8 megapixels each) taken with a Canon Rebel XT DSLR, combined into an image of 29418 x 3413 pixels (100.4 megapixels). With nothing in the immediate foreground (especially nothing moving) to confuse the stitching software and a lot of big, high-quality images with lots of overlap at the edges, the result is a really, really nice panorama covering about 200°. Blow it up on your screen, look at the Mesilla Valley full of farmland, the Organ Mountains off in the distance (declared a National Monument in May, 2014), the Rio Grande running through it all.

This is good, but if you want to see fantastic, a real out of this world panorama, both in terms of quality and location (literally), take a look at the latest from the Opportunity rover on Mars! Not bad for a robot that’s now in its 3,923rd day of its 90-day mission.

 

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Filed under Astronomy, Family, Panorama, Photography, Space, Travel

September 27, 2014 · 20:39

Panorama: UC Davis Picnic Day, California

One of my daughters went to the University of California at Davis. UC Davis has a wonderful campus and some great traditions that we got to learn about. One of the best is “Picnic Day” in the spring, full of parades, activities, food, and fun. Of these, my favorite was the “Battle Of The Bands,” held in the amphitheater-like park next to the river that runs through the campus. The year I was there the participants were the UC Davis band-ah, the UC Irvine Anteater band (my alma mater and that of my other daughter), the UC Berkeley band, the “legendary” Stanford Marching Band, and I think one other that I can’t recall. Whatever. It went on for hours and was fantastic. This panoramic picture was taken in April, 2011. (Click to enlarge.)

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This panorama comes from seven images of 2304 x 3456 pixels (8 megapixels) taken with a Canon Rebel XT DSLR, combined into an image of 8924 x 3337 pixels (29.7 megapixels).

If you get to go to Picnic Day, have fun at the Battle of the Bands (remember to bring sunscreen!), and say hello to Gunrock for me!

 

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Filed under Family, Music, Panorama, Photography, Travel

September 2, 2014 · 21:56

Panorama: Capitol Rose Garden, California

At the California state capitol building in Sacramento, there are some lovely rose gardens and memorials to the fallen veterans from several wars. This panoramic picture was taken there in June, 2013. (Click to enlarge.)

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This 360° picture combines twenty images of 2592 x 3888 pixels (10 megapixels) taken with a Canon Rebel XTi DSLR into an image of 20872 x 4033 pixels (84.1 megapixels).

As a side note, I ran the Panorama Factory software manually to create this image and decided to leave the image untrimmed at the top and bottom. (For comparison, this image from the Camarillo air show last week was trimmed.) The major difference is that an untrimmed image will give you some information about where the different frames are matched up, how much they overlap, and how distorted the software had to make them to fit “flat” with the other images.

I sort of like it this way. Others prefer the “neater” trimmed look. Any preferences or comments?

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Filed under Panorama, Photography, Travel

August 24, 2014 · 22:26

Panorama: Camarillo Airport, California

Today was yet another wonderful day at the annual Wings Over Camarillo airshow. Perfect weather, “clear and a million,” low 70’s, a little breeze — you couldn’t possibly ask for anything better.

As was the case yesterday, ’twas busy, busy, busy. My feet and knees are sore, my neck, face, and arms are a bit pink, and I’m probably a bit dehydrated (never a good thing when one has a history of kidney stones), but the show went off really well, as did our part in it. It’s with a great deal of satisfaction in both my organization and in my own efforts that I’ll sleep well, preferably for about eighteen hours, but more likely for six or seven. (Sometimes being a grown-up sucks.)

This panoramic picture was taken from atop a set of rolling stairs on the CAF site, about twenty minutes before the gates opened up to the public yesterday. (Click to enlarge.) Seeing as how I had a nice, high spot to shoot from, it’s a 360° panorama, starting and ending with the control tower.

2014_08_23_0839_8229_To_8300_Camarillo_Air_Show (compressed)

This picture combines seventy-two images of 2304 x 3456 pixels (7.9 megapixels) taken with a Canon Rebel XT DSLR into an image of 76534 x 3448 pixels (263 megapixels). Because JPEG images cannot be any wider than 65,550 pixels, the final JPEG image was reduced down to 65500 x 2950 pixels (193 megapixels).

With great detail comes a need for great computing power — this panorama took fifty minutes to process and create.

A few comments about the image, if I may, moving from left to right:

  • Something funky happened just to the right of the luxury camper van and to the left of the green forklift — the BBQ is seen twice, as are the houses on the hills in the distance.
  • The first plane you see close-up is our beautiful PBJ, a B-25 variant flown by the Marines in World War II. Ours is about 75% restored and we hope to have it flying by Spring 2015.
  • The very large yellow plane to the right of the PBJ is “Big Panda”, a Russian Anatov-2 operated by the CAF Wing in Riverside, California. In the foreground in front of it you can see our P-51.
  • The area around “China Doll”, our huge C-46 transport plane, and the blue SNJ-4 trainer is also a bit munged up by the software. It may have something to do with the big metal stanchion in the immediate foreground — the software may have forced a match of two images on that, while mis-aligning the background with the two planes. This could probably be overridden manually in the software, but 22:20 already, plus two long days, plus fifty minutes more to re-process… You do the math.
  • The big, dark blue plane in front of our left (east) hanger is our Hellcat.
  • In between the hangers and in front of the right (west) hanger you can see the effect of people moving in the half-second or so between shots. They turn into “ghosts.”
  • In our right (west) hanger is the prototype Flying Wing from the Chino Planes of Fame. It’s the only one flying in the world. (I believe the Smithsonian also has one, I could be wrong, but theirs doesn’t fly.)
  • Just visible in the right (west) hanger is our Bearcat.

Questions? Comments? Were you there?

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Filed under Airshows, CAF, Flying, Panorama, Photography