Not ’cause of winter temperatures, but this blog is frozen from this moment on. Because a week ago I found a new photoblog “in qualche angolo dell’universo” (in any part of universe) that you are all invited to visit.
I hope this change can re-improve my photo-life.

From now PhotoniKBlog has an Flickr account where I’ll upload some of my favorite pictures when these are slightly too much numerous
First set of these are for the celebration at Circo Massimo (Rome) for the Italy’s win of Football World Championship 2006 in Germany, here.

Ok, it isn’t really a wolf, but it keeps all of the forefather’s nobility. It is a Siberian Husky living in Claut, a mountain village in Carnia, Friuli, Italy. It has been bred to be a sledge dog and I had photographed it during a beautiful howl.

This morning in Brasil, a large part of Africa, Turkey and Russia was been visible a total solar eclipse. When a total eclipse occurs, there are some zone on earth (like Rome, exactly) where the solar eclipse is partial. This picture was captured during this partial phase of the eclipse on the flat roof of the phisics’ building at the University ‘La Sapienza’ with some friends of mine.

To realize this picture I used a orange solar filter, a tripod and I set the ISO speed to 400, a time exposure of 1/80 seconds and f/4,9.

This experience has remembered to me, with a lot of wistfulness, the total eclipse of 11 August, 1999 I saw in Hungary.

I observed, with my friend Costantino Sigismondi and his students, the occultation of BY Cancri by Saturn and its rings on 2006 January 25. This star is a delta Scuti variable with a very small amplitude, is catalogued as HIP 42705 or SAO 98054 and its brightness is 7.91-7.92 mag. This star belongs to M44, also called Praesepe cluster (Latin for “manger”).
I have shot some picture of Saturn like this:

thanks of Costantino’s reflector telescope and realized with a time exposure of 1/10 seconds at 400 ISO and f/4.9.
Later, with a longer time exposure (1 second at 400 ISO and f/2,8), I’ve captured the image of 3 Saturn’s satellites and of 2 star of the Praesepe cluster, including BY Cancri, labelled with its SAO number, barely visible out of Saturn disk:

Of course the elongated shape of Saturn and the line-like stars are due to the Earth rotation and, consequently, to the rotation of the celestial sphere.
For further infomation on this occultation, I suggest to visite the IOTA page on this event.

My friend Giulia was traveling by train on the seat in front of me when I’ve captured this photo (exactly 8 days ago).
Her thoughts was lost not merely in the reading of a magazine, but they was running through the space while her reflection was merged in the landscape dragged by the train motion.
This picture evokes peace because of the transparency of her ethereal image, but she evokes also worrying because of the message of restlessness provided by the speed of the train.

This picture wasn’t graphically manipulated, and it keeps some blur on the window and some unaesthetic glints come from a carriage’s lamp. I’ve chose to keep this impefections to preserve the orginal atmosphere of the moment.

This photo shows a sunset on the Adriatic sea, it was taken from a running train heading Trieste (in the North-East of Italy), and I love its hue homogeneity.

For publishing this picture I have before downloaded it from my digicamera, I have rotated the frame and I have cropped it. Nothing else graphics correction was applied to this photo.
And I love that too

In occasion of the asteroidal occultation of Rhodope over Regulus, on 19 Octorber 2005 (visible in a narrowed stripe along Europe), I shot this picture from Vibo Valentia (Calabria, Italy) of Lion costellation, with an exposure timing of 15 seconds:

Note that, although it was partially clouded, are visible all main Lion’s stars:

For a description of this astronomical event see “Occultazione asteroidale: Regulus vs. Rhodope” (in italian language), my article (with Costantino Sigismondi, in english) or the IOTA site.

This summer I met a nice cat in a street in the North-East of Italy. This cat:

Using the flash, light was reflected through the iris. Probably a difference of angle of refraction between two eyes creates different colors.

Here is an old picture of a sunset near my house. It was taken in April but it still preserve all its unchanged charm

To capture this image of the Sun I set an exposure timing of 1/2000 seconds, ISO 50, an aperture of f/4.7. The only digital correction I made was a greater color saturation. The rest was made by the atmosphere.