After easter holidays, I’m back to publish my best pictures. The following was taken on a running car, at 6 o’clock (winter time) in Friuli’s countryside.

Note how the close-up field appears “dragged” because of motion of the car.

The technical notes are: aperture f/4,9, exposure timing 1/100 seconds (to avoid to make a completely blurred photo), ISO-100.

This effect is made by rifraction of sun light on lens. Any lens creates a similar effect, depends on internal structure of itself.

Anyway are always present circles or ellipses with some colors coming from the principal source of light in the photo, the sun in this case. This creates a nice composition also thanks trees that frame all this effect.

One technical note: ISO-50 is the best for sun photos.

I like to observe the moon not only for scientific interest, but chiefly because she (the moon) is there, and she’s beautiful.
Ok, I confess it: the first reason is that I like cheese… but you don’t say it to nobody, please! Anyway, today I have taken my 16×70mm binoculars, I fixed it on a tripod, and I shot a picture of the moon… easy, isn’t it?

Technical informations about this photo are: an exposure of 1/500 seconds (to attenuate the camera vibration), f/4,9 and ISO-400 (to compensate the speedy exposure), super macro mode (for a good focusing of the ocular).

When only a quarter of our natural satellite is visible (a bit more than first quarter in the picture), I think the moon is more photogenic, because solar light collides obliquely the moon surface, and that give more definition to the lunar formations as craters and seas. Moreover, when one can see the full moon, the moon appear as a flat disc and not as a sphere which she is (the best spherical appearance is during a lunar eclipse).

Now, what are the visible lunar formations? Here a little moon atlas

I labelled some craters and seas and marked with a dot the place where Apollo 11 landed, that is in an area known as ‘Mare Tranquillitas’ or ‘Sea of Tranquillity’. ‘Mare’, is the Latin for ‘Sea’, these seas were named so because early astronomers believed the black patches were indeed land locked seas.

I used the Virtual Moon Atlas free software to make me sure that all lunar formation names was correct.

Why one have to resist temptation to take a picture of a flower? It seems that macrophotography was invented just to capture pollen grains in a picture!

[update: this photo had participated at Photo Friday in 25-11-05 ‘Yellow’ challenge as link n.866]

Focal length was 17mm in Macro mode and so you can see some little yellow pollen grains on white petals. The peculiar light in the photo is due to the moment, during the afternoon of few days ago, when this photo was taken and when the sky was without a cloud and the sun was low on the horizon. It’s important to be able to wait a better light.

Daisy’s scientific name is Bellis perennis, that means always beautiful in latin. In the language of the flowers to present the small B. perennis means: I will think of you. (source thais.it)

To celebrate the upgrading to a new wp release (1.5) and the consequent theme changing, I have the pleasure to publish the following picture taken in the first springlike sunny day of this year.

[update: this photo had participated at Photo Friday in 04-01-05 ‘Worn’ challenge as link n.636]

The image of the tree was taken as a silhouette shooting the photo with the sun light behind the subject. It’s important to underexpose the tree to eliminate any detail in the figure and showing only a clear dark shadow. To realize this I have set time exposure to 1/1000 seconds, f/4.7, and an ISO speed rating of 50.

This picture shows one famous mexican jumping bean that I’ve bought in a stall in front of the University last year. The original name is exactly “brincadores” . It is not really a bean, it just looks like one. And it jumps and vibrates because it contains a crysalis of a future-butterfly.

Here it is the way it works. A small moth lays its eggs on the flower of a shrub called the Sebastiana palmieri. After the egg hatches, the baby caterpillar buries itself in the plant’s developing seed pod. As the pod grows, it closes up around the comatose caterpillar, leaving it trapped inside. Eventually the caterpillar [a crysalis in this step] builds a tiny web, and by yanking on it he makes the pod (bean) jump. Its next stop could be Hong Kong or Atlantic City [or Rome…], wherever the jumping bean marketplace has a paying customer in need of a novelty.

This little circus act of nature takes place exactly twenty days after the first rain of the season, usually in June. The hotter it gets, the more they jump. This will continue for three to six months before the caterpillar mutates into a moth and, flying, finds freedom. (source MexicoFile)

In this macrophotography you can see the pod (on the left) with a hole by which the cocoon (on the right) was coming out. Moth leaves its cocoon breaking it on the bottom side.

This picture was taken in a dark room, obviously without flash, with an exposure time of 1/160 seconds, and moving the flame with a lateral breeze, e.g. coming from an hairdryer. I’m proud to say that this picture hasn’t been graphically manipulated and you can see really the original photo.

Now some physical considerations. A candle flame can be modelized with a plasma of ionized gaseous molecules that, in first approximation, is in thermal self-equilibrium. Then candle radiation is emitted as a black body radiation at a fixed temperature, following the Planck Law.

Moreover Wien’s displacement law gives the wavelength at which the Planck law has the maximum specific intensity. Such law gives

Where lambda is the wavelength in meter and b is a constant equals to 0.002897 Kelvin x meter.

On average, the maximum flame temperature is about 1800 K, so the candle flame is said to have a color temperature of 1800 degrees K. Wien’s law gives for this temperature a wavelength for the maximum of intensity of 1600 nanometer (1.6×10^-6 m) that justify the yellow-red color of the flame with a peak emission in the infrared zone. That explains the heat coming from the candle in comparison to the low luminosity.

A sparrow was hopping close to me in a railway station and when I took my camera he was going on the border of the same marble seat of me… very little was remaining to be made, only to shoot the photo!

After to having shoot the picture I made the following computer correction: contrast, curves (to add contrast in dark areas), +10 in saturation, selection (with an high feather value) of the sparrow’s muzzle with growth in luminosity, color balance increasing cyan and blue. All this to accent the sparrow’s plumage.

Yesterday I went to University, and there I realized this picture. What is this?

[my girlfriend told me it seems an M.C. Escher’s design, e.g. Sky & Water]

In front of Minerva’s statue there is a fountain that, obviously, is filled by water. Such water are moved by wind (a cold wind, believe me), and this motion creates little waves on the water surface. Then this picture is realized shooting with flash about 1 meter above the water level. Interaction between light, water waves and the fountain bottom create this uncommon effect.

Some technical details: an exposure of 1/100 seconds, ISO-200, a focal lenght of 17 mm and f/4,9.