Is Light a Particle or a Wave?

 

Now there is a question that drove many scientists over the hill and completely around the corner.

Einstein really threw in a wrench when he proposed that light consisted of both particles and waves but the kicker was that only one state could be represented at a time as both states collapse even though only one is being "viewed".

It now seems that restriction is a thing of the past.  Scientists at the EPFL (Ecole polytechnique fédérale de Lausanne) have succeeded in capturing light’s wave-particle duality, in a what can only be described as tremendously exciting first-ever image.

Life On Mars?

Wow, well if you are like me, you know what this photo HAS to be, but wish it was what it seems to be:

In Saturn's Shadow

Check out this stunning photo of Saturn taken by the Cassini spacecraft as it loitered in Saturn's shadow.   This photo is truly unique because not only does it show Saturn in a stunning back lit but also it's inner rings, seven of it's moons and home planet Earth as well as Mars and Venus!  The extreme wide angle shot is a mosaic of 323 shots covering a distance of  almost 405,000 miles!

To read the complete article and view the hi rez picture, click this LINK

All-Wavelengths Galactic Center Photo

It seems that beautiful pics of galactic structures are a dime a dozen.  But this one just caught my eye.  

This is what the Wired Blog said about the pic:

• In celebration of the International Year of Astronomy 2009, NASA's Great Observatories -- the Hubble Space Telescope, the Spitzer Space Telescope, and the Chandra X-ray Observatory -- have collaborated to produce an unprecedented image of the central region of our Milky Way galaxy 
• Each telescope's contribution is presented in a different color: Yellow represents the near-infrared observations of Hubble. They outline the energetic regions where stars are being born as well as reveal hundreds of thousands of stars. Red represents the infrared observations of Spitzer. The radiation and winds from stars create glowing dust clouds that exhibit complex structures from compact, spherical globules to long, stringy filaments. Blue and violet represents the X-ray observations of Chandra. X-rays are emitted by gas heated to millions of degrees by stellar explosions and by outflows from the supermassive black hole in the galaxy's center

• It truly is a fascinating image.  What is even more amazing is the fact that the composite photo covers.  This whole photo covers just 1/2 of a degree, about the width of the full moon.

NASA's Flickr sample

NASA has quite literally put a huge amount of photos on their flickr

account. Here is one of the very fine examples!
As an example, here are one of several taken Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency astronaut Aki Hoshide on Expedition 32.

Hoshide was a flight engineer who participated in the mission’s third session of extravehicular activity. During the six-hour, 28-minute spacewalk, Hoshide and NASA astronaut Sunita Williams, flight engineer, completed the installation of a Main Bus Switching Unit that was hampered by a possible misalignment and damaged threads where a bolt must be placed. They also installed a camera on the International Space Station’s robotic arm, Canadarm2. The bright sun is visible at left.

I know...Not BMU Material...Couldn't Resist

As a photographer for 40 years and a lover of the reflection, plus add that for many years a photo editor, well I know things can get out of hand and overlooked. But this beauty is beyond comprehension....Was this like the Disney Littlest Mermaid debacle? Just couldn't resist, I am weak....yada yada..come on...it's FUNNY... Unfortunate mistake?  possible...a pissed of photoshopper?  I'd buy that.

Digitized Photos from Gemini

From 1965 to 1966 NASA flew Project Gemini. The Gemini test bed was designed to test hardware the astronauts would used to get to the moon back again. Several images from that period were chosen by the Smithsonian Air and Space museum for display. This photo and several others were chosen from Arizona State University's March To The Moon site. On chosen was the iconic photo of Ed White, taking the first American space walk. White died tragically in the Apollo 1 incident with his two other crew menbers Chaffee and Grissom.

ISS in front of the Moon

Here is a very interesting shot from French photographer Thierry Legault. That tiny speck you see in front of the moon is the International Space Station. What makes this shot truly amazing is that the station is traveling nearly five miles a second relative to Earth. At that speed Legault had only 1/2 a second to get the shot. As you can see, he did so wonderfully!

If you haven't found it yet, the ISS is just just to the right and slightly below the centerline.

check out the Dvice article for a pass in front of the sun as well.

Saturn Au Natural

In this age of punching everything we see up with this or that enhancement or multi-spectral photos that really, when you come to think about it, don't have a whole lot to do with the original, it's nice to see something that is truly stunning in its' natural state.

Take for instance this photo taken by the Cassini spacecraft in July, showing Saturn as a glowing beauty. This composite photo released yesterday shows what Saturn looks like in its natural state, without any enhancements or coloration.

I have looked through my own scope and seen something very much like what is shown here. It truly is every bit as amazing as this photo shows. Not everything needs a fist full of filters and
false colors.

Jeff Bridges does great B&W Iron Man photos

IO9 has a link of interest: It seems Jeff Bridges found time to take a ton of gorgeous black-and-white pics of the filming of the armored-avenger movie. Including a peek inside Stan Winston studios, and Bridges having his head shaved to play Obadiah Stane. No question that his part in the movie was an example of top notch scene stealing, however the photography is equally as good. Click the article title for a series of great behind the scenes photos.

Sharpest image of Jupiter ever taken from Earth

Not science fiction but just pure science that make you go wow! Boing Boing reports of an effort to take the highest resolution photo of the planet Jupiter. It was snapped with a telescope using special adaptive optics to reduce fuzz. From National Geographic: [the image was] captured using a new computer-assisted process and a 27-foot (8.2-meter) telescope in Chile, the result is sharp enough to show features as small as 180 miles (300 kilometers) across... ESO comments on how the image was obtained: This false colour photo is the combination of a series of images taken over a time span of about 20 minutes, through three different filters.

Click the link below or the photo of Jupiter to see the full
hi rez photo of Jupiter

Cassini Pinpoints Source Of Jets On Saturn's Moon Enceladus

It's no secret that I am a big Cassini fan. Every picture from this craft extends our knowledge base of the Saturn. Truth be told though, the vast majority of people disregard the shear distance and technological wizardry that is involved with controlling and receiving pictures from the craft. As a photographer, I am wowed by many of the photos, but these last few of Enceladus and the effort involved in taking high resolution frames. Most of Cassini's pictures are taken with a wide field of view where a little motion relative to the craft are easily compensated for. It's this latest pass that really had me saying "you have got to be kidding me!" Because Cassini was moving so fast and so close to the moon's surface, the effect was, in the words of controller Paul Helfenstein "skeet shooting". He describes it this way.

• "The challenge is equivalent to trying to capture a sharp, unsmeared picture of a distant roadside billboard with a telephoto lens out the window of a speeding car."
• Helfenstein said that from Cassini's point of view, "Enceladus was streaking across the sky so quickly that the spacecraft had no hope of tracking any feature on its surface. Our best option was to point the spacecraft far ahead of Enceladus, spin the spacecraft and camera as fast as possible in the direction of Enceladus' predicted path, and let Enceladus overtake us at a time when we could match its motion across the sky, snapping images along the way."

Amazing.... and even more exciting is the fact that they managed to catch the areas they were looking for which was the geysers that had been documented earlier. The article is a wealth of information.
<- check it out here ->

Safe For Work Eye Candy

A cooperative venture between NASA and the Internet Archive, NASA Images is a fast, efficient resource for space and Earth science images. While all the images come with fascinating information about the photo or art, their beauty is often the highlight.

The image viewer at the site is not completely user friendly, but with all the images being downloadable, that isn't a serious issue. With tens of thousands of images available and a good search option, it's worth a look.

<Nasaimages.org>

Odd things in the sky! photos from Dave

These are some of the devices that Dave mentioned in this weeks show (#80) Very odd looking well.....satellites? They are not aircraft but are they satellites? If you haven't listened to this week's interview with Dave, take a listen....I haven't got a clue what these things are.

and for the person who said single pixel cameras were impossible!

Made up of millions of photodetectors, the sensors in today's digital cameras don't come cheap, and they don't go easy on the juice either. At Rice University in Houston, Texas, developers are determined to make a single-pixel camera that will be able to capture high-quality images and turn wasteful million-pixel cameras into a thing of the past. Using a single photodetector would also simplify the process of swapping sensors, hinting at cameras that can switch into ultraviolet or infrared modes with ease.

Mirrors are used to build up the image. Light is taken in through one lens, bounced off a digital micromirror device, through a second lens and onto a single photodetector.

Currently still in the experimental stage, the single-pixel camera is about the size of a suitcase.

Retirement Home for Super Heroes

here is a totally irreverent look at how a normal day at the "home" would look like if it were populated with superheroes. By way of Artist Martin Margulies (click photo or article title to enlarge picture)