Incredible photos from refurbished Hubble telescope

This is really a treat. Go to this link and see ten photos taken by the recently refurbished Hubble telescope, along with detailed commentary. The image below is one of the ten. It depicts the "Butterfly Nebula." The inset photo is of barred spiral galaxy NGC 6217. Image by NASA (public domain) Here's the description of the above photo, from NASA:

A dying star that was once about five times the mass of the Sun is at the center of this fury. It has ejected its envelope of gases and is now unleashing a stream of ultraviolet radiation that is making the cast-off material glow. NGC 6302 lies within our Milky Way galaxy, roughly 3,800 light-years away in the constellation Scorpius. The glowing gas is the star’s outer layers, expelled over about 2,200 years. The "butterfly" stretches for more than two light-years, which is about half the distance from the Sun to the nearest star, Alpha Centauri. The central star itself cannot be seen, because it is hidden within a doughnut-shaped ring of dust, which appears as a dark band pinching the nebula in the center.

Continue ReadingIncredible photos from refurbished Hubble telescope

Tour de Lafayette bicycle race photos

Watching bicycists racing is awesome. The Tour de Lafayette bicycle race was held tonight, about two miles away from my house. My wife and two daughters (9 and 11) rode our lighted bikes through the dark to watch parts two img_93341races. We brought our little consumer grade camera with us (the Canon SD1100SI) to see if we could squeeze a good photo out of fast bicycles racing through the still night. There was lighting at each of the corners of the 1 mile square course, so we parked ourselves under one of those lights. Most of our photos were total blurs, even when we tried panning with the bikes as they blew by us from left to right. I did manage the photo on the right, though. The winning photo of the night, however, belonged to my 11-year old daughter JuJu, who at first thought she had let the pack get too far in front when she snapped her photo (below). It's a neat effect: speed, darkness and well-tuned athletes. You'll have to imagine the cool night air and the gracious encouragement of the spectators. Image by JuJu Vieth Click on these photos for larger versions.

Continue ReadingTour de Lafayette bicycle race photos

Bugs and their bites

I cleaned out lots of weeds growing in a corner of the yard five days ago, but now I'm paying the price. I've got lots of chigger bites on one of my arms, and do the EVER itch! While looking up recommended treatments--there's not much you can do other than wait and use hydrocortisone cream--I decided to find a photo of a chigger. I found a terrific photo, and much more. If you want to see some excellent photos showing what the most common and most dangerous bugs look like, along with photos of what their bites look like, visit this slideshow by WebMD. You'll see chiggers, mosquitos, brown recluse spiders, black widows, scabies, red ants and much more. It's called the "Bad Bugs Slideshow," which stirs in an unnecessary moral dimension to the topic! But, again, the photos are really well done. You might be interested even if you aren't currently covered with bug bites.

Continue ReadingBugs and their bites