[imatfaal]

Mmm - there's a lot of debate in the ether about authenticity.  the photographer has defended himself and described his kit.  he is threatening to put the original raw file on web - this would allow much more detailed checking.  he has admitted to some renormalisation and auto-levelling which would explain some of the dodgy colours.

[RD]

he is threatening to put the original raw file on web - this would allow much more detailed checking.

Please give us a butchers at the out-takes too: where the shutter was pressed a little too late or too early,
 he should have plenty of them if this is not a composite image, (or did he get the timing right first time ?  [] ). 

[neilep]

   

A Sheep in Front of the Moon
Credit & Copyright: Lien Nietspe





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Bonafide non Doctored genuine photo !


If ewe look closely at the Moon, ewe will see a large woolly quadrupedal legged ruminant in front of it. Well, not always. OK....... hardly ever. But if ewe are patient and prepared to wait for a few days with your camera attached to a Moon tracker in a place where sheep are known to pass, ewe might catch a good photograph of it.  The above image was taken tewe weeks ago over North London Flying Sheep Farm using an exposure time of 1/250th of a second and, in the words of the photographer, "a nerve of wool".

[Geezer]

That's Neil alright - Neil Armstrong!  You can't full me Sheepy.

[RD]

   
A Sheepy in Front of the Moon
Credit & Copyright: RD

[attachment id=0 msg=325073]

Bonafide Doctored photo !

[Geezer]

It must be legit! Look, the contrail extends well beyond the Moon.

[neilep]

Apostles Near Melbourne, Australia


October 01, 2010

TwelveApostles
Photographer: Ray Boren
Summary Author: Ray Boren


2010-10-01_172636.jpg (110.94 kB . 703x451 - viewed 10030 times)

 Apostles Near Melbourne, Australia

October 01, 2010

TwelveApostles
Photographer: Ray Boren
Summary Author: Ray Boren

Southwest of Melbourne, along Australia’s Great Ocean Road, stand a series of off-shore rock towers called the Twelve Apostles. Now, though, only eight remain. These sea stacks, up to 148 feet (44 m) in height, are the eroded remnants of Miocene limestone headlands and caves

[neilep]

Hubble's Lagoon
Credit: NASA, ESA, Hubble Space Telescope


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BIGGY PICCY HERE

 Like brush strokes on a canvas, ridges of color seem to flow across this scene. But here, the canvas is nearly 3 light-years wide and the colors map emission from ionized gas in the Lagoon Nebula, recorded by the Hubble Space Telescope's Advanced Camera for Surveys. Also known as M8, the nebula is a star forming region about 5,000 light-years distant in the constellation Sagittarius. Hubble's remarkably sharp, close-up view reveals undulating shapes sculpted by the energetic light and winds from the region's new born stars. Of course, the Lagoon nebula is a popular target for earthbound skygazers, too. It features a prominent dust lane and bright hourglass shape in small telescopes with wider fields of view.

[neilep]

Io in True Color
Credit: Galileo Project, JPL, NASA



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The strangest moon in the Solar System is bright yellow. This picture, an attempt to show how Io would appear in the "true colors" perceptible to the average human eye, was taken in 1999 July by the Galileo spacecraft that orbited Jupiter from 1995 to 2003. Io's colors derive from sulfur and molten silicate rock. The unusual surface of Io is kept very young by its system of active volcanoes. The intense tidal gravity of Jupiter stretches Io and damps wobbles caused by Jupiter's other Galilean moons. The resulting friction greatly heats Io's interior, causing molten rock to explode through the surface. Io's volcanoes are so active that they are effectively turning the whole moon inside out. Some of Io's volcanic lava is so hot it glows in the dark.

[neilep]

Azul Odd Rock


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Photographer: Luis Argerich
Summary Author: Luis Argerich; Jim Foster

The egg shaped rock shown above was found in what is referred to as the Azul Sierras of the Buenos Aires Province in Argentina. It stands approximately 15 feet (about 5 m) high and is about 30 feet (9 m) wide. This range is part of the ancient Tandilia Mountain System that begins near Olavarria, Argentina and descends eastward into the Atlantic Ocean between Mar del Plata and Miramar -- two popular coastal cities in northeastern Argentina. The Tandilia system contains some of the oldest rock formations on Earth, dating from the Precambrian period. Tens of millions of years ago, this system was part of a cordillera that was higher than the Himalayas. Today, however, the highest peak is just 1,804 feet (550 m) high. How this particular rock acquired its shape and how it was placed in its current position is a mystery. Photo taken on September 11, 2010.

[RD]

... How this particular rock acquired its shape and how it was placed in its current position is a mystery.

It reminds me of one of these which are formed by erosion ...


Omak_lake_balancing_rock.jpg (85.49 kB . 800x533 - viewed 11034 times)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Balancing_rock

[or a glacial erratic]

[neilep]

Circumzenithal Arc Over Tracy, California

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TRACYCIRCUMZENITHAL
Photographer: Isolde Irene
Summary Author: Isolde Irene; Jim Foster

Having a chance to see colorful arcs like the circumzenithal arc shown above should be reason enough to look up every once in awhile. This beauty was taken from Tracy, California on September 28, 2010 at 6:15 p.m. It was visible for approximately thirty minutes. The Sun was dipping toward the horizon and the circumzenithal arc was positioned nearly overhead, in command of the sky. These graceful arcs form in hexagonal ice crystals found in cirrus clouds; sunlight enters the upper basal face of the plate-shaped crystals and exits through a side face.

[CliffordK]

Hubble's Lagoon
Credit: NASA, ESA, Hubble Space Telescope

Like brush strokes on a canvas, ridges of color seem to flow across this scene.

People were complaining about the plane in front of the moon...

What about the Hubble Photos...
The "details", of course are real...  as real as they could be.
But the colors aren't.  They do give a spectacular ART effect.

The photos aren't taken in white light, but are composites of UV, IR, overlays of various filters...  all "false colors" as far as I can tell.

Here is a quote from one of the Nebula pages:
http://www.spaceimages.com/lagnebdet.html

These color-coded images are the combination of individual exposures taken in July and September, 1995 with Hubble’s Wide Field and Planetary Camera 2 (WFPC2) through three narrow-band filters (red light — ionized sulphur atoms, blue light — double ionized oxygen atoms, green light — ionized hydrogen).

[neilep]

Zeta Oph: Runaway Star
Credit: NASA, JPL-Caltech, WISE Team




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Like a ship plowing through cosmic seas, runaway star Zeta Ophiuchi produces the arcing interstellar bow wave or bow shock seen in this stunning infrared portrait from the WISE spacecraft. In the false-color view, bluish Zeta Oph, a star about 20 times more massive than the Sun, lies near the center of the frame, moving toward the top at 24 kilometers per second. Its strong stellar wind precedes it, compressing and heating the dusty interstellar material and shaping the curved shock front. Around it are clouds of relatively undisturbed material. What set this star in motion? Zeta Oph was likely once a member of a binary star system, its companion star was more massive and hence shorter lived. When the companion exploded as a supernova catastrophically losing mass, Zeta Oph was flung out of the system. About 460 light-years away, Zeta Oph is 65,000 times more luminous than the Sun and would be one of the brighter stars in the sky if it weren't surrounded by obscuring dust. The WISE image spans about 1.5 degrees or 12 light-years at the estimated distance of Zeta Ophiuchi.

[neilep]

Iridescent Clouds from the Top of the World Highway
Credit & Copyright: Charles Stankievech & Sophie Springer



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Why would a cloud appear to be different colors? A relatively rare phenomenon known as iridescent clouds can show unusual colors vividly or a whole spectrum of colors simultaneously. These clouds are formed of small water droplets of nearly uniform size. When the Sun is in the right position and mostly hidden by thick clouds, these thinner clouds significantly diffract sunlight in a nearly coherent manner, with different colors being deflected by different amounts. Therefore, different colors will come to the observer from slightly different directions. Many clouds start with uniform regions that could show iridescence but quickly become too thick, too mixed, or too far from the Sun to exhibit striking colors. This iridescent cloud was photographed last year from the Top of the World Highway outside Dawson City, in the Yukon Territory in Northern Canada.

[neilep]

Unconformity at Blacktail Canyon

Photographer: Nel Graham
Summary Author: Nel Graham






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This photo showing a geologic feature known as an unconformity was taken in Blacktail Canyon, Arizona; one of the many small slot canyons that adjoin the Grand Canyon at the level of the Colorado River.  This sandstone slab is estimated to be about 550 million years old; whereas the supergroup ranges from 1.2 billion to 800 million years old.

Photo taken in July of 2008.

[neilep]

Window Frost Patterns

Photographer: Heather J. Renyck
Summary Author: Heather J. Renyck



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Frost forms on windows when the glass is exposed to sub-freezing conditions on the outside combined with comparatively moist air on the inside. Frozen dew is a variety of frost that forms when the air temperature drops below 32 degrees F (0 degrees C) but when the air is colder (near 15 degrees F or -10 degrees C) water vapor condenses directly on the chilled glass to form hoar frost. Imperfections on the surface of the glass, smearing, the presence of dust and pollen grains, etc. affect the frost pattern. In this case, it appears a spider's web had a significant influence on the design of the window frost. If you look closely, you'll notice sparkling colors in the frost crystals (upper right). These hexagonal crystals act like tiny prisms when sunlight passes through them. Photo taken from the window of a home in Meaford, Ontario on January 16, 2011.

[neilep]

The North America Nebula in Infrared
Credit: NASA, JPL-Caltech, L. Rebull (SSC, Caltech); Optical Rollover: DSS, D. De Martin


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BIGGY PICCY HERE

 The North America Nebula can do what most North Americans cannot -- form stars. Precisely where in the nebula these stars are forming has been mostly obscured by some of the nebula's thick dust that is opaque to visible light. However, a new view of the North America Nebula in infrared light by the orbiting Spitzer Space Telescope has peered through much of the dust and uncovered thousands of newly formed stars. Rolling your cursor over the above scientifically-colored infrared image will bring up a corresponding optical image of the same region for comparison. The new infrared image neatly captures young stars in many stages of formation, from being imbedded in dense knots of gas and dust, to being surrounded by disks and emitted jets, to being clear of their birth cocoons. The North America Nebula (NGC 7000) spans about 50 light years and lies about 1,500 light years away toward the constellation of the Swan (Cygnus). Still, of all the stars known in the North America Nebula, which massive stars emit the energetic light that gives the ionized red glow is still debated.

[neilep]

Greenhouse City


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Photographer: Edward Burtynsky (National Geographic)
Summary Author: Elizabeth Kolbert (National Geographic); Jim Foster

The photo above showing greenhouses galore in shades of beige, tan and sepia was taken above Almería Province in southeastern Spain. On the arid plains of Spain, produce is grown under the world's largest array of greenhouses and trucked northward to various distribution centers. The advantage of greenhouses is that they’re able to use water and nutrients more efficiently than conventional farming methods. In addition, they can churn out crops all year long – even tomatoes in winter, for instance. However, growing grain crops and producing more beef under glass is a different matter. The global challenge today is to increase sources of protein, which is essential for many key body functions, particularly in locations where food production is now deficient. It currently takes 38 percent of Earth's ice-free surface to feed seven billion people, and yet two billion more mouths will need to be fed by mid century.

[neilep]

ONE TRILLION STARS !! ANDROMEDA GALAXY IN INFRARED !

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The Andromeda Galaxy Earlier Today !

The detailed Spitzer Space Telescope view above features infrared light from dust (red) and old stars (blue) in Andromeda, a massive spiral galaxy a mere 2.5 million light-years away. In fact, with over twice the diameter of our own Milky Way, Andromeda is the largest nearby galaxy. Andromeda's population of bright young stars define its sweeping spiral arms in visible light images, but here the infrared view clearly follows the lumpy dust lanes heated by the young stars as they wind even closer to the galaxy's core. Constructed to explore Andromeda's infrared brightness and stellar populations, the full mosaic image is composed of about 3,000 individual frames. Two smaller companion galaxies, NGC 205 (below) and M32 (above) are also included in the combined fields. The data confirm that Andromeda (aka M31) houses around 1 trillion stars, compared to 4 hundred billion for the Milky Way.