kbobam

Hi, Ann! I was actually just this second thinking of you. Was in the middle of a second message here, when TMC cleverly informed me that someone had just posted to this topic. (I've always thought that's a particularly neat feature of the way the message-board format used here works.) Before I clicked the 'show me' button, I saved what I was writing, so let me 'paste' it here, and add the last few lines to it. ( : I'd also like to ask our friends who are knowledgeable concerning 'heavenly bodies' about something I noticed here. In the second photo there's a point of light pretty much in the middle, and a little bit above the line of the plane's flight. If you're looking at TMC 'full screen' on an average sized desktop monitor, I'd say it's about an inch above it. Okay! Here's the question. This star-like thing is a distinct point of light. Actual (I'm assuming) stars in the photo are showing as short 'lines' because of the long camera exposure and our rotation relative to them. This is most clearly seen in the brighter one toward the right. The mystery body also has a reddish color tinge to it. What's going on? Could it be a satellite that's moving in lock-step with us? Or are we also 'in-synch' with other planets? I'm embarrassed to say that it never occurred to me before to wonder about this sort of thing and I'm woefully ignorant.

The photos posted are pretty clearly long time-exposures done at night and not hand-held. So I'm not sure why you're asking this question or to whom it's directed.

Hi! I'm so glad you're here! The topic title was designed to keep our friends who aren't particularly interested in this stuff from wasting their time. So I'm going to assume you're at least a little interested. Honestly, I don't think you'll be disappointed. I'm about to reveal what may be one of the least-known technical approaches to achieving razor-sharp high quality photos under certain conditions. I'm sorry this has absolutely nothing to do with marbles. It's kind of the exact opposite. I'm talking about what I'll call 'infinity focus'. This is basically where your camera is focused when you're taking a photo of a distant landscape. Or the stars at night. It's the 'far end' of your camera's focusing ability. Here's the deal. Optical designers put 'leeway' into their lenses for several very good reasons. This actually allows them to focus beyond infinity (what a concept!) in most situations. You don't want this to happen at any given moment, although it's a terrific thing that it theoretically can. I'll just mention one reason for this, which is that the same camera might have a different 'perfect far-away focus' in the Arctic than it would have on the beach in Maui. Thermal expansion/contraction, don'tcha know! The good news is that many modern cameras handle this situation quite well with the auto-focus you probably use most or all of the time. But if you're a perfectionist and enjoy experimenting, you really owe it to yourself to try some 'manual focus' adjustments. You might be thrilled with the results. Below is a photo I recently posted of the 'light trail' of an airplane flying through the night sky. I took this one allowing the camera to tell me where 'infinity focus' is. Below that is another photo of pretty much the same thing I took a few days later. With this one, I spent the extra time to precisely 'tune' the manual focus to infinity by actually looking at the screen and judging the best focus by 'eye'. Photos here at TMC aren't reproduced perfectly, but hopefully you can see that the second shot had a much better 'technical' outcome. I'm going to shut-up now, since I'm talking too much and it's late and I'm tired. Will add a few quick details to this technique later for those interested. In the meantime, if you're not sure whether your camera can focus manually, check the (appropriately named) manual under "manual focus". Many of us aren't aware that our cameras can do this, because truth be told, it hardly ever comes up. And you know what? It just hit me that we can apply a similar approach to our close-up photos of marbles! So we'll talk about that too. Oh boy! P.S. I've noticed that sometimes my fairly large-sized photo files don't appear quickly, if at all, here. 'Refreshing' the page seems to fix this.

I hope most people realized I was just 'goofing' with Steph!

Also, although I understand and agree with what you're saying, one could suggest that we as humans are as legitimate a part of 'nature' as anything else. Anything we've ever done is just as 'natural' as what wild animals, plants, or minerals do. ( :

Gotta like German! Back in New York we all (different nationalities, native language, etc.) used terms from the Yiddish variation, just because the words are so great!

Oh don't be silly. Shakespeare. That's not real English!

It's just a way for people who are too busy on their phones solving the world's problems with intelligent questions like "Where u at?" to avoid the horrendous effort of using a two-syllable word like "although". I told you I was going to be in a mood!

Nuts. Just realized that I actually wrote "though" without an apostrophe in front of it. And that spell-check apparently thinks this is a proper word. I can feel the 'old and crotchety' mood coming on already. But don't worry! I'm not going to do any more 'sharing' (yuck) around here until I'm back to my normal happy-go-lucky self!

Not 'junk' literally. I just meant the title to sound 'teenage casual', like 'Nature and Stuff' or 'Nature and Bleep'. ( : I've always liked this phenomenon, though I haven't seen it often. Not sure what sequence of events leads to it, but every once in a while you get this situation where certain leaves get water drops on them and there's something that just isn't 'right' about it. There are simply way too many drops, and some of them are too big and some are too small. It's kind of neat looking. Like natural Scotch-Guard.

Huh! That's interesting! It makes me think fennel might be kind of like cilantro. As far as that thing where some people love it and some people have an almost violent aversion to it.

Regarding cranberries, and the eternal can vs. home-made Thanksgiving issue: I really like the stuff that goes Shlurp! when it comes out of the can. There's never been any doubt that those 'ridges' in it lock-in the flavor! But a couple of years ago I had some home-made fresh-frozen cranberry glop that blew me away. Along with a little sugar, the cook had added some fresh-squeezed lemon and orange. Makes me wonder about other fruit. Pineapple, lime, grapefruit.....? Who knows? ( :

Sounds worth it! Is kinda sorta off-topic okay if it fits in halfway well? Can someone tell me what's up with fennel, and if you'd put it in your spaghetti sauce? I've never had it that I know of. I just saw a spaghetti sauce ad, and they were making a point of showing great-great-grandmother what's her name preparing her someday-to-be-famous sauce. She was putting fennel in it. The last time I tried a new (to me) spice was, coincidentally, also connected with spaghetti sauce. I got some basil, and although it seemed to fit in well with the other flavors involved, I can't say that I particularly liked it. This was a jar of dried, possibly old, stuff from the Dollar Tree. Maybe the fresh variety would be different. That can happen. We'll see. So do I want to try fennel? Or will it just be more heartbreak?

Bachelor fridge.

Ha! I thought I was up on this stuff! I've honestly never heard of or seen either. I am familiar with this delightful beverage.. ( :

750 miles north of the Arctic Circle! Pearl Harbor it's not. ( :

From a recent Army recruitment ad. I guess these folks must be stationed in Greenland or some other Godforsaken place. Wherever they are, they're way too badbutt for me, and I'd definitely prefer being a 'small part of what I can be'. Desk job, please! https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slogans_of_the_United_States_Army

That's some crazy stuff! It almost makes you queasy to watch it! ( :

So let's say you're the kind of person who likes quiet and solitude. Is there anywhere in the continental U.S. where you could sit on your porch for half an hour and not see and hear airplane flight paths in the sky above you? 30 second exposure of airplane flying at night

They're like socks on laundry day! Where do they go? ( :

When prices seem out of wack for a particular item, I'll sometimes do one of those searches on ebay where you get e-mail notifications when new listings come up. This can take a little patience, but it's very satisfying when you find just what you want. You might also want to consider some alternatives. Several of us here are very fond of little bitty soft-rubber plumber's washers. They're very gentle on your marbles, and don't slide around on surfaces. You can get a lot of these for next to nothing. ( :

(This is a talking dog.)

One of the drummers from the Jazz/Big-Band era, if you want to call it that. So you'd need to be 'into' that for his name to be a household word. ( :

It hasn't made me a lot of friends, but I really hate 'music videos'. But put some great musical performances in a biographical movie and then you've got something. Currently grooving on 'The Gene Krupa Story'. I love old black and white movies. An offer you just can't refuse!