Astronomy

Each week we compile the best articles posted to Light Stalking, weekly photo contests, notable forum topics and great shots uploaded by our rapidly growing community of photographers.  When you consider all of this activity on Light Stalking these days, as well as our rather huge audience each month, it’s easy to see how important and helpful content can be missed.  So, here is the best of Light Stalking this week: Photo of the Week Congratulations to Takeuchi Kuu for this dramatic and amazingly composed photo of the week, ‘Startrails of Mt. Shimen’!  You can comment on this photo here. The Most Popular Stories from the Last 7 Days •10 Ways to Change Lives Through Photography (And Where You Can Start Today)  – Photographers, as people, are a diverse lot and we all have our reasons for engaging in this particular art form.  Some of us are interested in documenting our family life.  Some of us are photographers because it grants us a much needed hobby or diversion.  Some of us earn our living taking photos.  Some photographers are immersed in many visual art forms and photography is only part of their artistic puzzle.  Whatever your reasons for taking photographs, you can use your skills to help others.  The ideas in this article are a great place to start if you are interested in practicing some photographic philanthropy.  Your skill level doesn’t really matter here since everyone can find ways to make a positive impact via their art.  Also, there are many ways to be of service to our fellow man that don’t involve the exchange of money.  Perhaps, giving of our time and talents is actually more challenging and therefore more meaningful. •Rural Photography – The Road to the Forgotten: 16 Gorgeous Photographs – The saying “One Man’s Trash is Another Man’s Treasure” is certainly true for photography.  While there are many people happily nestled into their rural homesteads, there can something of an underbelly to rural areas.  Many long-ago abandoned homes and barns can be found if you are paying attention.  Photographing these sites, if you are really brave, can be a very exhilarating experience.  Just be careful not to get arrested or die under a collapsed structure! •Review: Shooting Stars – How to Photograph the Moon and Stars With Your DSLR by Phil Hart – If you’ve ever wanted to take amazing photos of the night sky, but weren’t sure where to start, or even if you are already practicing this form of photography but want to learn more, then this book is for you.  Chock full of gorgeous example photos and easy to understand charts and diagrams , this book takes the intimidation factor out of learning a new form of photography.  Photographers are visual people and the author of this book really caters to the visual learning style. •Case Study: An Example of One Photographer’s Workflow – Most of us probably have thousands of photos sitting on our computers.  If we aren’t careful, chaos and disorder can quickly take over and make our workflow much more complicated and frustrating than it needs to be.  You can always, through trial and error, establish your own workflow.  Likewise, you can just continue to wade through the photographic clutter on your computer and feel frustrated as a result.  If you do find yourself to be currently in the chaos camp with your photography workflow, perhaps it will pay off to learn from someone else’s experience and practice a little bit of emulation.  This article walks you through the process of downloading, organizing, selecting, processing and backing up your photos. What You Missed in the Light Stalking Community Submit your photo to this week’s photography challenge – Light!  You can hardly get more open-ended than this when it comes to photography.  Light , or the lack of it, can be used and interpreted countless ways.  Do you have any photos to share with us that demonstrate what light can do? We have had some great responses

There is a minor geomagnetic storm on NOW (yes, it's still daytime) from a glancing blow from a coronla mass ejection. If the activity lasts until nightfall, then Tasmania and Southern New Zealand may see aurora. However, the light of the waxing Moon will make seeing aurora difficult, and you will need to be in a dark sky site to have a chance of seeing aurora. Look to the south, looking for unusual colours or breams of light.A second coronal mass ejection will impact us sometime after midday on Sunday May 19, quoting the Australian IPS space weather:SUBJ: IPS GEOMAGNETIC DISTURBANCE WARNING 13/07ISSUED AT 0300UT/18 MAY 2013AST CENTRE. A full halo earthward direcBY THE AUSTRALIAN SPACE FORECted CME was observed on 17-May withy. This may increase geomagnetic activity to Minor Storm levels, withestimated arrival midway through 19-Maperiods at Major storm level from mid 19-May and into early 20-May. The magnitude of the storm will depend on the orientation of the magnetic field in the CME. INCREASED GEOMAGNETIC ACTIVITYEXPECTED DUE TO CORONAL MASS EJECTION FROM 19-20 MAY 2013 ___________________________________________________________ GEOMAGNETIC ACTIVITY FORECAST19 May: Minor Storm20 May: Active to Minor StormAurora could potentially be seen as far north as southern Victoria and Northern New Zealand. Again, aurora could occur at anytime during these storm periods, Moonlight will interfere until Moonset in the early hours of the 20th. Dark sky sites are best, and you should be looking south for unusual colours or beams of light.

<p><a href="http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap130517.html"><img src="http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/calendar/S_130517.jpg" align="left" alt="The Waterfall and the World at Night" border="0" /></a> The Waterfall and the World at Night</p><br clear="all"/>

Venus and Jupiter as seen from Adelaide on 17 May, 2013. Imaged with a Canon IXUS, 1/4 sec exposure, ASA 400 3x Zoom at 5:55 pm ACST. Jupiter is the dot at the top right, Venus is bottom left, indicated by the yellow lines. You will need to click on the image to embiggen to see Venus clearly.Venus has finally returned to the evening skies. Well, it's been in the evening skies fro a while, but with the lousy weather of the past few week, there was no chance to see it.Venus is very close to the horizon, and deep in the twilight, but I could see it and Jupiter clearly at 5:40 pm. Venus was a mere three finger-widths from the horizon, and lowere by the time the sky was dark enough for a photo 15 minutes later.Over the coming week Venus will rise higher in the sky, and Jupiter gets lower, with the pair meeting on the 28th and 29th. Before that Mercury will join them in the evening sky. The next two weeks will be quite interesting.

After images are added to the database they are cataloged to provide metadata. Note that the number of records returned by the link will be less than the number of newly cataloged photographs if some of those cataloged photographs have no digital image available.

Images are added to the database prior to being cataloged for metadata. This makes them available for viewing while the catalog process is in work.

<p><a href="http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap130516.html"><img src="http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/calendar/S_130516.jpg" align="left" alt="Swinging around the Sun's eastern limb on Monday," border="0" /></a> Swinging around the Sun's eastern limb on Monday,</p><br clear="all"/>

As photographers who wish to improve our art, chances are we always looking for opportunities to practice our craft. The problem is, our practice sessions are not always very educational. While we may have the best intentions, without a little planning, we may not be getting everything we could be from our time spent behind the camera. Whether you’re purely a hobbyist, an up and coming professional, or a seasoned expert, supplementing your craft with self assignments is a great way to augment your skills. A self assignment is just as it sounds, an assignment created by you and assigned to yourself. Depending on your level of expertise and what style of photography you enjoy doing, the actual scope of the assignment will vary greatly. For example, a novice photographer will most likely have different goals than a full time professional. this is no joke mr. yoke by Pixel Addict, on Flickr Self Assignments For The Hobbyist Photographer If you’re just getting started in photography, you don’t want to overdo it by asking too much of yourself right from the get go. Like anything, when you try rushing your education, you start cutting corners and missing things. At this stage of the game, it’s critical that you take your time and understand the fundamentals as you are building the foundation for the rest of your career as a photographer. For hobbyists or novice photographers, a self assignment should be about getting you to think critically about how you are going to go about taking a photograph. It should have you thinking about the workflow of your practice time. Give yourself a project that falls within the realm of your interests–food photography, fashion, portraiture, whatever it is that you enjoy photographing. Do not use over complicated light setups, in fact, the goal here is to simplify things. Before you even begin taking photos. Make a note of the shots you want to get and precisely how you plan on getting them. Will you use reflectors? How will the model pose? What ISO should you be using, and so forth…Some find it helpful to make sketches, or storyboards, of the shots they have envisioned. Try not deviate too much from the plan, but don’t be afraid to experiment if you come up with an idea along the way. At the end of the shoot, compare the shots you created to the sketches you made beforehand and see how they compare. Chances are you will have run into some bumps throughout the process. Maybe you didn’t notice how distracting the background was or how the angle of the sunlight cast unflattering shadows across your subject. Make a note of all the little discrepancies you notice and think about how they can be prevented or remedied in future shoots. World’s Favorite Sport by vramak, on Flickr Self Assignments For The Serious Amateur Photographer By now you’re probably pretty comfortable using your camera off it’s auto mode and perhaps even making all the decisions by opting to shoot on manual. You’ve got a solid grasp on the rudimentary elements of photography and are encouraged by how much all the hard work you’ve put in thus far is paying off with good images and positive feedback. Self assignments at this stage should be challenging and really force you to start stepping outside of your comfort zone. You may want to try your hand at a style of photography you’ve never payed much attention to like miniature photography, or flower photography. Take yourself to the streets and only take photographs of things that have a specific shape–such as a circle or triangle. Do a photoshoot of a luxury car or try photographing a local musical event. Find something that interests you outside of photography and try interweaving it into assignment. But, whatever it is you choose, make sure you make it a challenge. Choose to work with complex light setups, shoot only at night, focus on fast moving objects to learn more about motion blur a

After images are added to the database they are cataloged to provide metadata. Note that the number of records returned by the link will be less than the number of newly cataloged photographs if some of those cataloged photographs have no digital image available.

Images are added to the database prior to being cataloged for metadata. This makes them available for viewing while the catalog process is in work.