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Help with identification appreciated. Estero Bluffs State Park California - from the Franciscan Complex or Assemblage - Late Jurassic to Late Cretaceous
The Mercado dos Lavradores, in the center of Funchal, Madeira, a Portuguese protectorate, offers fish not often seen elsewhere. Here is the Espada Preta which some call the black scabbard.
Somewhere on the shores of Lake Superior within the bounds of Split Rock Lighthouse State Park. (www.dnr.state.mn.us/state_parks/split_rock_lighthouse/ind...)
This vibrant spiral galaxy and the subject of today’s NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope Picture of the Week is NGC 5042, which resides about 48 million light-years from Earth in the constellation Hydra (the water snake). The galaxy nicely fills the frame of this Hubble image, with a single Milky Way star marked by cross-shaped diffraction spikes attempting to blend in with the bright stars along the galaxy’s edge.
Hubble observed NGC 5042 in six wavelength bands from the ultraviolet to the infrared to create this multicoloured portrait. The galaxy’s cream-coloured centre is packed with ancient stars, and the galaxy’s spiral arms are decorated with patches of young blue stars. The elongated yellow-orange objects that are scattered around the image are background galaxies far more distant than NGC 5042.
Perhaps NGC 5042’s most striking feature is its collection of brilliant pink gas clouds that are studded throughout its spiral arms. These flashy clouds are called H II (pronounced “H-two”) regions, and they get their distinctive colour from hydrogen atoms that have been ionised by ultraviolet light. If you look closely at this image, you’ll see that many of these reddish clouds are associated with clumps of blue stars, often appearing to form a shell around the stars.
H II regions arise in expansive clouds of hydrogen gas, and only hot and massive stars produce enough high-energy light to create an H II region. Because the stars capable of creating H II regions only live for a few million years — just a blink of an eye in galactic terms — this image represents a fleeting snapshot of life in this galaxy.
[Image Description: A spiral galaxy. It’s noticeably bright around the central region of its disc, then dims somewhat out to the edge where there are fewer stars. Two spiral arms circle through the disc and emerge beyond its edge, around the galaxy’s sides. Many pink spots of new star formation, as well as dark reddish strands of dust, cover the galaxy. The arms contain some speckled, blue patches containing hot stars.]
Credits: ESA/Hubble & NASA, D. Thilker; CC BY 4.0
the series goes from left to right, capturing the sunset in the west, the streets running north and final capture depicts the east river.
A Northern Cardinal on Avery Island, Louisiana, near dusk, hence the very soft focus. They must have been the models for angry birds, right?
I am definitely a sourdough bore these days!
This one today was particularly good though.
So posting one more sour dough picture ...last for a while I promise
This one was:
50% white 50 % coarse wholemeal
lots of nuts: pecan and walnut - pulverised
and sunflower hearts and black sesame seeds
...& a good glug of olive oil too
The Clash - One More Time
A Catholic Church by a bayou near Lafayette, Louisiana. The basking alligator was right beside i didn't notice until later. I guess he is part of the congregation, a congreGATOR if you will. Yep, the puns didn't get any better, while I was away.
Spent the day in a hotel conference room yesterday, this is a picture from the lobby. Mel Brookes filmed High Anxiety here, which in turn was a parody on Hitchcock's Vertigo, Birds and some other films. Hard to capture with my cell phone, but the inside is somewhat like an inverted pyramid with the floors directly above me extending further out as they got higher, each with a clear view directly down over empty space. Definitely vertigo inducing.
Link.
Credit: NASA JPL-Caltech, Harvard-Smithsonian CfA
From NASA's Astronomy Picture of the Day - February 15, 2008
one side planted up - slowly but surely getting there. Good to get a bed filled and then plant out stuff in it before filling the next bed.
The Fireworks - Getting Nowhere Fast
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Camped out for an hour or so, looking for the albino jackrabbit once more. It turned up. It has two buddies which would have been much easier to photograph, I wonder does it sense that it contrasts more with its surroundings, it's so much more nervous, last to step forward, first to bolt.
Anyway, likely to be my last effort this summer. I don't have time to come back for quite a while. Something a bit magical about seeing it, I can see why so many myths and superstitions surround white offspring of any species, sadly so much being negative and hostile, because of the alleged "demon" eyes. The good news is that it seems to be accepted by the other rabbits in the group.
Visited the De Young yesterday. Always love watching people react to art.
Rainy Season in the Tropics, 1866
Frederic Edwin Church
Today is day 262 of Project 365
Spotted this guy looking through the window last night, casing the joint I guess. Please don't comment on the smudgy window.
Today is day 133 of Project 365 (Thursday).
James looks out from behind Seljalandsfoss, a huge waterfall that has a trail going behind it. Again on the south coast, one of our cloudier days. He has a ghost image reflected on the water.
I took this shot at the hypocenter of the nuclear blast in Hiroshima, which is the surface location directly below the nuclear explosion.
On Monday, August 6, 1945, at 8:15 a.m., the nuclear weapon "Little Boy" was dropped on Hiroshima from the Enola Gay, and detonated approximately 600m directly above this exact spot, immediately killing at least 70,000 and destroying 70% of the city's buildings. In short, with a vanishingly small number of exceptions, anybody standing within 3/4 kilometer of where I was standing ceased to exist instantaneously. Of course the casualty numbers expanded dramatically over the coming days, and indeed months.
Truth be told, I'm not a bleeding heart, and can understand those who rationalize the necessity of this event, as much as those who believe it is an inexcusable horror that should never have happened. It did happen though, and the consequences were real and undeniable, and still can be felt when you stand in a place such as this. If you have the means and opportunity to visit Hiroshima sometime in your life, do.