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equipment: Takahashi FSQ-106ED, Reducer QE 0.73x, and Canan EOS 5Dmk2-sp2, modified by Seo san on Takahashi EM-200 Temma 2 Jr, autoguided with hiro-design off-axis guider, SX Lodestar Autoguider, and PHD Guiding
exposure: 2 times x 30 minutes, 8 x 15 min, 5 x 4 min, and 8 x 1 minute at ISO 1,600 and f/3.6
site: 11,000 feet above sea level near Mauna Loa Observatory in Hawaii
See more photos of this, and the Wikipedia article.
Details, quoting from Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum | Lockheed SR-71 Blackbird:
No reconnaissance aircraft in history has operated globally in more hostile airspace or with such complete impunity than the SR-71, the world's fastest jet-propelled aircraft. The Blackbird's performance and operational achievements placed it at the pinnacle of aviation technology developments during the Cold War.
This Blackbird accrued about 2,800 hours of flight time during 24 years of active service with the U.S. Air Force. On its last flight, March 6, 1990, Lt. Col. Ed Yielding and Lt. Col. Joseph Vida set a speed record by flying from Los Angeles to Washington, D.C., in 1 hour, 4 minutes, and 20 seconds, averaging 3,418 kilometers (2,124 miles) per hour. At the flight's conclusion, they landed at Washington-Dulles International Airport and turned the airplane over to the Smithsonian.
Transferred from the United States Air Force.
Manufacturer:
Designer:
Date:
1964
Country of Origin:
United States of America
Dimensions:
Overall: 18ft 5 15/16in. x 55ft 7in. x 107ft 5in., 169998.5lb. (5.638m x 16.942m x 32.741m, 77110.8kg)
Other: 18ft 5 15/16in. x 107ft 5in. x 55ft 7in. (5.638m x 32.741m x 16.942m)
Materials:
Titanium
Physical Description:
Twin-engine, two-seat, supersonic strategic reconnaissance aircraft; airframe constructed largley of titanium and its alloys; vertical tail fins are constructed of a composite (laminated plastic-type material) to reduce radar cross-section; Pratt and Whitney J58 (JT11D-20B) turbojet engines feature large inlet shock cones.
Long Description:
No reconnaissance aircraft in history has operated in more hostile airspace or with such complete impunity than the SR-71 Blackbird. It is the fastest aircraft propelled by air-breathing engines. The Blackbird's performance and operational achievements placed it at the pinnacle of aviation technology developments during the Cold War. The airplane was conceived when tensions with communist Eastern Europe reached levels approaching a full-blown crisis in the mid-1950s. U.S. military commanders desperately needed accurate assessments of Soviet worldwide military deployments, particularly near the Iron Curtain. Lockheed Aircraft Corporation's subsonic U-2 (see NASM collection) reconnaissance aircraft was an able platform but the U. S. Air Force recognized that this relatively slow aircraft was already vulnerable to Soviet interceptors. They also understood that the rapid development of surface-to-air missile systems could put U-2 pilots at grave risk. The danger proved reality when a U-2 was shot down by a surface to air missile over the Soviet Union in 1960.
Lockheed's first proposal for a new high speed, high altitude, reconnaissance aircraft, to be capable of avoiding interceptors and missiles, centered on a design propelled by liquid hydrogen. This proved to be impracticable because of considerable fuel consumption. Lockheed then reconfigured the design for conventional fuels. This was feasible and the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), already flying the Lockheed U-2, issued a production contract for an aircraft designated the A-12. Lockheed's clandestine 'Skunk Works' division (headed by the gifted design engineer Clarence L. "Kelly" Johnson) designed the A-12 to cruise at Mach 3.2 and fly well above 18,288 m (60,000 feet). To meet these challenging requirements, Lockheed engineers overcame many daunting technical challenges. Flying more than three times the speed of sound generates 316° C (600° F) temperatures on external aircraft surfaces, which are enough to melt conventional aluminum airframes. The design team chose to make the jet's external skin of titanium alloy to which shielded the internal aluminum airframe. Two conventional, but very powerful, afterburning turbine engines propelled this remarkable aircraft. These power plants had to operate across a huge speed envelope in flight, from a takeoff speed of 334 kph (207 mph) to more than 3,540 kph (2,200 mph). To prevent supersonic shock waves from moving inside the engine intake causing flameouts, Johnson's team had to design a complex air intake and bypass system for the engines.
Skunk Works engineers also optimized the A-12 cross-section design to exhibit a low radar profile. Lockheed hoped to achieve this by carefully shaping the airframe to reflect as little transmitted radar energy (radio waves) as possible, and by application of special paint designed to absorb, rather than reflect, those waves. This treatment became one of the first applications of stealth technology, but it never completely met the design goals.
Test pilot Lou Schalk flew the single-seat A-12 on April 24, 1962, after he became airborne accidentally during high-speed taxi trials. The airplane showed great promise but it needed considerable technical refinement before the CIA could fly the first operational sortie on May 31, 1967 - a surveillance flight over North Vietnam. A-12s, flown by CIA pilots, operated as part of the Air Force's 1129th Special Activities Squadron under the "Oxcart" program. While Lockheed continued to refine the A-12, the U. S. Air Force ordered an interceptor version of the aircraft designated the YF-12A. The Skunk Works, however, proposed a "specific mission" version configured to conduct post-nuclear strike reconnaissance. This system evolved into the USAF's familiar SR-71.
Lockheed built fifteen A-12s, including a special two-seat trainer version. Two A-12s were modified to carry a special reconnaissance drone, designated D-21. The modified A-12s were redesignated M-21s. These were designed to take off with the D-21 drone, powered by a Marquart ramjet engine mounted on a pylon between the rudders. The M-21 then hauled the drone aloft and launched it at speeds high enough to ignite the drone's ramjet motor. Lockheed also built three YF-12As but this type never went into production. Two of the YF-12As crashed during testing. Only one survives and is on display at the USAF Museum in Dayton, Ohio. The aft section of one of the "written off" YF-12As which was later used along with an SR-71A static test airframe to manufacture the sole SR-71C trainer. One SR-71 was lent to NASA and designated YF-12C. Including the SR-71C and two SR-71B pilot trainers, Lockheed constructed thirty-two Blackbirds. The first SR-71 flew on December 22, 1964. Because of extreme operational costs, military strategists decided that the more capable USAF SR-71s should replace the CIA's A-12s. These were retired in 1968 after only one year of operational missions, mostly over southeast Asia. The Air Force's 1st Strategic Reconnaissance Squadron (part of the 9th Strategic Reconnaissance Wing) took over the missions, flying the SR-71 beginning in the spring of 1968.
After the Air Force began to operate the SR-71, it acquired the official name Blackbird-- for the special black paint that covered the airplane. This paint was formulated to absorb radar signals, to radiate some of the tremendous airframe heat generated by air friction, and to camouflage the aircraft against the dark sky at high altitudes.
Experience gained from the A-12 program convinced the Air Force that flying the SR-71 safely required two crew members, a pilot and a Reconnaissance Systems Officer (RSO). The RSO operated with the wide array of monitoring and defensive systems installed on the airplane. This equipment included a sophisticated Electronic Counter Measures (ECM) system that could jam most acquisition and targeting radar. In addition to an array of advanced, high-resolution cameras, the aircraft could also carry equipment designed to record the strength, frequency, and wavelength of signals emitted by communications and sensor devices such as radar. The SR-71 was designed to fly deep into hostile territory, avoiding interception with its tremendous speed and high altitude. It could operate safely at a maximum speed of Mach 3.3 at an altitude more than sixteen miles, or 25,908 m (85,000 ft), above the earth. The crew had to wear pressure suits similar to those worn by astronauts. These suits were required to protect the crew in the event of sudden cabin pressure loss while at operating altitudes.
To climb and cruise at supersonic speeds, the Blackbird's Pratt & Whitney J-58 engines were designed to operate continuously in afterburner. While this would appear to dictate high fuel flows, the Blackbird actually achieved its best "gas mileage," in terms of air nautical miles per pound of fuel burned, during the Mach 3+ cruise. A typical Blackbird reconnaissance flight might require several aerial refueling operations from an airborne tanker. Each time the SR-71 refueled, the crew had to descend to the tanker's altitude, usually about 6,000 m to 9,000 m (20,000 to 30,000 ft), and slow the airplane to subsonic speeds. As velocity decreased, so did frictional heat. This cooling effect caused the aircraft's skin panels to shrink considerably, and those covering the fuel tanks contracted so much that fuel leaked, forming a distinctive vapor trail as the tanker topped off the Blackbird. As soon as the tanks were filled, the jet's crew disconnected from the tanker, relit the afterburners, and again climbed to high altitude.
Air Force pilots flew the SR-71 from Kadena AB, Japan, throughout its operational career but other bases hosted Blackbird operations, too. The 9th SRW occasionally deployed from Beale AFB, California, to other locations to carryout operational missions. Cuban missions were flown directly from Beale. The SR-71 did not begin to operate in Europe until 1974, and then only temporarily. In 1982, when the U.S. Air Force based two aircraft at Royal Air Force Base Mildenhall to fly monitoring mission in Eastern Europe.
When the SR-71 became operational, orbiting reconnaissance satellites had already replaced manned aircraft to gather intelligence from sites deep within Soviet territory. Satellites could not cover every geopolitical hotspot so the Blackbird remained a vital tool for global intelligence gathering. On many occasions, pilots and RSOs flying the SR-71 provided information that proved vital in formulating successful U. S. foreign policy. Blackbird crews provided important intelligence about the 1973 Yom Kippur War, the Israeli invasion of Lebanon and its aftermath, and pre- and post-strike imagery of the 1986 raid conducted by American air forces on Libya. In 1987, Kadena-based SR-71 crews flew a number of missions over the Persian Gulf, revealing Iranian Silkworm missile batteries that threatened commercial shipping and American escort vessels.
As the performance of space-based surveillance systems grew, along with the effectiveness of ground-based air defense networks, the Air Force started to lose enthusiasm for the expensive program and the 9th SRW ceased SR-71 operations in January 1990. Despite protests by military leaders, Congress revived the program in 1995. Continued wrangling over operating budgets, however, soon led to final termination. The National Aeronautics and Space Administration retained two SR-71As and the one SR-71B for high-speed research projects and flew these airplanes until 1999.
On March 6, 1990, the service career of one Lockheed SR-71A Blackbird ended with a record-setting flight. This special airplane bore Air Force serial number 64-17972. Lt. Col. Ed Yeilding and his RSO, Lieutenant Colonel Joseph Vida, flew this aircraft from Los Angeles to Washington D.C. in 1 hour, 4 minutes, and 20 seconds, averaging a speed of 3,418 kph (2,124 mph). At the conclusion of the flight, '972 landed at Dulles International Airport and taxied into the custody of the Smithsonian's National Air and Space Museum. At that time, Lt. Col. Vida had logged 1,392.7 hours of flight time in Blackbirds, more than that of any other crewman.
This particular SR-71 was also flown by Tom Alison, a former National Air and Space Museum's Chief of Collections Management. Flying with Detachment 1 at Kadena Air Force Base, Okinawa, Alison logged more than a dozen '972 operational sorties. The aircraft spent twenty-four years in active Air Force service and accrued a total of 2,801.1 hours of flight time.
Wingspan: 55'7"
Length: 107'5"
Height: 18'6"
Weight: 170,000 Lbs
Reference and Further Reading:
Crickmore, Paul F. Lockheed SR-71: The Secret Missions Exposed. Oxford: Osprey Publishing, 1996.
Francillon, Rene J. Lockheed Aircraft Since 1913. Annapolis, Md.: Naval Institute Press, 1987.
Johnson, Clarence L. Kelly: More Than My Share of It All. Washington D.C.: Smithsonian Institution Press, 1985.
Miller, Jay. Lockheed Martin's Skunk Works. Leicester, U.K.: Midland Counties Publishing Ltd., 1995.
Lockheed SR-71 Blackbird curatorial file, Aeronautics Division, National Air and Space Museum.
DAD, 11-11-01
Some Young History.
Like all the areas of the western slopes of NSW this was once the traditional lands of the Wiradjuri Aboriginal people. Their lands covered one of the biggest agricultural regions of Australia. There was little conflict in this region and diseases more than pastoralist action reduced their numbers considerably within a couple of years of white pastoral occupation. Like so many areas beyond the declared Nineteen Counties- the legal limit of white settlement in the 1820s and 1830s - the first pastoralist was white squatter James White in 1826. This free settler established his Burrangong station on the banks of Stoney Creek on the advice of a local Aboriginal man, Coborn Jackie. James White never married but his brother joined him and the first white child born in the region was his niece Sarah White in 1830. She lived to be 107 years old. The district was rich as the soils were volcanic soils and numerous streams ran westward to the lower areas of western NSW. The area where the sheep flocks of White rested for their lambing became known as Lambing Flat. Another pastoralist Edward Taylor planted some cherry trees in 1847. In the 1840s these squatters got licensing and later leasehold rights over the land. Until the upheaval of 1860. Gold was discovered then by James White’s nephew Dennis Regan and Alexander the Yankee with it being reported in the press in August 1860.
By mid-1861 20,000 miners were at Lambing Flat including 2,000 Chinese diggers. The Chinese were resented and some argue that the origins of the White Australia Policy stem from the xenophobia of Lambing Flat. There is no direct linkage here but the sentiments foreshadowed the Commonwealth policy of 1901. A group of white diggers drove off 500 Chinese miners in November of 1860 and violence and distrust continued as they destroyed their tents. The NSW government acted quickly and a Gold Commissioner and troops were despatched to Lambing Flat two weeks later. A further group of Chinese were driven away in December. In early January a similar incident occurred but this time the diggers threatened to attack the police troops if they interfered. Despite 30 police troops at Lambing Flat a further indecent occurred at the end of January when hundreds of Chinese were frightened off the fields and their tens burnt. A Miners Protective League was formed to expel the Chinese. This did not happen on other goldfields so why Lambing Flat? No one really knows. In March the government sent 300 troops to Lambing Flat armed with cannon and a defensive compound was erected. The last violence occurred in late June and early July 1861 when 3,000 miners attacked the Chinese, cut off pigtails and stole property and burnt tents. One European miner was killed in the melee. Next they attacked the fortified gaol in order to release some imprisoned miners for violence on the goldfields. One miner was killed by the police during the riot which happened near the current main street of Young. The Courthouse and police station were burnt down by the protesters. Calm quickly returned and the police regained control of the goldfields. Were the miners influenced by their knowledge of Eureka? Is this really a foreshadowing of the emergence of the workers unions? Five miners were tried for crimes in Goulburn Courthouse later in 1861 but were all acquitted and then the NSW government passed the Chinese Immigration Restriction Act in November 1861. The miners appeared to have won the battle. The anti-Chinese banner which the rioters carried was hidden for 100 years but re-discovered in Young in the 1960s. It is now in the town museum. The Lambing Flat Folk Museum in Young has artefacts to tell the story of the Lambing Flat riots and the bushranging era. It also has the name plate of Coborn Jackie the Aboriginal friend and advisor of James White.
The town of Yong was surveyed in March of 1861 during the goldfield violence. The name of Lambing Flat was already tainted by then and the town was named Young after Sir John Young the Governor of NSW from 1861 to 1867. Town blocks were sold in May 1861 and before the end of that year Young had a Post Office, a school, a bank, an Anglican and a Catholic church and a newspaper. A hospital and a new Courthouse were erected in 1862. At that time Young was having about 124,000 ounces of gold escorted out of the town annually. But the rush was over by 1864 and less and less gold was being located by 1867. The town turned into an agricultural service centre with a saw mill (1865), a flour mill (1866), a brewery (1877) and finally railway (1885). The town then got a tannery, a soap factory, a work boot factory, a brick kiln, meat works and butter factory all before 1900. In 1889 Young became the first town outside of Sydney to have a domestic electricity supply for its residents. The arrival of the railway in 1885 allowed farmers to experiment with fruit crops as the train could speed them to markets in Sydney. Apples, oranges and plums were the first grown commercially in the 1890s and one farmer in the 1890s had a cherry orchard with 7,000 fruiting trees and 3,000 seedling cherries. Others followed suit and by 1908 Young was railing 15,000 cases of cherries to Sydney each season. Major expansion of the cherry industry occurred in the 1920s with 77 orchards near Young and it was soon the second most important cherry growing region of NSW after Orange. Young began holding a cherry festival in 1949 and still does each year in early December when picking is in full swing.
Some interesting buildings in Boorowa Street and vicinity are:
•In Zouch Street is the Gothic Anglican Church built in 1893. Architect was Edmund Blacket. The first Anglican Church was built on this spot in 1865. Adjacent is the red brick 1937 Rectory and the 1866 Anglican school room.
•Continue along Cloete St. Take next left into Lynch St. Here is the Methodist Church built in 1909. Now the Uniting Church. Built in Arts and Craft style with horizontal banding bricks, tower etc. The first Methodist Church was built in 1865. Turn around and go along Lynch Street.
•On the corner is the 1928 neo classical style Courthouse with Doric columns.
•Next to it is the much altered Post Office and clock built in 1878. The original Post Office stood here when built 1862.
•Cross the roundabout to see the School of Arts building and library. Built in 1904 as a single storey with two gables.
•Next door is the former AMP Society building on the corner. Built in the 1920s with a curved Doric pillared entrance with the AMP statue logo above. A friend in times of need.
•Opposite is the Presbyterian Church. Built in 1920 of greenish grey coloured feldspar quartz. Young’s first Presbyterian church was built in 1871. Turn around and turn right at the roundabout into Boorowa St.
•On the corner is the Baroque style Commercial Bank of Sydney built in 1890. Two different style porches for the entrances.
•On the right painted grey is The Great Eastern Hotel built in 1904. A typical Australian hotel but with triangular pediments.
•At the next roundabout is the Commercial Hotel. Built in 1930s in Spanish Mission style in red brick.
•Next on left is Millard’s Department Store built in 1917. A major three storey edifice in the street.
•Opposite is Young Town Hall built in 1875. In 1922 the Soldiers War Memorial Clock tower was added. Turn around and go back to the roundabout and turn right. Just along the road is the marked Federation building built around 1901. It has a stepped pediment along the roof. It is important as it was the store of one of the last 19th century Chinese traders in Young – Billy Hayes (anglicised.) He ran it to the 1960s.
•Turn right here next you will see on the right the five storey red brick Millard’s flourmill. Cross the creek.
•You will see St Mary’s Catholic Church. Gothic in style and erected 1874 of local granite with Welsh slate roof. Granite addition to the nave made in 1934. Just behind the church on the side street is the Catholic Convent built in 1891. Gothic looking gables and excellent cast iron lacework on balconies. Now part of the Catholic College.
•Opposite is the Lambing Flat Museum in the old original town school. It opened in 1883. The first town school began in 1861 with the first government school on the site on the present railway station.
•Beyond the park is Young High School. It began as the first Courthouse on these goldfields in 1861. A second grand classical Greek temple building Courthouse opened in 1886 at a cost of £12,000. It was given to the Education Department in 1924. With additions it opened as the Young High School in 1947.
•Young railway station. The railway reached here from Harden in 1885 when the Gothic station was built. It is now the Information Centre.
Infrared converted Canon Rebel XTi with Tokina AT-X 116 Pro DX lens. HDR AEB +/-2.5 total of 6 exposures at F11, 11mm, 4XNDF, manual focus and processed with Photomatix HDR software. Levels adjusted in PSE6.
High Dynamic Range (HDR)
High-dynamic-range imaging (HDRI) is a high dynamic range (HDR) technique used in imaging and photography to reproduce a greater dynamic range of luminosity than is possible with standard digital imaging or photographic techniques. The aim is to present a similar range of luminance to that experienced through the human visual system. The human eye, through adaptation of the iris and other methods, adjusts constantly to adapt to a broad range of luminance present in the environment. The brain continuously interprets this information so that a viewer can see in a wide range of light conditions.
HDR images can represent a greater range of luminance levels than can be achieved using more 'traditional' methods, such as many real-world scenes containing very bright, direct sunlight to extreme shade, or very faint nebulae. This is often achieved by capturing and then combining several different, narrower range, exposures of the same subject matter. Non-HDR cameras take photographs with a limited exposure range, referred to as LDR, resulting in the loss of detail in highlights or shadows.
The two primary types of HDR images are computer renderings and images resulting from merging multiple low-dynamic-range (LDR) or standard-dynamic-range (SDR) photographs. HDR images can also be acquired using special image sensors, such as an oversampled binary image sensor.
Due to the limitations of printing and display contrast, the extended luminosity range of an HDR image has to be compressed to be made visible. The method of rendering an HDR image to a standard monitor or printing device is called tone mapping. This method reduces the overall contrast of an HDR image to facilitate display on devices or printouts with lower dynamic range, and can be applied to produce images with preserved local contrast (or exaggerated for artistic effect).
In photography, dynamic range is measured in exposure value (EV) differences (known as stops). An increase of one EV, or 'one stop', represents a doubling of the amount of light. Conversely, a decrease of one EV represents a halving of the amount of light. Therefore, revealing detail in the darkest of shadows requires high exposures, while preserving detail in very bright situations requires very low exposures. Most cameras cannot provide this range of exposure values within a single exposure, due to their low dynamic range. High-dynamic-range photographs are generally achieved by capturing multiple standard-exposure images, often using exposure bracketing, and then later merging them into a single HDR image, usually within a photo manipulation program). Digital images are often encoded in a camera's raw image format, because 8-bit JPEG encoding does not offer a wide enough range of values to allow fine transitions (and regarding HDR, later introduces undesirable effects due to lossy compression).
Any camera that allows manual exposure control can make images for HDR work, although one equipped with auto exposure bracketing (AEB) is far better suited. Images from film cameras are less suitable as they often must first be digitized, so that they can later be processed using software HDR methods.
In most imaging devices, the degree of exposure to light applied to the active element (be it film or CCD) can be altered in one of two ways: by either increasing/decreasing the size of the aperture or by increasing/decreasing the time of each exposure. Exposure variation in an HDR set is only done by altering the exposure time and not the aperture size; this is because altering the aperture size also affects the depth of field and so the resultant multiple images would be quite different, preventing their final combination into a single HDR image.
An important limitation for HDR photography is that any movement between successive images will impede or prevent success in combining them afterwards. Also, as one must create several images (often three or five and sometimes more) to obtain the desired luminance range, such a full 'set' of images takes extra time. HDR photographers have developed calculation methods and techniques to partially overcome these problems, but the use of a sturdy tripod is, at least, advised.
Some cameras have an auto exposure bracketing (AEB) feature with a far greater dynamic range than others, from the 3 EV of the Canon EOS 40D, to the 18 EV of the Canon EOS-1D Mark II. As the popularity of this imaging method grows, several camera manufactures are now offering built-in HDR features. For example, the Pentax K-7 DSLR has an HDR mode that captures an HDR image and outputs (only) a tone mapped JPEG file. The Canon PowerShot G12, Canon PowerShot S95 and Canon PowerShot S100 offer similar features in a smaller format.. Nikon's approach is called 'Active D-Lighting' which applies exposure compensation and tone mapping to the image as it comes from the sensor, with the accent being on retaing a realistic effect . Some smartphones provide HDR modes, and most mobile platforms have apps that provide HDR picture taking.
Camera characteristics such as gamma curves, sensor resolution, noise, photometric calibration and color calibration affect resulting high-dynamic-range images.
Color film negatives and slides consist of multiple film layers that respond to light differently. As a consequence, transparent originals (especially positive slides) feature a very high dynamic range
Tone mapping
Tone mapping reduces the dynamic range, or contrast ratio, of an entire image while retaining localized contrast. Although it is a distinct operation, tone mapping is often applied to HDRI files by the same software package.
Several software applications are available on the PC, Mac and Linux platforms for producing HDR files and tone mapped images. Notable titles include
Adobe Photoshop
Aurora HDR
Dynamic Photo HDR
HDR Efex Pro
HDR PhotoStudio
Luminance HDR
MagicRaw
Oloneo PhotoEngine
Photomatix Pro
PTGui
Information stored in high-dynamic-range images typically corresponds to the physical values of luminance or radiance that can be observed in the real world. This is different from traditional digital images, which represent colors as they should appear on a monitor or a paper print. Therefore, HDR image formats are often called scene-referred, in contrast to traditional digital images, which are device-referred or output-referred. Furthermore, traditional images are usually encoded for the human visual system (maximizing the visual information stored in the fixed number of bits), which is usually called gamma encoding or gamma correction. The values stored for HDR images are often gamma compressed (power law) or logarithmically encoded, or floating-point linear values, since fixed-point linear encodings are increasingly inefficient over higher dynamic ranges.
HDR images often don't use fixed ranges per color channel—other than traditional images—to represent many more colors over a much wider dynamic range. For that purpose, they don't use integer values to represent the single color channels (e.g., 0-255 in an 8 bit per pixel interval for red, green and blue) but instead use a floating point representation. Common are 16-bit (half precision) or 32-bit floating point numbers to represent HDR pixels. However, when the appropriate transfer function is used, HDR pixels for some applications can be represented with a color depth that has as few as 10–12 bits for luminance and 8 bits for chrominance without introducing any visible quantization artifacts.
History of HDR photography
The idea of using several exposures to adequately reproduce a too-extreme range of luminance was pioneered as early as the 1850s by Gustave Le Gray to render seascapes showing both the sky and the sea. Such rendering was impossible at the time using standard methods, as the luminosity range was too extreme. Le Gray used one negative for the sky, and another one with a longer exposure for the sea, and combined the two into one picture in positive.
Mid 20th century
Manual tone mapping was accomplished by dodging and burning – selectively increasing or decreasing the exposure of regions of the photograph to yield better tonality reproduction. This was effective because the dynamic range of the negative is significantly higher than would be available on the finished positive paper print when that is exposed via the negative in a uniform manner. An excellent example is the photograph Schweitzer at the Lamp by W. Eugene Smith, from his 1954 photo essay A Man of Mercy on Dr. Albert Schweitzer and his humanitarian work in French Equatorial Africa. The image took 5 days to reproduce the tonal range of the scene, which ranges from a bright lamp (relative to the scene) to a dark shadow.
Ansel Adams elevated dodging and burning to an art form. Many of his famous prints were manipulated in the darkroom with these two methods. Adams wrote a comprehensive book on producing prints called The Print, which prominently features dodging and burning, in the context of his Zone System.
With the advent of color photography, tone mapping in the darkroom was no longer possible due to the specific timing needed during the developing process of color film. Photographers looked to film manufacturers to design new film stocks with improved response, or continued to shoot in black and white to use tone mapping methods.
Color film capable of directly recording high-dynamic-range images was developed by Charles Wyckoff and EG&G "in the course of a contract with the Department of the Air Force". This XR film had three emulsion layers, an upper layer having an ASA speed rating of 400, a middle layer with an intermediate rating, and a lower layer with an ASA rating of 0.004. The film was processed in a manner similar to color films, and each layer produced a different color. The dynamic range of this extended range film has been estimated as 1:108. It has been used to photograph nuclear explosions, for astronomical photography, for spectrographic research, and for medical imaging. Wyckoff's detailed pictures of nuclear explosions appeared on the cover of Life magazine in the mid-1950s.
Late 20th century
Georges Cornuéjols and licensees of his patents (Brdi, Hymatom) introduced the principle of HDR video image, in 1986, by interposing a matricial LCD screen in front of the camera's image sensor, increasing the sensors dynamic by five stops. The concept of neighborhood tone mapping was applied to video cameras by a group from the Technion in Israel led by Dr. Oliver Hilsenrath and Prof. Y.Y.Zeevi who filed for a patent on this concept in 1988.
In February and April 1990, Georges Cornuéjols introduced the first real-time HDR camera that combined two images captured by a sensor3435 or simultaneously3637 by two sensors of the camera. This process is known as bracketing used for a video stream.
In 1991, the first commercial video camera was introduced that performed real-time capturing of multiple images with different exposures, and producing an HDR video image, by Hymatom, licensee of Georges Cornuéjols.
Also in 1991, Georges Cornuéjols introduced the HDR+ image principle by non-linear accumulation of images to increase the sensitivity of the camera: for low-light environments, several successive images are accumulated, thus increasing the signal to noise ratio.
In 1993, another commercial medical camera producing an HDR video image, by the Technion.
Modern HDR imaging uses a completely different approach, based on making a high-dynamic-range luminance or light map using only global image operations (across the entire image), and then tone mapping the result. Global HDR was first introduced in 19931 resulting in a mathematical theory of differently exposed pictures of the same subject matter that was published in 1995 by Steve Mann and Rosalind Picard.
On October 28, 1998, Ben Sarao created one of the first nighttime HDR+G (High Dynamic Range + Graphic image)of STS-95 on the launch pad at NASA's Kennedy Space Center. It consisted of four film images of the shuttle at night that were digitally composited with additional digital graphic elements. The image was first exhibited at NASA Headquarters Great Hall, Washington DC in 1999 and then published in Hasselblad Forum, Issue 3 1993, Volume 35 ISSN 0282-5449.
The advent of consumer digital cameras produced a new demand for HDR imaging to improve the light response of digital camera sensors, which had a much smaller dynamic range than film. Steve Mann developed and patented the global-HDR method for producing digital images having extended dynamic range at the MIT Media Laboratory. Mann's method involved a two-step procedure: (1) generate one floating point image array by global-only image operations (operations that affect all pixels identically, without regard to their local neighborhoods); and then (2) convert this image array, using local neighborhood processing (tone-remapping, etc.), into an HDR image. The image array generated by the first step of Mann's process is called a lightspace image, lightspace picture, or radiance map. Another benefit of global-HDR imaging is that it provides access to the intermediate light or radiance map, which has been used for computer vision, and other image processing operations.
21st century
In 2005, Adobe Systems introduced several new features in Photoshop CS2 including Merge to HDR, 32 bit floating point image support, and HDR tone mapping.
On June 30, 2016, Microsoft added support for the digital compositing of HDR images to Windows 10 using the Universal Windows Platform.
HDR sensors
Modern CMOS image sensors can often capture a high dynamic range from a single exposure. The wide dynamic range of the captured image is non-linearly compressed into a smaller dynamic range electronic representation. However, with proper processing, the information from a single exposure can be used to create an HDR image.
Such HDR imaging is used in extreme dynamic range applications like welding or automotive work. Some other cameras designed for use in security applications can automatically provide two or more images for each frame, with changing exposure. For example, a sensor for 30fps video will give out 60fps with the odd frames at a short exposure time and the even frames at a longer exposure time. Some of the sensor may even combine the two images on-chip so that a wider dynamic range without in-pixel compression is directly available to the user for display or processing.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High-dynamic-range_imaging
Infrared Photography
In infrared photography, the film or image sensor used is sensitive to infrared light. The part of the spectrum used is referred to as near-infrared to distinguish it from far-infrared, which is the domain of thermal imaging. Wavelengths used for photography range from about 700 nm to about 900 nm. Film is usually sensitive to visible light too, so an infrared-passing filter is used; this lets infrared (IR) light pass through to the camera, but blocks all or most of the visible light spectrum (the filter thus looks black or deep red). ("Infrared filter" may refer either to this type of filter or to one that blocks infrared but passes other wavelengths.)
When these filters are used together with infrared-sensitive film or sensors, "in-camera effects" can be obtained; false-color or black-and-white images with a dreamlike or sometimes lurid appearance known as the "Wood Effect," an effect mainly caused by foliage (such as tree leaves and grass) strongly reflecting in the same way visible light is reflected from snow. There is a small contribution from chlorophyll fluorescence, but this is marginal and is not the real cause of the brightness seen in infrared photographs. The effect is named after the infrared photography pioneer Robert W. Wood, and not after the material wood, which does not strongly reflect infrared.
The other attributes of infrared photographs include very dark skies and penetration of atmospheric haze, caused by reduced Rayleigh scattering and Mie scattering, respectively, compared to visible light. The dark skies, in turn, result in less infrared light in shadows and dark reflections of those skies from water, and clouds will stand out strongly. These wavelengths also penetrate a few millimeters into skin and give a milky look to portraits, although eyes often look black.
Until the early 20th century, infrared photography was not possible because silver halide emulsions are not sensitive to longer wavelengths than that of blue light (and to a lesser extent, green light) without the addition of a dye to act as a color sensitizer. The first infrared photographs (as distinct from spectrographs) to be published appeared in the February 1910 edition of The Century Magazine and in the October 1910 edition of the Royal Photographic Society Journal to illustrate papers by Robert W. Wood, who discovered the unusual effects that now bear his name. The RPS co-ordinated events to celebrate the centenary of this event in 2010. Wood's photographs were taken on experimental film that required very long exposures; thus, most of his work focused on landscapes. A further set of infrared landscapes taken by Wood in Italy in 1911 used plates provided for him by CEK Mees at Wratten & Wainwright. Mees also took a few infrared photographs in Portugal in 1910, which are now in the Kodak archives.
Infrared-sensitive photographic plates were developed in the United States during World War I for spectroscopic analysis, and infrared sensitizing dyes were investigated for improved haze penetration in aerial photography. After 1930, new emulsions from Kodak and other manufacturers became useful to infrared astronomy.
Infrared photography became popular with photography enthusiasts in the 1930s when suitable film was introduced commercially. The Times regularly published landscape and aerial photographs taken by their staff photographers using Ilford infrared film. By 1937 33 kinds of infrared film were available from five manufacturers including Agfa, Kodak and Ilford. Infrared movie film was also available and was used to create day-for-night effects in motion pictures, a notable example being the pseudo-night aerial sequences in the James Cagney/Bette Davis movie The Bride Came COD.
False-color infrared photography became widely practiced with the introduction of Kodak Ektachrome Infrared Aero Film and Ektachrome Infrared EIR. The first version of this, known as Kodacolor Aero-Reversal-Film, was developed by Clark and others at the Kodak for camouflage detection in the 1940s. The film became more widely available in 35mm form in the 1960s but KODAK AEROCHROME III Infrared Film 1443 has been discontinued.
Infrared photography became popular with a number of 1960s recording artists, because of the unusual results; Jimi Hendrix, Donovan, Frank and a slow shutter speed without focus compensation, however wider apertures like f/2.0 can produce sharp photos only if the lens is meticulously refocused to the infrared index mark, and only if this index mark is the correct one for the filter and film in use. However, it should be noted that diffraction effects inside a camera are greater at infrared wavelengths so that stopping down the lens too far may actually reduce sharpness.
Most apochromatic ('APO') lenses do not have an Infrared index mark and do not need to be refocused for the infrared spectrum because they are already optically corrected into the near-infrared spectrum. Catadioptric lenses do not often require this adjustment because their mirror containing elements do not suffer from chromatic aberration and so the overall aberration is comparably less. Catadioptric lenses do, of course, still contain lenses, and these lenses do still have a dispersive property.
Infrared black-and-white films require special development times but development is usually achieved with standard black-and-white film developers and chemicals (like D-76). Kodak HIE film has a polyester film base that is very stable but extremely easy to scratch, therefore special care must be used in the handling of Kodak HIE throughout the development and printing/scanning process to avoid damage to the film. The Kodak HIE film was sensitive to 900 nm.
As of November 2, 2007, "KODAK is preannouncing the discontinuance" of HIE Infrared 35 mm film stating the reasons that, "Demand for these products has been declining significantly in recent years, and it is no longer practical to continue to manufacture given the low volume, the age of the product formulations and the complexity of the processes involved." At the time of this notice, HIE Infrared 135-36 was available at a street price of around $12.00 a roll at US mail order outlets.
Arguably the greatest obstacle to infrared film photography has been the increasing difficulty of obtaining infrared-sensitive film. However, despite the discontinuance of HIE, other newer infrared sensitive emulsions from EFKE, ROLLEI, and ILFORD are still available, but these formulations have differing sensitivity and specifications from the venerable KODAK HIE that has been around for at least two decades. Some of these infrared films are available in 120 and larger formats as well as 35 mm, which adds flexibility to their application. With the discontinuance of Kodak HIE, Efke's IR820 film has become the only IR film on the marketneeds update with good sensitivity beyond 750 nm, the Rollei film does extend beyond 750 nm but IR sensitivity falls off very rapidly.
Color infrared transparency films have three sensitized layers that, because of the way the dyes are coupled to these layers, reproduce infrared as red, red as green, and green as blue. All three layers are sensitive to blue so the film must be used with a yellow filter, since this will block blue light but allow the remaining colors to reach the film. The health of foliage can be determined from the relative strengths of green and infrared light reflected; this shows in color infrared as a shift from red (healthy) towards magenta (unhealthy). Early color infrared films were developed in the older E-4 process, but Kodak later manufactured a color transparency film that could be developed in standard E-6 chemistry, although more accurate results were obtained by developing using the AR-5 process. In general, color infrared does not need to be refocused to the infrared index mark on the lens.
In 2007 Kodak announced that production of the 35 mm version of their color infrared film (Ektachrome Professional Infrared/EIR) would cease as there was insufficient demand. Since 2011, all formats of color infrared film have been discontinued. Specifically, Aerochrome 1443 and SO-734.
There is no currently available digital camera that will produce the same results as Kodak color infrared film although the equivalent images can be produced by taking two exposures, one infrared and the other full-color, and combining in post-production. The color images produced by digital still cameras using infrared-pass filters are not equivalent to those produced on color infrared film. The colors result from varying amounts of infrared passing through the color filters on the photo sites, further amended by the Bayer filtering. While this makes such images unsuitable for the kind of applications for which the film was used, such as remote sensing of plant health, the resulting color tonality has proved popular artistically.
Color digital infrared, as part of full spectrum photography is gaining popularity. The ease of creating a softly colored photo with infrared characteristics has found interest among hobbyists and professionals.
In 2008, Los Angeles photographer, Dean Bennici started cutting and hand rolling Aerochrome color Infrared film. All Aerochrome medium and large format which exists today came directly from his lab. The trend in infrared photography continues to gain momentum with the success of photographer Richard Mosse and multiple users all around the world.
Digital camera sensors are inherently sensitive to infrared light, which would interfere with the normal photography by confusing the autofocus calculations or softening the image (because infrared light is focused differently from visible light), or oversaturating the red channel. Also, some clothing is transparent in the infrared, leading to unintended (at least to the manufacturer) uses of video cameras. Thus, to improve image quality and protect privacy, many digital cameras employ infrared blockers. Depending on the subject matter, infrared photography may not be practical with these cameras because the exposure times become overly long, often in the range of 30 seconds, creating noise and motion blur in the final image. However, for some subject matter the long exposure does not matter or the motion blur effects actually add to the image. Some lenses will also show a 'hot spot' in the centre of the image as their coatings are optimised for visible light and not for IR.
An alternative method of DSLR infrared photography is to remove the infrared blocker in front of the sensor and replace it with a filter that removes visible light. This filter is behind the mirror, so the camera can be used normally - handheld, normal shutter speeds, normal composition through the viewfinder, and focus, all work like a normal camera. Metering works but is not always accurate because of the difference between visible and infrared refraction. When the IR blocker is removed, many lenses which did display a hotspot cease to do so, and become perfectly usable for infrared photography. Additionally, because the red, green and blue micro-filters remain and have transmissions not only in their respective color but also in the infrared, enhanced infrared color may be recorded.
Since the Bayer filters in most digital cameras absorb a significant fraction of the infrared light, these cameras are sometimes not very sensitive as infrared cameras and can sometimes produce false colors in the images. An alternative approach is to use a Foveon X3 sensor, which does not have absorptive filters on it; the Sigma SD10 DSLR has a removable IR blocking filter and dust protector, which can be simply omitted or replaced by a deep red or complete visible light blocking filter. The Sigma SD14 has an IR/UV blocking filter that can be removed/installed without tools. The result is a very sensitive digital IR camera.
While it is common to use a filter that blocks almost all visible light, the wavelength sensitivity of a digital camera without internal infrared blocking is such that a variety of artistic results can be obtained with more conventional filtration. For example, a very dark neutral density filter can be used (such as the Hoya ND400) which passes a very small amount of visible light compared to the near-infrared it allows through. Wider filtration permits an SLR viewfinder to be used and also passes more varied color information to the sensor without necessarily reducing the Wood effect. Wider filtration is however likely to reduce other infrared artefacts such as haze penetration and darkened skies. This technique mirrors the methods used by infrared film photographers where black-and-white infrared film was often used with a deep red filter rather than a visually opaque one.
Another common technique with near-infrared filters is to swap blue and red channels in software (e.g. photoshop) which retains much of the characteristic 'white foliage' while rendering skies a glorious blue.
Several Sony cameras had the so-called Night Shot facility, which physically moves the blocking filter away from the light path, which makes the cameras very sensitive to infrared light. Soon after its development, this facility was 'restricted' by Sony to make it difficult for people to take photos that saw through clothing. To do this the iris is opened fully and exposure duration is limited to long times of more than 1/30 second or so. It is possible to shoot infrared but neutral density filters must be used to reduce the camera's sensitivity and the long exposure times mean that care must be taken to avoid camera-shake artifacts.
Fuji have produced digital cameras for use in forensic criminology and medicine which have no infrared blocking filter. The first camera, designated the S3 PRO UVIR, also had extended ultraviolet sensitivity (digital sensors are usually less sensitive to UV than to IR). Optimum UV sensitivity requires special lenses, but ordinary lenses usually work well for IR. In 2007, FujiFilm introduced a new version of this camera, based on the Nikon D200/ FujiFilm S5 called the IS Pro, also able to take Nikon lenses. Fuji had earlier introduced a non-SLR infrared camera, the IS-1, a modified version of the FujiFilm FinePix S9100. Unlike the S3 PRO UVIR, the IS-1 does not offer UV sensitivity. FujiFilm restricts the sale of these cameras to professional users with their EULA specifically prohibiting "unethical photographic conduct".
Phase One digital camera backs can be ordered in an infrared modified form.
Remote sensing and thermographic cameras are sensitive to longer wavelengths of infrared (see Infrared spectrum#Commonly used sub-division scheme). They may be multispectral and use a variety of technologies which may not resemble common camera or filter designs. Cameras sensitive to longer infrared wavelengths including those used in infrared astronomy often require cooling to reduce thermally induced dark currents in the sensor (see Dark current (physics)). Lower cost uncooled thermographic digital cameras operate in the Long Wave infrared band (see Thermographic camera#Uncooled infrared detectors). These cameras are generally used for building inspection or preventative maintenance but can be used for artistic pursuits as well.
Hi all. It has been an absolute age since I've posted here - work commitments reducing my time for photography.
Here's a shot of Ludwig II's fabulous Neuschwanstein Castle in Bavaria. Walt Disney used this as the inspiration behind his Sleeping Beauty palace. Wonderful place. Also the location where my lovely future wife and I got engaged.
Shot with a 5D MkIII & the Tammy 24-70mm. 2.8 VC. Unfortunately the castle wasn't lit up this night except for the extremely bright spotlight to the left so the castle was light painted for 2 minutes to bring up the detail and resultant shot merged with a 30 second shot so that the left of the caste wasn't too blown out (I probably should have tried 8 or 15 seconds for that part).
Thanks for looking
Lightweight, nimble and surprisingly deadly. Not much has changed with our Gecko light combat frame series.
What's changed is the extras.
As in one free Model 2 LMG with every purchase.
At a reduced price.
Oh, the wonders of mass manufacturing.
Original Caption: Both Oregon and Washington States Led the Nation in Reducing Driving Speeds to Conserve Gasoline before Federal Limits Were Passed. A Speed Limit Sign and a Reminder Are Shown Along Interstate #5 11/1973
U.S. National Archives’ Local Identifier: 412-DA-12975
Photographer: Falconer, David
Subjects:
Environmental Protection Agency
Project DOCUMERICA
Persistent URL: arcweb.archives.gov/arc/action/ExternalIdSearch?id=555427
Repository: Still Picture Records Section, Special Media Archives Services Division (NWCS-S), National Archives at College Park, 8601 Adelphi Road, College Park, MD, 20740-6001.
For information about ordering reproductions of photographs held by the Still Picture Unit, visit: www.archives.gov/research/order/still-pictures.html
Reproductions may be ordered via an independent vendor. NARA maintains a list of vendors at www.archives.gov/research/order/vendors-photos-maps-dc.html
Access Restrictions: Unrestricted
Use Restrictions: Unrestricted
I increased the spacing of the reducer to increase the amount of reduction. The resolution changed to 0.95"/px from the native 0.6"/px. This image is uncropped and you will notice more noise on the edges due to dithering in between exposures. Th stars near the edges show a little coma which is to be expected, but I am really surprised at the small amount of coma.
Over all I am very happy with this result and plan on keeping this setup for awhile.
AT8RC Specs
Native - 200mm f8 fl 1623mm
with Reducer - 200mm f5 fl 1050mm
44 x 180 sec ISO 1600
Updated 20230224:
Images of this object in an alternate narrowband palette can be found at the link attached here - www.flickr.com/photos/homcavobservatory/52708453617/
With the start of the new year today and the skies in our area remaining cloudy, I thought I'd make some time to process my first 'proper' image from a recently acquired ASI2600MC Pro one-shot-color cooled astronomy camera and an applicable narrow-band filter.
Although I still have a variety of data to process, including some globular clusters I shot last summer, previously I did manage to make the time to process the 'first-light' short test exposures from this camera that can be found at the link attached here -
www.flickr.com/photos/homcavobservatory/52566000859/
Given the object's proximity in our skies at the time (in addition to being 'relatively' bright), although it only covers approximately one-sixth the available field-of-view, and thus would benefit from a longer focal-length; I decided to try the first long exposure on the Pacman Nebula (NGC 281).
Object Details: NGC 281 is an emission nebula which can be found glowing at magnitude 7.4 in the constellation of Cassiopeia. it spans just over 1/2 degree in our sky (e.g. slightly larger than the apparent diameter of the full moon), and although visible in binoculars under a dark sky, it's a stunning object when viewed in larger instruments.
Known as 'The Pacman Nebula' due to it's resemblance to the video game character, it lies approximately 10,000 light-years from Earth in the Perseus spiral arm of our Milky Way galaxy and is about 80 light-years in diameter.
Embedded within the nebula, and providing the energy which causes the nebula itself to glow, is the young open star cluster IC 1590. The very dark areas visible within the nebula are known as 'Bok Globules' (i.e. relatively small, dense, dark clouds of dust and gas in which stars may be forming), examples of which are shown as 2x enlargements via the insets at lower left and right.
Image Details: The data for the attached image were taken by Jay Edwards on October 16, 22 & 29, 2022 using an Orion 80mm f/6 carbon-fiber triplet apochromatic refractor (i.e. an ED80T CF) connected to a Televue 0.8X field flattener / focal reducer and an IDAS NBZ dual band filter which has narrowband passes centered on the emissions of Hydrogen-alpha (656.3 nanometers) and Oxygen III (495.9 & 500.7 nanometers) on an ASI2600MC Pro cooled astronomical camera.
The 80mm was piggybacked on a vintage 1970, 8-inch, f/7, Criterion newtonian reflector and was tracked using a Losmandy G-11 mount running a Gemini 2 control system and guided using PHD2 to control a ZWO ASI290MC planetary camera / auto-guider in an 80mm f/5 Celestron 'short-tube' refractor, which itself was piggybacked on top of the 80mm apo.
The image consists of five hours of total integration time (not including applicable dark, flat and flat dark calibration frames) and was constructed using a stack of one-hundred 3 minutes sub-exposures. Although I am still working out an applicable workflow for this new camera, the data were processed using a combination of PixInsight and PaintShopPro. As presented here it has been cropped to a 2160 x 3840 resolution (approximately one-third the camera's field-of-view) and the bit depth has been lowered to 8 bits per channel.
Given that this data was taken using a dual-band filter; I'm hoping to split out the H-alpha & OIII data, synthesize a third channel and recombine them to produce a 'Hubble-palette' like version of this object in the future.
Wishing everyone clear, calm & dark skies; and of course a Happy New Year !!!
To cater for the heavy holiday traffic, the terminus station at Llandudno was a large affair by the end of the 19th century, with an impressive long overall roof covering its five platforms. Under LMS ownership, the station was further upgraded, that 1920s legacy surviving today with the cast iron concourse railings and LMS logo.
As the holiday rail traffic shrank, so did the station infrastructure, and the remaining operational platforms are covered by only a vestigial section of the glass roof. I was able to capture views of the Rail 200 Exhibition Train on my North Wales visit, with GB Railfreight 66 719 standing at the buffer stops.
Austin Healey Mk.II (1961-63) Engine 2912cc S6 OHV Production 11563
Registration Number SSY 826
AUSTIN HEALEY ALBUM
www.flickr.com/photos/45676495@N05/sets/72157623759812996...
Introduced in March 1961, the 3000 Mark II came with three SU HS4 carburettors and an improved camshaft, designated the BT7 Mark II (4-seat version) and BN7 Mark II (2-seat version). However, upon the introduction of the BJ7 (2+2 seats) model in January 1962, the number of carburettors was reduced to two, (SU type HS6) because of the problems experienced with balancing three carburettors. Following the introduction of the BJ7 the BN7 was discontinued from March 1962 and the BN7 discontinued in June 1962.
Externally, the main changes introduced with the BJ7 were a vertical barred front grille, wind-up windows rather than side curtains, an improved hood, and a wrap-around windscreen.
A brake servo became available as an optional extra from October 1963
Diolch am 98,463,824 o olygiadau gwych, mae pob un ohonynt yn cael eu gwerthfawrogi'n fawr.
Thanks for 98,463,824 amazing views, every one is greatly appreciated.
Shot 09.10.2022, at Bicester Heritage, Autumn Scramble, Bicester Aerodrome, Bicester, Oxon 166-072
Reduced the side sections down to 16 wide from 32 wide and started to work in the connecting points.
As one climbs higher along the hiking path to the top of mount Inari, the torii get less dense but also bigger (hence more expensive, the largest can cost up to 10000 Euros...).
One of a series of WW2 posters issued by the umbrella group "British Buses' exhorting changes in travelling habits due to wartime demand and conditions. It is certainly very graphic with the 'sardines' and sardine tin motif! James Fitton was born in Oldham, Lancashire, in 1899 and who died in 1982. He was a poster designer, artist and lithographer.
The Lockheed C-130 Hercules is a four-engine turboprop military transport aircraft designed and built originally by Lockheed, now Lockheed Martin. Capable of using unprepared runways for takeoffs and landings, the C-130 was originally designed as a troop, medevac, and cargo transport aircraft. The versatile airframe has found uses in a variety of other roles, including as a gunship (AC-130), for airborne assault, search and rescue, scientific research support, weather reconnaissance, aerial refueling, maritime patrol, and aerial firefighting. It is now the main tactical airlifter for many military forces worldwide. Over forty models and variants of the Hercules, including a civilian one marketed as Lockheed L-100, operate in more than sixty nations.
The extended-range C-130E model entered service in 1962 after it was developed as an interim long-range transport for the Military Air Transport Service. Essentially a B-model, the new designation was the result of the installation of 1,360 US gal (5,150 L) Sargent Fletcher external fuel tanks under each wing's midsection and more powerful Allison T56-A-7A turboprops. The hydraulic boost pressure to the ailerons was reduced back to 2,050 psi (14.1 MPa) as a consequence of the external tanks' weight in the middle of the wingspan. The E model also featured structural improvements, avionics upgrades and a higher gross weight. Australia took delivery of 12 C130E Hercules during 1966–67 to supplement the 12 C-130A models already in service with the RAAF. Sweden and Spain fly the TP-84T version of the C-130E fitted for aerial refueling capability.
The C-130 entered service with the U.S. in the 1950s, followed by Australia and others. During its years of service, the Hercules family has participated in numerous military, civilian and humanitarian aid operations. In 2007, the C-130 became the fifth aircraft—after the English Electric Canberra, B-52 Stratofortress, Tu-95, and KC-135 Stratotanker—to mark 50 years of continuous service with its original primary customer, in this case, the United States Air Force. The C-130 Hercules is the longest continuously produced military aircraft at over 60 years, with the updated Lockheed Martin C-130J Super Hercules being produced today.
BN H3 exists, literally. BN TEBC6 #55 sits with two BNSF SD40-2s at the engine facility at Pasco West. This slug set has an interesting history; it started out as a high hood CB&Q SD9, was converted to a yard slug in the early 90s, and was renumbered four times by BNSF before finally BN #55. What a fate.
Parked up in the small town of San Enrique de Guadiaro near where i was staying was this Audi Q7 on Danish plates. The car was registered with tax-reduced plates (also known as 'Parrot-plates'), denoted by the yellow band on the first two characters. These plates are issued to commercial vehicles which can be used privately, and this the tax payable is reduced to 50%. The vehicle must not carry rear seating, or more than two passengers.
The car was purchased or serviced from a garage in Herning, located in the centre of the Jutland peninsula. The car was also advertising for a Polo club based in the resort of Sotogrande, where i was staying at. It's likely that this car doesn't see much of Denmark, like a lot of the foreign cars i spotted around the resort.
San Enrique de Guadiaro, Cádiz Province, Spain
equipment: Takahashi FSQ-106ED, Reducer QE 0.73x, and Canon EOS 5Dmk2-sp2, modified by Seo-san on Takahashi EM-200 Temma 2 Jr, autoguided with hiro-design off-axis guider, SX Lodestar, and PHD Guiding
exposure: 4 times x 1 hour, 5 x 15 minutes, 4 x 4 min, and 7 x 1 minute at ISO 1,600 and f/3.6
site: 11,00 feet above sea level near Mauna Loa Observatory in Hawaii
Net Zero (The Great Leap Forward: starvation and death) is a net of deception that will end with mass death and destruction. Reduce CO2 emissions! Less plants and oxygen, less life…woohoo! You are the CO2 they want to reduce. The unwanted carbon they most want to get rid of is you…the earth is overpopulated you know. Say no to cow farts…eating meat: bad; eating bugs: good! No driving or flying…yay! Green energy is unsustainable and so are you…buhahaha! Reduce nitrogen emissions (nitrogen fertilizer)! Less fertilizer and food, less life…woohoo! In the end you will not be allowed to collect rain water, grow a garden or raise animals. Scarcity = dependency = control. Sustainability means depopulation. If you haven’t figured it out yet: the United Nations’ Agenda 2030 Sustainable Development Goals is an agenda to implement global communism—to centralize, control, and depopulate. It’s about the famous communist religious doctrine of “redistribution of wealth”. They will make the west poorer, yet they will allow China to be exempt, thus elevating China. It’s nothing but a communist redistribution scheme…equality for all! Stakeholder Capitalism (Stakeholder Communism) anyone? Communism rebranded…woohoo! Human rights: a repackaging of socialism. Let’s repackage and rename the latest version of the revolution: wokeism—“Tyranny of the minority.” Then the masses will consume the latest greatest neo-communist dialectic fad.
1970s: Global Cooling
1980s: Greenhouse Gas
1990s: Ozone Depletion
2000s: Global Warming
2010s: Climate Change
2020s: Global Boiling
“These, Health and Climate, are the twin tools of oppression being slatheringly adopted by all Politian’s and aspiring dictators.” They never let a crisis go to waste, even if they have to invent one—covid and climate fascism. The Nazi’s used medicine and science too. Why is it that Canada’s euthanasia laws remind me of Nazi Germany? Yet useful idiots will defend such laws. So where is the public debate on all this stuff? When talking about the Medical-Industrial Complex or the Scientific-Industrial Complex we get met by the Censorship-Industrial Complex. Hands off the Patent-for-profit Government-Medical-Pharmaceutical Axis! Governments and corporations working hand in hand: fascism. That’s odd…who would’ve thought!?! That’s why the United Nations loves its Public-Private Partnerships. Indeed, Google wasn't meant for searching anything but the user! Can anyone say: data mining!?! Data will be used to control you. Ah…the beautiful smell of the Beast Technostructure System—a techno-driven data enslavement system. 666: the sweet smelling system of tyranny. Woohoo…the future smells like death and destruction, like hell on earth! Authoritarianism at its finest! The utopian dream of sustainability!
Build Back Beter: you must destroy (tear down) in order to rebuild (Lahaina; Lytton). In order for them to rebuild, they will first tear down society. We must destroy democracy by adopting global environmental data standards, so that we can address the triple planetary crisis. We must pool data and digital infrastructure across all United Nations member states, building flagship data sets and standards for interoperability, so that we can bring together data and AI expertise to build insights and applications for the 17 Sustainable Development Goals.
To be a good global citizen you will need to follow (live by) the United Nations’ Agenda 2030 Sustainable Development Goals. These Sustainable Development Goals will be enforced through a global Social Credit Score System. The 17 Sustainable Development Goals is the Hegelian Dialectic that is taking us into the New World Order—Build Back Better. Will we get to vote on all this? No! “Sustainability is the tyranny of the 21st century.”
The perfect global citizen is one who lacks purpose, one who is apathetic and cowardly, one who will not stand up for what is right and true. These people feel like they live empty and meaningless lives. They are bored, socially alienated and lonely (social media ring a bell?). Such people will more readily fall for spoon fed ideology through propaganda, indoctrination and peer pressure. Then, with faithful devotion, they will religiously adhere to their new doctrine of wokeism. They lack understand concerning freedom; they lack understand concerning their responsibility to maintain freedom. They lack critical thinking skills and are willfully ignorant. They don’t want to take responsibility for themselves but want someone else (big daddy government) to look after them. So when a One World Totalitarian Socialist Governance System presents itself, the masses will be compliant. Welcome to the New (dark) Age of enlightenment (unreason). Welcome to the cyber-zombie apocalypse. Paradigm blindness: they will gladly accept a digital pseudo-reality—the metaverse synthetic multiverse effect. These global citizens will outsource their thinking to the Beast hive mind system. They will be willing and blissful slaves. “They will own nothing and be happy.” Global citizens will embrace the false utopianism of the New World Order when it presents itself. They will take the smart-tattoo-chip to the hand or forehead, and they will plead allegiance to the new tyrant. This up coming regime will be worse than the other communist and fascist regimes, and it will have a worse leader. It will cause more starvation and death, and it will have more control of the people. Let’s repackage and rename this latest version of the techno-revolution: antichristism. Welcome to the digital 666 gulags, where billions will die! Welcome to the digital prison planet Beast system. They will tear down humanity, in order to replace it with transhumanity. You will not be able to live in a digital world and keep your individuality, freedom and autonomy. Even worse, you will not be able to live in a digital Trans-666-humanist world and keep your soul. Which christ will you follow? You cannot serve two masters!
Matthew 24:28 “Just as the gathering of vultures shows there is a carcass nearby, so these signs indicate that the end is near.”
3D red/cyan anaglyph created from glass plate stereograph at Library of Congress - Prints & Photographs Online Catalog at:
LOC Title: Charleston, S.C. Fort Sumter, from the sand-bar
Date: April 1865
Photographer: George N. Barnard (1819-1902)
Notes: The Civil War began on April 12, 1861 with the Confederate 2-day bombardment of Fort Sumter and its subsequent surrender by Union Forces. Although attempted, the Union was never able to recapture the fort by force – it remained in Confederates hands till the end of the war, evacuated along with Charleston in Feb 1865.
Below is an overview of the attacks against the fort, which by the end of the war, had reduced it to a pile of rubble. It concludes with a summary indicating that the fort was under fire for a total of 280 days with 46,053 projectiles thrown against it. The stereograph above shows the effect of these bombardments. For a view of what the fort looked like in 1861, before the Union bombardments, see this Library of Congress link: tile.loc.gov/storage-services/service/pnp/ppmsca/35200/35...
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All the information below is taken from, “Historic Points of Interest In and Around Charleston, S.C., Conveniently Arranged For Easy Reference By Dates, Events, and Places – Confederate Re-Union Edition,” Pub 1896, available for free download at www.archive.org.
"April 12-14, 1861—Fort Sumter bombarded.
Soon after the organization of the Southern Confederacy, General Beauregard was ordered to conduct military operations against Fort Sumter. When it became known that a second attempt to relieve the garrison would be made by the Federal government, preparations for attack were hastened; and, when completed, the surrender of the Fort was demanded by the Confederates. The demand being refused, the batteries from Sullivan's, Morris' and James Islands, were opened according to notice, before daylight on the 12th of April. Firing from these, was maintained for thirty-three hours, and replied to by the Fort. At length, on the second day, the quarters having been set on fire by hotshot, and the smoke becoming intolerable, the fort was surrendered. The garrison, after saluting their flag, were conveyed by the Confederates, April 14th, to the three gunboats and a troop-ship, which had come to their aid, but had remained idle spectators of the bombardment. Embarking on these, the garrison were taken to New York. But few casualties had occurred on either side. The use of iron-plating for the protection of batteries, and of a rifled cannon imported from England, marked the introduction of these two elements by the Confederates into American warfare.
Apr. 7th, 1863—The Repulse of the Iron-Clad Squadron.
Rear Admiral DuPont, commanding an iron-clad squadron of eight monitors and the steam frigate New Ironsides, attacked Fort Sumter, drawing the fire of the Sullivan's Island batteries also. In an action of two hours and thirty minutes, five out of the nine vessels were disabled, and one of these, the Keokuk, sank off Morris Island next morning. The fort with a garrison of 550 men, commanded by Col. Rhett, First S.C. Artillery, was seriously damaged in two or three places, but made ready to renew the fight next day. The casualties on both sides were slight. Union, 23 ; Confederate, 6. This memorable repulse of the armored vessels proved the readiness of the South, in at least one place, to meet the strongest effort of the United States Navy. In point of both armament and power of resistance, it was the most formidable naval attack made up to that time, in this, or any other country. The squadron carried a total of thirty-two guns, apportioned as follows:—twenty two of eleven inches, smooth bore, seven of fifteen inches, (s. b.) and three Parrot rifle cannon of eight inches calibre. The Confederates had many guns of no value against armored vessels, and none heavier than the smooth-bore ten-inch Columbiads. An important place in the action was filled by the rope-obstruction across the channel, between Fort Sumter and Sullivan's Island. This, buoyed with beer kegs for floats, was supposed to be a line of torpedoes, and effectually stopped the advance of the entire squadron into the inner harbor…..
Aug. 17-Sep.2, 1863—Fort Sumter demolished and silenced.
The rifled-cannon brought by Gen. Gillmore, were capable of unprecedented range, accuracy and destructive power. Fort Sumter was prepared for them by Gen. Beauregard, with such skill of foresight and contrivance as to entirely disappoint all hope of surrender. He had the fort armament reduced to a minimum, casemates and rooms exposed to breaching filled-in with sand and wet compressed cotton-bales, and a new wharf built on the side of the city, protected by the fort itself. But, when the breaching fire from eighteen rifle-cannon— 100, 200, and 300 pounders, began to be poured upon the devoted fort, it became evident that its ruin, as a first-class fortification of its period, was assured. At the end of sixteen days, all-day firing:, combined with two night attacks by the armored squadron, the fort was silenced, as well as demolished. But it was habitable, and the surrender was not considered for a moment by the Confederate General. It had received nearly 7,000 shot and shell, and its casualties had been two killed and 50 wounded. Its first great bombardment lasted thus sixteen days.
Sept. 7th, 1863 — Surrender of Ft. Sumter Demanded.
Rear Admiral Dahlgren, after demanding the surrender of Fort Sumter and being refused, engaged Fort Moultrie and the other heavy batteries of Sullivan's Island, late in the afternoon.
Sept. 8th-9th, 1863 —Ft. Sumter Attacked by Small Boats.
During the fight with Sullivan's Island preparations were in progress for a night attack with small boats on the ruins of Sumter. Both Gen. Gillmore and Rear-Admiral Dahlgren were arranging for the same thing. But they failed to co-operate, and only Dahlgren's boats started on the expedition. Two only out of five divisions landed at the base of the fort, and were met with so fierce a fire from, the infantry of Major Elliott's garrison and the enfilading, batteries of the harbor as to withdraw or surrender in twenty minutes. The attack was made an hour after midnight, and resulted in disastrous failure; for while not a man of the garrison was hurt the naval loss was six killed, fifteen wounded and one hundred and six prisoners.
Sept. 28th—Ft. Sumter's First Minor Bombardment lasting six days. Batteries of James and Sullivan's Island fire irregularly on Morris Island.
Oct. 26th —Ft. Sumter's Second Great Bombardment.
Lasting forty-one days and nights, was attended with serious loss in men and material. The total of shots fired at the fort by land and naval guns and mortars was 18,677. The casualties being 30 killed and 70 wounded. But the fort repaired nightly most of its damages, and was armed again with three heavy guns in the lower casemates opposite Fort Moultrie.
Dec. 11th, 1863—Explosion of Magazine in Fort Sumter.
This was accidental, from some cause never discovered. It was a far more serious calamity than the previous bombardment, for it was attended with fifty-two casualties, and a destructive fire, which burnt out the habitable quarters, and drove the garrison into crowded and unhealthy shelters. While the quarters were on fire, the enemy opened on the fort firing 220 rounds, which constituted the second minor bombardment. This explosion and fire marked a crisis in the fort's endurance ; for, if they had been followed up with another heavy cannonade, the fort might have become untenable, at the end of a week, so reduced were the accommodations and even places of safety, and so strained and harassed were the men of the garrison.
Jan.29-31st, 1864—Fort Sumter's third minor Bombardment, lasting three days, with 583 rounds fired, did no more damage than could be repaired. Another Confederate armored gunboat, the "Charleston," was added to the harbor defences, after having been built in the city.
March, 1864—Fort Sumter's fourth minor Bombardment, with firing of 143 rounds.
April 28-May 4th, 1864—Fort Sumter's fifth minor Bombardment, lasting seven days, with 510 rounds.
May 13-16th, 1864—Fort Sumter's sixth minor Bombardment, lasting four days, with 1,140 rounds.
May 30-June 5th, 1864—Fort Sumter's seventh minor Bombardment, lasting eight days, with 319 rounds.
July 7th—Fort Sumter's third great Bombardment, lasting sixty days and nights, with a total of 14.666 rounds fired at the fort, and with 81 casualties. At first severe, the damages were soon controlled and repaired. Powder-rafts failed entirely to injure the fort. The commander, Capt. J. C. Mitchel, mortally wounded on the fourteenth day.
July 20th, 1864—The Command of Fort Sumter passed to Capt. T. A. Huguenin, succeeding Capt. Mitchel, deceased, and continuing in command until the evacuation of the city and harbor.
GENERAL SUMMARY FORT SUMTER, FEB. 1, 1865.
Total number of projectiles fired against it 46,053
Total weight in tons of metal thrown (estimate) 3,500
Total number of days under three great bombardments 117
Total number of days under eight minor bombardments 40
Total number of days under fire, steady and desultory.. 280
Total number of casualties 52 killed, 267 wounded...... 319"
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