House plants are a refreshing reminder of the rich biosphere teaming with life just outside of our hermetically sealed human dens. They calm us and clean our air. But what would you do if you came across a glowing green flower on your dinner table? I would be startled, but not shaken.
Nikola Tesla In my opinion, one of the most neglected inventors of all time. The names Edison and Marconi come to mind as familiar, but Tesla? Most think of a car. Few know that Tesla is responsible for alternating current, florescent lights, radar, remote control, generators that preform efficiently, the spark plug, and many others. The U.S Supreme Court declared in 1943 that Tesla, not Marconi, was the true inventor of the radio.
My attempt at real astrophotography. The two bright nebula are M 42 and M 43 located in Orion's Sword. I took about 20 images at ISO 800 and 1.6 second exposures using a 300 mm lens and stacked them in Photoshop after repositioning them because of the movement of the sky. This is cropped in just a tiny bit.
Women of color have beautiful dark skin that really works with bright eyeshadows. Don't be afraid to try some of these look. Start with toned down face makeup and well groomed brows and follow these tips. Blues
This bright, tangy salsa goes wonderfully with tortilla chips, or as a dressing for fish and pork. To make this very simple recipe, you will need: 1 serrano pepper, 1/4 a roasted onion, 3 cloves roasted garlic, 1 pound of husked and boiled tomatillos and a pinch of salt. Make spicy salsa verde out of serrano peppers and tomatillos.
Tonight, I saw Mercury for the first time. Mercury is a hard planet to see, even though it is quite bright, because it's orbit is so close to the sun. The angle Mercury makes with the Earth and the Sun is never more than about 25 degrees and most of the time it is much less. As a result, you can't ever see Mercury during the night but at a couple of times in it's orbit you can see it at either dawn or dusk. Right now, Mercury is close to it's greatest eastern elongation and can be seen low in...
Oh, don't look so grumpy, Coco. I'm sure Nylon's secret formulas will only be used in the direst of situations:
Have you ever been to a hip restaurant with horrible lighting? You need your iPhone's flashlight just to read the menu. Of course, sometimes the light comes off too bright, blinding the people next to you. But don't settle for a flashlight that's too bright. You can choose from four different brightness levels instead, to perfectly fit your situation.
If you're the kind of person who misses the bright, sunny days of summer during the colder months, Michail has the perfect addition to your home. He built this "Nuclear Explosion" Chandelier that's as bright as daylight, so you can recreate the feeling of summer, no matter what time of year it is. It puts out 99,400 lumen (a typical 60W light bulb only produces 800 lm), so it takes quite a bit of electricity to run. Michail used 7 metal-halide lamps, which are much brighter and more energy ef...
This is one of my grand-babies toys! I love the bright colors along with the blur and bokeh effect! I used my iPhone 3gs.
I thought this one was interesting. Long exposure while zooming out. All of the bright spots from the guitar became streaking lines. Maybe not that scary but I thought it was an interesting technique with an interesting result. Probably would have worked a lot better in a better location! My classroom isn't that interesting.
In this episode of Final Cut Help, Richard Harrington takes a look at keyframing the three way color corrector in FCP. As details change in a movie clip you can have the filter adjust its values over time. This example uses a video of a bird starting in a bright sky and ending in water which is darker, the contrast transition is controlled by keyframing the saturation and color correction.
In this Final Cut tutorial, Richard Harrington discusses the common problem of backlighting, exposure and what can happen when shooting video outdoors. Proper exposure of all elements in a shoot can be a pain to achieve with a bright sun and blue sky but using the three way color corrector in Final Cut Pro, Richard is able to make all the elements pop.
In this Photoshop tutorial, Richard Harrington takes a look at balancing out exposure issues inside of Photoshop CS4. Mixed lighting on a photo can cause portions of the image to be too bright or too dark, fortunately Photoshop gives us some great tools to take care of these types of issues. Using a levels adjustment layer in combination with a color range selection, Richard is able to greatly control the lighting in a photo. The equalize command is also covered in this video tutorial.
Do you have a great photo that has one (or more) big bright spot that ruins it? Check out this tutorial on reducing highlights in Photoshop for all the fixes you'll need. Reduce highlights on images in Photoshop.
New Year's Eve. It will be one hell of a chaotic night. Trust me. The overcrowded streets. Long lines for the urinal. Maxing out your credit card on that shot of Cuervo. You'll be lucky to make it out alive.
The comet Garradd is almost at its peak now, plus there's plenty more events going on this week, so be sure to observe!
This week's AON might be a little short, but finally, the Garradd comet's peak has come! I picked the Garradd comet to follow because it's a bright and easy-to-follow comet. Be sure to observe it! If you need help finding it, you can find more information here.
Undercover Crow -Sage I sit in a dim black bench
Chilli plants will thrive on a sunny window sill or in a greenhouse. They have a long cropping season, so you could still be harvesting fresh chillies in December. You will need just two small pots to sow your chilli seeds; use a good quality seed compost and keep them in a bright place to ensure they germinate.
Willow Smith has what it takes to be a star, just like her parents, Will and Jada Smith, and her brother, Jaden Smith. But this Smith, at the tender age of 9, is quickly becoming a pop superstar and preteen trendsetter, thanks to her music video "Whip My Hair".
Follow Mark Amey's step by step guide to looking after Terrapins. Terrapins, or turtles as they are known outside the UK, are interesting pets but need committed owners as they can live for over 30 years. It is vital that terrapins are kept in the correct environment to prevent health problems. Healthy terrapins are alert and bright-eyed, and don't have discharge around the mouth and nose. Their shells should be hard without any discoloration or damage such as bumps or cracks. Keep your exoti...
This features how to use fire wire to create your own homemade fire works! What you need is fine steel wool, wire, and a lighter. Take your wire and your steel wheel and a tie a slip knot on the wire. Stretch out the steel wool and put it inside the slip knot and tighten. Now, with this, you have created your own fireworks. All you do it light the wool on fire, swing this contraption around and enjoy the beautiful bright and blasting lights. Be sure that the wire is tied tightly around the st...
This video will give some eyeshadow application techniques for mature eyes, or for people who are over the age of 30. The main thing for this type of eye type is that bright, artificial colors will not work as well on mature eyes and there should be a preference for more natural colors. A shimmer eyeshadow should be applied only on the eyelid onto the crease and mattes may be applied all the way up to the brow line. There are various tips which are given in this video will enable people with ...
Tommy finally gets to glue this “bad boy together.” After putting glue in the front only, he assembles the drawer dividers, the back and the partition and puts them in the desk to show the viewers. Watch this episode to find out why Tommy calls himself a “colorful guy, just not too bright.”
In this week's Phone Snap Challenge, we would like you to experiment with lighting and mood setting to create a silhouette. A silhouetted photograph contains a subject that is defined with an outline, appearing dark against a bright background. The subject generally appears dark, without any detail, while the background is bright and more exposed. Silhouettes in photographs appear to be simple, yet they can convey a sense of drama and emotion. Before you get started, check out this guide on h...
Astronomy World will be posting a weekly blog post that informs fellow observers upcoming interesting events in the sky. These will include:
CYNOSURE 63 points (13 points without the bingo) Definition: a center of attraction [n]
SOUR GRASS. Sourgrass is known to the scientific world as Oxalis pes-caprae.
Right now, Jupiter and Venus are rising in the early morning hours just before dawn. I went outside on the morning of the 4th of July and saw Jupiter and Venus right next to each other with the Pleiades (The Seven Sisters) just above them and knew that the next morning I was going to have to get up early and set up my tripod to try and capture what I saw. I used my Panasonic GH2 with the stock zoom lens set to about 40 to 50 mm equivalent and with the aperture open to about f/5. I set my ISO ...
Apparently a little amateur astronomy can go a long way. On March 21, 2009, Ralf Vandebergh, sitting in his backyard, pointed his 10 inch telescope at the sky and "saw a few bright pixels appear precisely where the work was going on at exactly the moment it was being conducted." A few bright pixels = an astronaut!
Below, a selection of images from the Nikon International Small World Photomicrography Competition. The Big Picture reports:
I think this is a fun new product from lite panels. There are clearly some important specs still being left off this announcement, such as FC readings at different distances, initial lumens, and a better sense of the nature of this light. Can it spot and flood like a fresnel or is this just another soft source in a round housing? Hopefully this will be a nice step forward for LEDs and the slow but steady death of tungsten lighting.
This is a really quick video I took of a moonrise last year. It has been sped up by a factor of 8 and was taken using a 2600 mm equivalent lens (75 times zoom for a 35 mm lens). The mountain it is rising over is about 40 miles away.
I was browsing my Google+ profile when I came across +Tom Anderson (everyone's friend) discussing art vs advertising.
Too much partying and lounging under the mid-day sun? If your attempt at a toasty caramel tan has instead resulted in a bright red sunburn, you fortunately have many common household items at your disposal to relieve the discomfort and speed up the recovery of your burnt skin.
Last week I found the time to work on my own origami designs again. The basic turtle from a few weeks ago developed: From the basic turtle on the left (in darker green) I derived not one but two different turtles (the yellow and the one in bright green). As you might see on the pictures in the gallery the new turtles are both prototype and folded a little unclean.
Norwegian designers Timo Armall, Jørn Knutsen, and Einar Sneve Martinussen visually capture invisible WiFi signals by light painting signal strength in long-exposure photographs. The trio set up a four-meter long WiFi-detecting rod with 80 LED bulbs to depict cross-sections through the WiFi networks of various Oslo neighborhoods. Armall says:
The two fast food restaurants, Farmer Dinner and Burgerville both run their restaurant in a way that supports their local farmers. This provides freshness to their customers. “Our mission is to increase the economic vitality of local agrarian economies,” (Murphy). That’s a bright idea in which local restaurant should take in consideration. We the people should consider the support of local farmers. This will stop the extortion that happens in other countries and stop fast food chain restauran...
Some of these look like illustrations done by adolescent sci-fi/anime nerds. Totally unreal. A selection from National Geographic's best space pictures of 2010:
