David's Images of the Day Photoblog
Views of the sky. Sunrise, sunset, clouds, and weather
P-51 Val-Halla and F-15 Eagle. Heritage Flight at the Front Range 2007 Air Show outside of Denver Colorado. Image taken with a Nikon D2xs and 80-400 mm VR lens (ISO 110, 400 mm, f/5.6, 1/500 sec). Both pilots appear to be looking my way since I was standing at the turn marker on the field.
Individual Images from the slide shows can be found here.
Late night or early in the morning (hard to tell this far north when there isn’t much darkness at night) I looked out my cabin window on the MV Explorer and saw the electric blue Noctilucent clouds. I read about them before (http://www.spaceweather.com/), but had never seen them. The clouds are ice crystals that are very high that you can only see for a short time when the sun is below the horizon. One theory is the crystals are nucleated when micro-meteors pass through the upper atmosphere. We were in the Baltic Sea traveling from Stockholm to Copenhagen and the sun doesn’t set until very late I set up a camera in my cabin and started taking pictures.(Nikon D4 camera, 28 mm f/1.8 lens (ISO 200 or 800, 28 mm, f/1.8, 1 sec)). The composite images were generated using Photoshop CC (statistics, maximum) the way I do generate star trails. I was impressed that you can see the star trails looking north, even though this is a composite of images taken on a moving ship at sea. The seas were pretty calm that night (early morning).
Silhouette of a sailboat transiting the solar disk at sunset from the deck of the MV Explorer. Crossing the Baltic Sea from Stockholm to Copenhagen.
Individual images from the slideshow can be viewed here.
It was a sea day aboard the MV Explorer as we traveled from Dublin, Ireland to Dover, United Kingdom. As the sun was beginning to set the clouds developed an intense orange color. As soon as I got up to deck 7 at the rear of the ship, I could see a cargo ship may pass directly between us and the sun. One of nine images I captured during the Spring Enrichment voyage of a ship passing in front of the sun at sunrise or sunset.
I woke up early trying to adjust to the 13 hour time change and spent the morning doing a walkabout near the Keio Plaza hotel. One thing I noted on the map of the area was “Niagara Falls” in Shinjuku Chuo park. The waterfall is not as big as the one on the New York/Canada border. I found a woman walking her turtle (tortoise?) to the waterfall. On the way back to the hotel, I took a 360 degree series of images in Citizen Plaza. At 09:30 the two observatories on the 45th floor of the Tokyo Metropolitan Building open. There is no admission fee, but a quick bag check before entering the elevator. I chose the south tower, since the line was a bit shorter. The elevator going up is really fast bringing you to a large room with viewing windows all the way around the building. There is a toy store in the center, and a cafeteria/bar along one side. I took a series of images from each of the windows (except the ones in the restaurant area with restricted access) to see if I could generate a 360 degree panorama and/or little planet view of Tokyo. I did not see Mt. Fuji which is visible from the observation towers on clear mornings.
In the afternoon, I returned to Shinjuku Chuo park and found some Poppy flowers. Which was good since I don’t think I will have many (or any) back home this year. I then did another series of images in Citizen’s Plaza and from the North Observation tower — this time with a wider angle lens.t
The images from Citizen’s Plaza and the Observation towers were processed with AutoPano Giga Pro to create composite 360 degree panorama, fisheye, mirror ball, little planet, and tunnel view images. Individual images from the slide-shows can be viewed here.