Something to think about

I get the biggest kick out of all the UFO theory/conspiracy types out there. According to most of them
we've been visited by aliens numerous times who have done just about everything from building the pyramids to changing our history, and probably inventing ice cream. Just for arguments sake, lets assume there really is some form of other human-like beings out there. What is the possiblity that our tiny little dot of a planet lost in the vastness of this incredibly massive universe could ever be visited, much less found.

The operative words here are incredibly massive. Distances from point A to point B are so astronomical as to boggle even the most ardent of thinkers. Let's explore this idea for a moment.

So far, the fastest spacecraft we have ever sent into space is one of the Voyager probes launched decades ago. One of those probes has, by being sling shot around several planets, accelerated to something in the neighborhood of 70,000 mph. Now that's pretty fast. It only takes about 25,000 mph to escape the earths gravitational pull.

Okay, now think about this. In those decades since it was launched, it has just now...just now, reached the outer edges of our Solar System...a few billion or so miles out there. The next nearest star to us, not our sun, sits about 4.3 light years away. How far is a light year? Well light travels at 186,000 miles per second and a light year is how far a beam of light will travel in one year. At 186,000 miles per second, that is somewhere in the neighborhood of 586,569,000,000 miles. Multiply that times 4.3 and you get 25,633,091,520,000 miles just to the next nearest star to us...Astronomically speaking, that is like driving to the corner mom and pop store for a gallon of milk.

Now think about this. If we could accelerate a man-carrying spacecraft to 100,000 miles per hour...faster than even the Voyager probe, how long do you think it would take to get to that nearest star? That's about 28 miles per second...a lot slower than the speed of light. Give up? Well it would take about 32.7 billion years to get there. I don't know, but I think the warranty on that spacecraft would run out way before then. Factor in that most everything out there is thousands and millions of light years away, well, that's a far piece to travel. The Milky Way Galaxy...our neighborhood is 100,000 light years across.

So...for all you UFO Alien visitation types out there, the likelihood that an alien civilization could ever find us and swing by on their summer vacation, much less to stir up trouble during their visit doesn't sound so practical. And, forget about the idea that they could be way more advanced than we are and could possibly have figured out how to travel at the speed of light. It can't be done. There is this little annoying law of physics that says the faster you go, the heavier you become, so it requires more and more energy to continue to accelerate. So much extra, that by the time you accelerated to light speed, it would require an infinate amount of energy...and that is a show stopper.

There may be UFO's out there...more than likely though they are made right here by us.

Something to think about.

Keith

Photographing the Moon

Of all the night sky objects, the moon is by far the easiest to photograph. It is so bright and filled with
a changing array of shadows and objects that you can photograph on almost any clear night. Do so does require a little understanding of the technique, so lets talk about how to go about capturing the rugged beauty of our closest celestial neighbor.

What you will need is a tripod, a long lens...the longer the better, but something in the neighborhood of 300mm will do a good job, and a remote/cable release, and of course a camera, digital is prefered.
The camera settings are important but we'll talk about that later.

First of all, contrary to popular belief, the best time to photograph the moon is not during a full moon. The best time is during one of the partial phases of the moon. This is because during a full moon the light is almost face on to the surface and so there are no shadows being cast and so the moon shows no texture. During one of the phases of the moon, the light is at an angle and so the craters and mountain ranges will cast shadows and thus create textures that add interest and compositional values to your photograph.

You can photograph the full moon, but the best time to capture it is just after it rises above the
horizon. During those first few moments after moonrise, it will often have blood red or deep yellow color. This is because the light is travling through the thickest part of the atmosphere and shifts the spectrum to the red.

Let's talk about camera settings. What I do is to set the camera on Aperture Priority, but I also set the exposure metering mode to Spot Metering. This is where the camera will meter only the light seen in that small center square of your view finder. I also will shoot at 100 ISO in most cases. I will place the camera on a tripod for stability because I will be using a long lens...in my case a 500mm lens sometimes attached to a 1.4 teleconverter which will expand the focal length to 700mm. When combined with the 1.5 sensor conversion factor, the effective focal length will be in the neighborhood of 1000mm. sometimes I will use auto focus, sometimes I will use manual. My Sony A65 will highlite what is in focus when set on manual and I can often obtain a sharper image of certain subjects using it in that mode.

 

I use live view and point the camera/lens at the moon until it apears on the viewer screen and center it so the spot metering square is positioned on the bright part of the moons illuminated surface. The reason to use Spot metering is to avoid having the dark background surrounding the moon influence the exposure and probably causing the image to be washed out. I will use a cable release to avoid any unnecessary jiggling of the camera...and fire off a shot or two and view the results. I will use the zoom mode so as to get a good idea of how well the image is focused and to determine of the exposure if correct. I will also using the exposure +/- compensation to adjust the exposure up or down until I get the desired exposure.

After capturing the image, I will download to Photoshop and in most cases tightly crop the image to give it a closer look...and adjust the exposure and focus.

It's really that simple...and a lot of fun to try.

Keith