Eclipse Timelapse- Second Attempt

Heard there was going to be an eclipse, so I broke out the 5D and tried my very best to catch it.

This is one frame every 30 seconds, starting around 2:30am and going for about an hour and a half, using a 105mm lens.

Timelapse is complicated because you really can't recompose in the middle of a shot- you have to plan it out ahead of time, lock off the tripod, and cross your fingers. Or build a motion control rig- maybe next time...

The moon was much smaller at 3:30am than it was earlier in the night, so I zoomed all the way in, and the moon was still tiny. This reduces the frame size which is why it kept falling out of the frame. Luckily I caught it, and for lack of anything better to do, recomposed the shot.

I also made a big no-no by changing the exposure toward the end (when it gets redder), which kind of killed the subtlety of the eclipse... but after seeing this, I have a lot more faith in the low end of the 5D's exposure range.

Next time I think I'll try shooting earlier in the night, when the moon is huge, so I can use a wider lens. It will probably take a few more tests to get a feel for the passage of the moon, so I can frame it better.

I need to make friends with an astronomer, and practice some more before the next eclipse...

Pictures!

Updated the Elevation Profile part of the program... same GPS Log (Catskills Blackhead Range) with new graphics & live animated elevation marker...

Will elaborate later, but here's some pictures for now!

Hiking the Catskills in 4D!

This past weekend I had my first introduction to what is known among the hiking community as "Peak bagging". From wikipedia:

Peak bagging (also hill bagging, mountain bagging, Munro bagging, or among enthusiasts, just bagging) is an activity in which hillwalkers and mountaineers attempt to reach the summit of some collection of peaks, usually those above some height in a particular region, or having a particular feature.

We bagged three peaks, two of them twice, since we had to retrace our route to get back to the car. This is known as a lollipop loop:

This is the overhead 2D map view. Latitude vs. Longitude. Pretty simple. And now that I finally have some interesting altitude data, I started working on the third (and, inadvertently, fourth) dimension to my program-

This is the Altitude Profile of our hike. Altitude vs. Time. If you notice, the first two peaks and last two peaks are nearly mirror images of each other, which is an interesting result of the lollipop loop.

The heights of the peaks are the same, but the widths are different, probably because I was going faster on the way out. It was starting to get dark...

So, now I have two 2D abstractions of our hike. Now, all I need to do is mash them together (that's a technical term) and I'll have 3D!

Better Late than Never?

All's I'm saying is... nevermind...

Shooting the Moon

Live-blogging the shoot!

Using Processing to control the moon. The physical controls are nice, but limited in their capabilities. Very handy for Backpack Mode, so the kid can run around in the woods with the thing. But Processing allows for much more fine control, and better random number effects (and processing speed!) too.

Moon Timelapse Test

Shot this "manually" by holding down the shutter button until the memory card got full, hence the jumpiness. Or as I like to call it, the "hand-cranked aesthetic".

Just one more reason to get back to work on the Arduino intervalometer- Check out the Camera Axe page for more info.

The beautiful thing is that the original images are really big- 21 Megapixels big, in fact. 35mm movie print, anyone?

IT'S A BOY!

I think I'm going to call it Red, short for "The Great Red Shark". It's fast. Of course, I dropped it within 5 minutes of leaving the store, but scratches build character.

And it's recycled, kind of. At least the frame is. Most of the important parts are new, which is a good thing. Custom built by Brooklyn Bike & Board. Same day service, who would have thought?

All this (and a lock!) for $100 less than my old bike. I feel like I might wind up spending less on the bike, and more on locking it up... but that's the world we live in, unfortunately.

For more information on how to tell a boy bicycle from a girl bicycle, ask your parents.