The December 21st 2011 pinhole camera image is today’s Earth Science Picture of the Day.  Thank you Jim for continuing to publish my work

Got today’s Earth Science Picture of the Day with a non-astronomical image this time   Thank you Jim for continuing to publish my work, both astronomical and non-astronomical.

Today’s EPOD is a 3-frame mosaic of the Cocoon nebula region showing the dark trailing nebulosity behind the Cocoon with the Milky Way as a backdrop.  Thank you Jim for continuing to publish my work on EPOD

Two images taken from the Tenerife Observatories site can be seen on today’s EPOD   Brings back magical memories of the fantastic Starmus Festival.  Thank you Jim for continuing to publish my work

Managed to get today’s EPOD (Earth Science Picture of the Day) with a picture of a yacht passing in front of the Needles (Isle of Wight) on a sea of glitter.  Lighting was quite special the morning I took this image and the sea was very calm.  Thank you Jim for continuing to show my work on your site

As always it is a very pleasant surprise to open up the Earth Science Picture of the Day page and find a Parker/Carboni image on the screen   Today it is the large widefield version of the Leo Trio taken quite recently at the New Forest Observatory and processed with some additional old Leo Trio data (taken with the original Hyperstar) by Noel Carboni.  Thank you Jim for continuing to publish our work

Today’s EPOD is my Mercury and Jupiter twilight shot taken on 17th April 2011.  Thank you Jim for publishing this one

Gave a talk on “The Magic of Photography” yesterday to the Rhinefield Probus Group.  Nice turn out and some very good questions!

You will see a new Page Heading above, namely APODS/EPODS where I have listed all the APODS/EPODS published since I started submitting images in 2007.

Well – a very nice and totally unexpected surprise this morning (thank you Jim!) when I opened the EPOD (Earth Science Picture of the Day) page and saw my pinhole camera image of the Sun’s path across the sky.  Taken using a beer can as the pinhole camera (long axis vertical!) the image shows the Sun’s path across my southern horizon over a period of 6-months from the Summer Solstice (June 21st 2010) to the Winter Solstice (December 21st 2010).  The light coloured object in the lower foreground is the fibreglass dome of the New Forest Observatory, and the light (banana-shaped) object in front of that is the cedar garden table which is actually oval in shape.  The reason for using a beer can as the pinhole camera is that it is the perfect size to take the 5 x 7 inch Ilford  photographic paper that records the image – you curl the paper around the inside of the beer can and there is a 5mm gap where you place the pinhole).  Do not sand off the burr of the pinhole, you need to be able to feel it on the inside of the can when you load the paper (in the dark of course) so that you don’t accidentally cover the pinhole with the paper!  What is amazing about this process (Justin Quinnell gives full details on his web site) is that you don’t need to develop the photographic paper.  The pinhole image “burns” itself into the paper over the 6-months of exposure time and all you need to do when removing the photographic paper from the pinhole camera is to quickly get it into a digital scanner to “lift” the image off the paper.

I have two more pinhole cameras currently imaging my southern horizon – but these are made from tin tea caddies (also a perfect size for the 5 x 7 inch photographic paper).  The main difference with these cameras is that this time the photographic paper is FLAT within the camera rather than curled round as it is in the beer can.  This means I will get an undistorted view of the Sun’s path across the sky this time – just have 5-months to go before I can see the result

Today’s EPOD (Earth Science Picture of the Day) is a 16-frame mosaic of St. Nicholas’ church in Brockenhurst taken during the recent snow fall.  This mosaic was stitched together using the amazing PTGui software package which does a great job of assembling (and blending) large mosaics (including deep-sky mosaics).  Camera used was the Canon 5D MkII full frame DSLR and the amazingly sharp 50mm prime lens (possibly the cheapest and sharpest lens in the Canon range!).  I was lucky enough to capture this image just a day or two before scaffolding was erected all around the church.  Why scaffolding?  Because some extremely low-life form decided that in order to fund this Christmas they would steal the lead off the church roof.  Is nothing sacred?  Apparently not in U.K. 2010.  Thank you Jim for continuing to publish my work