The amazing and cool photo thread

[Aldo]

Whilst driving...?
Hot air balloons are fantastic to see, I can't get enough of them

 

[FoolKiller]

Whilst driving...?
Hot air balloons are fantastic to see, I can't get enough of them

Yeah, I just steady the camera phone on top of the steering wheel, pop off the picture without looking, and check the quality when I get home. My eyes never leave the road.

It's 3 megapixel, so I rarely worry about zooming or aiming. The depth is decent enough that I can crop in to anything small/distant.

I would not attempt this with my huge 5 megapixel camera.

 

[exigeracer]

Shame there aren't very many photographs of this natural phenomenon. "Glowing" blue caves in Croatia.

Staple City:

And an ultra-cool photo of a solar harvester:

And a random big picture!

 

[Touring Mars]

Speaking of natural phenomena, here's a blue iceberg...

 

[daan]

Looks like the head, neck and torso of a huge ice giant!

 

[Jay]

Looks like an advert for mint breath fresher or mouthwash.

 

[Diego440]

 

[homeforsummer]

Speaking of natural phenomena, here's a blue iceberg...

Interesting trivia: How blue an iceberg is can be used to date how old it is. New ice has thousands of air bubbles in it which reflect the light before it gets too far into the ice. Older ice, however, as fewer air bubbles as they've escaped over thousands and hundreds of thousands of years. The light doesn't reflect on the bubbles, it's absorbed into the ice more and the ice appears bluer.

To the best of my knowledge, anyway. Someone correct me if I'm wrong 👍

Edit: Oh, and that shot of Grindelwald looks amazing. Makes me want to visit the Alps again some time, I've only ever been in the Alps around Grenoble before for a couple of weeks during one April, and loved it.

 

[UnoMOTO]

The amazing baobab (Adansonia) or monkey bread tree can grow up to nearly 100 feet (30 m) tall and 35 feet (11 m) wide. Their defining characteristic: their swollen trunk are actually water storage - the baobab tree can store as much as 31,700 gallon (120,000 l) of water to endure harsh drought conditions.

Baobab trees are native to Madagascar (it’s the country’s national tree!), mainland Africa, and Australia. A cluster of “the grandest of all” baobab trees (Adansonia grandidieri) can be found in the Baobab Avenue, near Morondava, in Madagascar.

 

[Diego440]

 

[TsukubaTrueno]

I'm pretty sure the last one was manipulated in Photoshop.

Oh, and the picture of the blue ice berg was amazing! 👍

 

[Diego440]

I'm pretty sure the last one was manipulated in Photoshop.

I'm not so sure... the website I got it from said it wasn't. Typically, I can't find said website

Oh well, here's another pic

 

[Slick Rick]

The reason they used an old Toyota is because the batmobile looks better than all the 09 F1 cars.

 

[Danny]

Actually, I'm really warming to the 09 spec F1 cars. I like the simpler lines.

 

[Diego440]

 

[Moglet]

That is very cool, can someone explain what's happening here please?

 

[Diego440]

A tornado-ish gust of wind during a forest fire, I think

 

[Touring Mars]

It looks like a fire whirl - very cool picture

 

[Omnis]

I thought it was ash lightning.

 

[Moglet]

Cool, thanks!
Apologies if these have been posted before but I love the first one;

Hubble Servicing Mission 4 Early Release Observations

Also available;
6005 x 7159 TIFF
6005 x 7159 JPG

 

[UnoMOTO]

Are these types of photos enhanced?

 

[Moglet]

I believe the colours are enhanced, yes.

 

[FoolKiller]

Are these types of photos enhanced?

They are the first images from the updated Hubble.

To contrast, the image on the bottom left of the stars is the Omega centauri starfield. Pre-update Hubble looked like this (2002) vs what we see now (2009):

Here's a link to a story about it:
http://www.universetoday.com/2009/09/09/just-how-good-is-the-new-hubble-lets-compare/

 

[Omnis]

So is the color there or are the colors just assigned to the different wavelengths of radiation that are detected?

 

[UnoMOTO]

Something still just seems off to me. Maybe TM or Danoff can shed some light on the subject…visible light that is. Are there really stars that give off red visible light to the naked eye. If not then why does NASA enhance a photo in this way?

 

[TB]

Something still just seems off to me. Maybe TM or Danoff can shed some light on the subject…visible light that is. Are there really stars that give off red visible light to the naked eye. If not then why does NASA enhance a photo in this way?

I've used my crappy digital camera on a tripod and had white, yellow, blue and red dots, so yes, they are those colors.

Which is where Superman gets his powers from, naturally.

 

[UnoMOTO]

I've used my crappy digital camera on a tripod and had white, yellow, blue and red dots, so yes, they are those colors.

That's just from the last hit of LSD you did.

 

[FoolKiller]

I've used my crappy digital camera on a tripod and had white, yellow, blue and red dots, so yes, they are those colors.

Which is where Superman gets his powers from, naturally.

[geek] Because Krypton was orbitting a red giant. The changes in radiation and gravity give him his abilities. When the red star exploded it took Krypton with it, infusing it with the radiation from the red star, thus chunks of Krypton, known as Kryptonite, rob him of his powers (and apparently also make him feel a bit ill). [/geek]


Yes, there are red, blue, and yellow stars (full range really). To get good color requires the ability to capture large amounts of light, either by maintaining a long exposure or being massively awesome. Hubble can do both.

EDIT: I should add that I wouldn't be surprised to find Nasa does do a bit of clean up before releasing images to the public.

 

[Omnis]

OMG LOOK AT ALL THAT AIRBRUSHING! Good thing this isn't the babe thread.

 

[Diego440]

OMG LOOK AT ALL THAT AIRBRUSHING! Good thing this isn't the babe thread.

Tocuhè

This one isn't shopped either (too bad I couldn't find a bigger one)