I thought the Hubble was to be replaced with the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST); however, it turns out they have one last upgrade in store for the 18 year old telescope. Take a moment and check out the photos and the text for each and I bet you too will be amazed. The JWST primary mirror is nearly three times the size of Hubble. It also won’t need to compensate for the design flaw that crippled the Hubble back in 1990.
http://www.boston.com/bigpicture/2008/09/preparing_to_rescue_hubble.html
National Geographic is reporting there is now proof of Dark Matter. You know
that stuff you can’t measure, taste, touch, feel, or see (like God I guess..) http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2008/08/080827-dark-cluster.html?source=rss
and
I enjoy watching lightning at night. Our new house gives an amazing view of the sky, but so far I have not had many opportunities to watch. Check out this slow motion video that includes a stepped leader creeping across the sky. I once saw a similar display at an Ozzy Osbourne concert in Kansas city. The band ended one of their songs right as the lightning display went over our heads. It was incredible!
A team scanning the Milky Way happened upon a rare glimpse of a distant galaxy. What is perplexing is the star’s red-shift is much higher than expected for the distance and age of the stars. Either there is something wrong with the model used currently, or there is something different about these stars.
It still amazes me the pictures and discoveries the Hubble telescope has brought us to digest. I look forward to the next generations of telescopes!
I’ve seen BLU’s work before, and although a little disturbing at first, you have to wonder how much effort goes into these short films. It’s about 6 minutes long and worth checking out:http://vimeo.com/993998
Wow. This is impressive: Microsoft released a new “Google sky” killer.. This is something you DON’T want to miss! It’s an interactive view of the sky like you have never experienced before. It shows changes in real time, has amazing tours, and is easy to use. Take it for a test drive and let me know what you think!
I decided to check out if new videos were posted and there are now 10 videos to watch. The first four are a must-see and you can find more about them on my previous post. The most useful one posted is for the patch tool.
So the name is a little much for me, but some sports photographers may really appreciate it’s features. It is able to take 60 full resolution (6mp) frames in two seconds. It’s even able to capture photos prior to the shutter button depress. It also has a motion detection which allows you to capture an event when it comes in the frame. Finally, how does a low-res 1200 frames per second sound? Check out article here: http://www.nytimes.com/2008/04/03/technology/personaltech/03pogue.html?em&ex=1207713600&en=ac5e1533178d8858&ei=5087%0A
(special thanks to Aaron for the info http://www.aaronburg.com/)
Get while it’s hot at: http://labs.adobe.com/technologies/lightroom/
See this wild video of a solar Tsunami from NASA:
A first-of-its-kind telescope shows off what it can do. It’s dual mirrors are equivalent to a single 75 foot (22.8 meter) mirror.
“The images that this telescope will produce will be like none seen before. The power and clarity of this machine is in a class of its own. It will provide unmatched ability to peer into history, seeing the birth of the universe.” http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/03/080306075214.htm
CNET published a fantastic article on what to expect in the next 5+ years with 
photography. Examples to expect to see in the future: Dept of Field (DOF) adjustments after the fact, changing the focal point in a photo, extraction of detail from multiple shots,3-D images, and High Dynamic Range (HDR.)
I mention HDR, but it is already used in post processing by small groups. Currently it requires extra shots of a scene be taken on a tripod, and 
the data is combined after the fact with computer software.
Read and see more about it here:http://www.news.com/8301-13580_3-9882019-39.html?part=rss&subj=news&tag=2547-1_3-0-20
I have always been intrigued by optical illusions. Each time I find something new I 
spend a lot of time trying to understand what makes it work. Arthur Shapiro has come up with a new illusion that also shows how our eyes and brain perceive light. What I really enjoyed about this write-up is the ability to tweak the illusion to see how changes affect what you see. Check it out here:
http://scienceblogs.com/cognitivedaily/2008/02/what_illusions_tell_us_about_t.php
I stood up to the 10 degree weather last night and took a few shots of the moon during the eclipse last night. See all the shots on my Smugmug, but here are a few if you missed it. The next one will be December 10, 2010. These shots were taken with my Canon 40D with an old 70-300 lens I had available. I love seeing the golden color from our atmosphere bounce off the moon 😉
How does a shutter speed of 110 attoseconds (110 x 10-18) second sound? An 
attosecond is one billionth of one billionth of a second. It’s fast enough to track electrons jumping atoms. Here is a link to a time line of high speed photography:http://www.wired.com/science/discoveries/magazine/16-02/st_timescales
Canon apparently has filed a patent that would grab an image of your iris when you take a photo, and adds it to the metadata for each image. http://www.photographybay.com/2008/02/09/canon-iris-registration-watermark/
This single lens allows photographers to take a single shot, and afterwards modify 
the depth of field, what is in focus and what is not in focus, and slightly change the angle of the shot. Amazing! Check out this short clip.
Also, here is a paper from Stanford University describing the Plenoptic Camera technique.
This discovery will have great promise for better telescopes, lenses for cameras etc. http://www.tfot.info/news/1084/bending-light-the-wrong-way.html
A Day in the Life of a Presson... 