bobbycaputo:

News Helicopter Camera Snaps Photo of Saturn While in the Air

If you’ve ever watched the evening news on television, you’ve probably seen photos and video captured by the powerful cameras on the station’s helicopter. Here’s something interesting: on a clear night, the long reach of the helicopter’s camera can actually snap a clear photograph of the planet Saturn!

The photograph above was captured by Chopper 6, the news helicopter operated by Philadelphia’s 6ABC Action News.

Earth and Saturn are separated by roughly 746 million miles, or about eight times the distance between Earth and the Sun. It’s the most distant planet in our solar system that’s obviously visible to the naked eye, though to see the rings of the planet you’ll need to use a powerful telephoto lens on your camera, or a telescope for your eye… or a gyro-stabilized chopper camera.

The clarity of Chopper 6′s photo shows how effective the stabilization system on the chopper’s camera is (the photo was shot while the helicopter was flying around).

This is one of the really fun surprises that awaits new users of an amateur astronomical telescope. Some things in the sky don’t look very impressive, maybe, compared to the long-exposure images that a new visual observer might be unconsciously expecting.

But a telescopic view of Saturn through even a modest instrument is one of those things that can’t help but be impressive, as long as the ring plane is angled enough.

Reposted from http://lies.tumblr.com/post/48957481126.

starwake:

violasarecool:

I’m sorry does that say knowledge is tree

Upon a second inspection, I think it’s supposed to say ‘free’ not ‘tree’.

KNOWLEDGE IS TREE

Uh oh. Now you’ve done it.

Reposted from http://lies.tumblr.com/post/48954874349.

ornamentedbeing:

Chemise: ca. 1587.

‘Chemise belonging to Mary, Queen of Scots in which she was executed at Fotheringhay Castle. Of fine linen with drawn thread borders inscribed on the bodice in red and dated Feb 11 1587. This is an Elizabethan undergarment and only one other of this type is known to survive.

Coughton Court © National Trust / Simon Pickering

Kind of macabre. But interesting.

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byebyebananas:

Wands were raised for The Duke and Duchess as they took a wand combat lesson in the Gryffindor common room, using choreography from the Harry Potter film series. Wielding their wands, The Duke and Duchess sparred with each other.

[…]

Their Royal Highnesses were presented with their own wands, hand-carved by prop-making expert Pierre Bohanna.

Also, a view of His/Her Royal Bumpness.

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rainbowrowell:

damecatoe:

Cover art for my Eleanor & Park fanmix

THIS. IS. MAGNIFICENT.

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dduane:

juliedillon:

Sketches from Middle-Earth: Visions of a Modern Myth by Donato Giancola. More sketches can be seen at his blog post on Muddy Colors.

Wow!

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“Great people do things before they’re ready. They do things before they know they can do it. And by doing it, they’re proven right. Because, I think there’s something inside of you—and inside of all of us—when we see something and we think, “I think I can do it, I think I can do it. But I’m afraid to.” Bridging that gap, doing what you’re afraid of, getting out of your comfort zone, taking risks like that—THAT is what life is. And I think you might be really good. You might find out something about yourself that’s special. And if you’re not good, who cares? You tried something. Now you know something about yourself. Now you know. A mystery is solved. So, I think you should just give it a try. Just inch yourself out of that back line. Step into life. Courage. Risks. Yes. Go. Now.”

– Amy Poehler (x)

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boobiesmcfeels:

So sleepy after a full day of filming. We’re eating, breathing, living Jane over here. And more tomorrow : ) 

A lot of time and effort goes into making Jane’s videos look realistically DIY. 
And I love my friends (new and old) for going on this journey with me! 
<3 to our writing team 
<3 to our show-runner
<3 to our designer
<3 to our social media guru
<3 to my fellow actors. 
You’re all flawless. xox 
You make the long hours endlessly fun.

Reposted from http://lies.tumblr.com/post/48918414328.

Postmodnik Posts: First Flight:

postmodnik:

I just got to witness one of the most amazing things, three baby birds just took their first flight out of their nest which is up on a beam on our front porch.

I sorta, may have, initiated this flight because I was up near the nest trying to take a head count and as I was beginning to move away…

My guess, from the description and the willingness to nest so close to people, is that these are house finches (Carpodacus mexicanus). If you can get a decent photograph it should be possible to confirm that, if you’re interested.

Reposted from http://lies.tumblr.com/post/48915429629.

Please don’t remove the source when reblogging art. Restoring this one:

thorsteinulf:
Gustave Doré – Dawn Souvenir of the Alps (c.1877)

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Brienne and Jaime: a summary.

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windandwater:

These temporary apprehensions, so vague but so awful, derived a wondrous potency from the contrasting serenity of the weather, in which, beneath all its blue blandness, some thought there lurked a devilish charm, as for days and days we voyaged along, though the seas so wearily, lonesomely mild, that all space, in repugnance to our vengeful errand, seemed vacating itself of life before our urn-like prow.

—Herman Melville, Moby Dick, Chapter 51

Reposted from http://lies.tumblr.com/post/48896950762.

HOLDE MINE HAIR

ye olde partie times

Verily, thou art such a lightweight.

Things ye can’t: even.

Thou only liveth once

#YOLOTH

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not-ideal:

John Singer Sargent, “Street in Venice” (1882) – oil on wood. Currently in the National Gallery of Art, Washington D.C.

Yes, the two men on the right are somewhat creepy. Yes, she’s walking away fast, it seems. I didn’t even notice that stuff at first – I was transfixed by the way light hit the stone.

Re-blogging because ibmiller’s museum-mate cosplayed the lady in this painting for my benefit, and now that I have a better view I appreciate her interpretation even more.

Okay; NOW I’m done spamming you with Sargent.

Reposted from http://lies.tumblr.com/post/48890008322.

paintingbox:

John Singer Sargent (American, 1856-1925), Two Octopi, 1875. Oil on canvas, 40.6 x 32.1 cm. (15.98 x 12.64 in.)

Wow. What didn’t he paint?

(BTW, this ends my Sargent post-a-thon. Back to the usual inanity.)

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“2nd Lt, Wilfred Edward Salter Owen, 5th Bn. Manch. R., T.F., attd. 2nd Bn. For conspicuous gallantry and devotion to duty in the attack on the Fonsomme Line on October 1st/2nd, 1918. On the company commander becoming a casualty, he assumed command and showed fine leadership and resisted a heavy counter-attack. He personally manipulated a captured enemy machine gun from an isolated position and inflicted considerable losses on the enemy. Throughout he behaved most gallantly.”

– Citation accompanying the posthumous award of the Military Cross to 2nd Lt. Wilfred Edward Owen, London Gazette, 29 July 1919.

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“

Bent double, like old beggars under sacks,
Knock-kneed, coughing like hags, we cursed through sludge,
Till on the haunting flares we turned our backs
And towards our distant rest began to trudge.
Men marched asleep. Many had lost their boots
But limped on, blood-shod. All went lame; all blind;
Drunk with fatigue; deaf even to the hoots
Of tired, outstripped Five-Nines that dropped behind.

Gas! Gas! Quick, boys!–An ecstasy of fumbling,
Fitting the clumsy helmets just in time;
But someone still was yelling out and stumbling
And flound’ring like a man in fire or lime…
Dim, through the misty panes and thick green light,
As under a green sea, I saw him drowning.

In all my dreams, before my helpless sight,
He plunges at me, guttering, choking, drowning.

If in some smothering dreams you too could pace
Behind the wagon that we flung him in,
And watch the white eyes writhing in his face,
His hanging face, like a devil’s sick of sin;
If you could hear, at every jolt, the blood
Come gargling from the froth-corrupted lungs,
Obscene as cancer, bitter as the cud
Of vile, incurable sores on innocent tongues,–
My friend, you would not tell with such high zest
To children ardent for some desperate glory,
The old Lie: Dulce et decorum est
Pro patria mori.

”

– “Dulce et Decorum Est,” Wilfred Owen

Reposted from http://lies.tumblr.com/post/48886076719.

Sargent’s 1918

The Black Brook, c. 1908, oil on canvas

Henry Tonks, 1918, pencil and ink on paper

The Road, 1918, oil on canvas

Crashed Aeroplane, 1918, watercolor on paper

Street in Arras, 1918, watercolor on paper

Thou Shalt Not Steal, 1918, watercolor on paper

Gassed, 1919, oil on canvas

John Singer Sargent never married or had children, but he was fond of his niece, Rose-Marie Ormond. He painted her several times, including in The Black Brook, when she would have been about 18. Ten years later, on March 29, 1918, Rose-Marie was attending a Good Friday service at the church of St. Gervais in Paris when a German shell struck the building, killing her along with about 70 others.

Sergent, who was 62 at the time, was deeply affected by her death. In May he accepted a commission from the British War Memorials Committee to create paintings in support of the British and American war effort, and in July he traveled to the Western Front in the company of artist and surgeon Henry Tonks.

Sargent produced many sketches and paintings based on this trip. The most famous work, Gassed, was completed in March 1919. It is on an epic scale, measuring 7.5 feet high by 20 feet wide, and is housed in the Imperial War Museum in London.

Tonks described the scene on which the painting was based in a letter  in March 1920:

After tea we heard that on the Doullens Road at the Corps dressing station at le Bac-du-sud there were a good many gassed cases, so we went there. The dressing station was situated on the road and consisted of a number of huts and a few tents. Gassed cases kept coming in, lead along in parties of about six just as Sargent has depicted them, by an orderly. They sat or lay down on the grass, there must have been several hundred, evidently suffering a great deal, chiefly I fancy from their eyes which were covered up by a piece of lint… Sargent was very struck by the scene and immediately made a lot of notes.

Gassed was voted picture of the year by the Royal Academy of Arts in 1919.

Reposted from http://lies.tumblr.com/post/48884971433.

huffpostarts:

John Singer Sargent’s watercolors are on display at the Brooklyn Museum

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