The Milky Road

I was reading about astrophotography this morning when found this beautiful composition of our Milky way by Larry Landolfi. I’m quite fascinated with galaxies in fact, therefore why not to describe our connexion with It using famous quotes.

Who are we? We find that we live on an insignificant planet of a humdrum star lost in a galaxy tucked away in some forgotten corner of a universe in which there are far more galaxies than people.

Carl Sagan
Photo Credit: Larry Landolfi ( The Milky Way)

When you look at the stars and the galaxy, you feel that you are not just from any particular piece of land, but from the solar system.

Kalpana Chawla
Photo Credit: The Hubble Heritage ( The Sombrero Galaxy in Infrared Light )

Our sun is one of 100 billion stars in our galaxy.Our galaxy is one of billions of galaxies populating the universe.It would be the height of presumption to think that we are the only living things in that enormous immensity.

Braun,Wernher von
Photo Credit: The Hubble Heritage ( A group of Galaxies )

“The Force is what gives a Jedi his power. It’s an energy field created by all living things. It surrounds us and penetrates us. It binds the galaxy together.”

Alec Guinness
Photo Credit: The Hubble Heritage ( Barred Spiral Galaxy NGC 1300)

“The universe contains vastly more order than Earth-life could ever demand. All those distant galaxies, irrelevant for our existence, seem as equally well ordered as our own.

”Paul Davies
Photo Credit: The Hubble Heritage ( Starburst Galaxy M82 )

“It is marvelous indeed to watch on television the rings of Saturn close; and to speculate on what we may yet find at galaxy’s edge. But in the process, we have lost the human element; not to mention the high hope of those quaint days when flight would create ”one world.” Instead of one world, we have ‘’star wars,” and a future in which dumb dented human toys will drift mindlessly about the cosmos long after our small planet’s dead.”

Gore Vidal

Photo Credit: The Hubble Heritage ( Saturn’s Rings in Ultraviolet Light)

JC

The Art of Cropping

The Art of cropping

Sometimes cropping a picture in post processing can improve it dramatically. Cropping can be used to:

* Enlarge the main subject
* Eliminate things that distract attention from the subject
* Change the format to fit a standard frame size

If you are deciding to crop out part of the subject, then crop boldly. It should be clear to anyone looking at the picture that you have intended the crop. Always try to avoid breaking the line of the frame with strong shapes, such a windows or even clouds wherever possible. Remember as well what you crop out of a picture can be almost as important as what you decide to include.

It is best to compose correctly in camera, if you can, but it is inevitable that you will sometimes take a picture with a poor composition. In these instances, post-production by cropping the image. Essentially, this is the same as zooming and cropping in camera, although if you do it on a computer you will lost quality, as you will be throwing away some of the image information.

You will find a funny example showing why sometimes is important to crop your pictures here. Cropping in close on picture can exclusive distracting backgrounds and create more emphatic image.

Final result (Post-production)

JC