Re: [APML] Auroral activity over New Mexico

[B Yen <byen@ix.netcom.com>]

Jerry Lodriguss wrote:
> Does "your" photog refer to you as "my" reporter/talent/gopher ???
> 
> I'm a newspaper photographer, and I sure hate it when the reporter refers
> to me as "my photographer". Kind of demeaning, don't you think?

Let go of your HUGE EGO.   WE ARE *ALL* LAUGHING AT YOU!!


Jim and Jan Gamble wrote:
> 
> Wow...
>     I can certainly understand the issue you've raised, but since you've
> never been assigned to me, I think it's a mute point. Didn't mean to ruffle
> your feathers, Jerry. Just wanted to convey my experience and talk aurora8).

You have just run into Lodriguss' Law #13:

Jerry's Universe is based on nuclear Ego-centrism..he is Huge Head
Man!!!



Never mind him..there's a good photo at

http://www.cnn.com/2000/TECH/space/04/07/aurora/index.html

taken with a Nikon 16mm/2.8 fisheye (Fuji 800), J. Horne photographer
(Fayetteville Times).  It's 180 deg diagonal FOV (with Orion on one
side) does a great job, in showing the extent of the aurora.  You can
see Orion, Auriga, Perseus constellations.  It was posted at 1pm next
day (Friday).

A digital camera image was posted the same night (Thursday):

http://www.clark.net/pub/gvarros/911small.jpg


What I DON'T UNDERSTAND.... with all the technology available..why stuff
like this doesn't get uploaded to the Internet QUICKER.  This is where a
digital camera really shows its worth : digital *direct* (G. Varros was
the ONLY guy on sci.astro.amateur that did. everyone else, 13 THREADS,
was just talking about it).  Video of the aurora is really AMAZING (see
the stuff shot professionally from Alaska).  Back in '94 (!), JVC had a
integrate-mode  consumer video camera , which is sensitive enough to get
Orion constellation & nebula.  Why someone can't get lastnight's aurora
taped & uploaded..???..this is a "piece-of-cake".  The still shots you
see don't do the aurora "justice" (motion-blurred), it's very
*dynamic*:  time-varying!!  The Internet trend is towards high-bandwidth
connection, high-bandwidth content (e.g. video).  Back in '98, I shot
the solar eclipse from a small Caribbean island (Curacao, but digitally
well connected: Internet, cellphone, etc.), & just for kicks, had QT
video uploaded within several hours of totality.  (most of the time was
spent getting back to civilization, only 2 min to get video digitized on
a PowerMac, then uploaded).  The technology is THERE..so USE it..

(example)
Exactly 1 year ago (1999), I was APALLED at off-road racing coverage on
the Internet.  It SUCKED: Results and pictures weren't posted until 1
week after the event!?!  Me and everyone else were pissed..  Just as an
experiment, I called up a racing friend & decided to give the sport a
kick-in-the-pants: SAME DAY coverage.  For all 3-days, I shot video,
went back to the motel room, accessed my ISP via 800# (brought my
computer+monitor with me), uploaded videos & video-stills..GET
THIS..using '95 technology (4 yrs old, my Powermac 8500/120 has built-in
ANALOG video digitization).  See http://www.airextreme.com  Ever since
then, EVERYBODY (other media, racers, race orgs) had QT videos up on
websites, i.e. they COPIED me.  You know what..it's ONE year later..they
STILL CAN'T do SAME DAY coverage (the best is next day)!!!  I don't get
it..it's like -- "..what are you [media] guys doing!!!???".  I told them
that (to get on their "horses", & get to work).. and they get all MAD. 
Fools.


 Back to aurora...

So I'm sitting here, hearing all this TALK on sci.astro.amateur .. but
very few pics (NO videos.. yet).  And.. on APML..more TALK..no
pictures??  Like, I'm dying to see some images!!  I happen to have the
TV tuned to Gilligan's Island at 3am PST..and I am reading Jerry
Lodriguss' responses..and..I can't tell the two apart!! I.e., a 3 hour
tour turned into a comedy (took 10 years to get off that damn island). 
(go to end for details)  ARE YOU KIDDING ME??  This is
astronomy-weekend, ALL the media is hyping the planetary alignment
w/moon..with reporters at planetariums..AND that same night has a huge
auroral display affecting mid-northern latitudes..any PROFESSIONAL would
be out there do their JOB (getting the SHOT)...Jerry is talking about
SEMANTICS ("my photographer" is insulting??!!)  Dude..like get a GRIP: 
"Well-done, is better than well-said".  You got SCOOPED by J. Horne
(newspaper photographer), who is in North Carolina (way south of
Philly): had a fisheye lens, got a killer shot, souped the film,
uploaded..now CNN picked up his shot.  Don;t bother to post your 24mm
shot from "8 million" light-polluted city: J. Horne's shot was ON TIME,
DONE RIGHT.  That's the name of the game in newspaper journalism.  "The
early bird gets the worm", as the saying goes.

 To bluntly summarize, this was a REAL opportunity for an amateur to
SHINE, in terms of public information.  The media was focused on the
astronomical alignment, waiting to scoop-up a cool image.  Digital
(camera or integrate-mode video) coulda "won", hands-down.  Know what? 
THEY didn't come thru.  J. Horne (film) came thru: souped the film
immediately & uploaded.  What happened..was a lot of people SAW it..but
DIDN'T record it..because their "cameras were in their closets" (didn't
get used)!!  "The best telescope is the one that's used the most (NOT
sitting in the closet)".  So, ironically, FILM (older technology) *beat*
DIGITAL (newer technology)..because some film guy (J. Horne) was
ON-THE-BALL & knew how to use his equipment.

"It's not what you have, but how you use it"
--M. Germano [noted astrophotographer]

What I don't get...is why Jerry Lodriguss wasn't ON THE BALL.  He talks
like "he is the "KING"..the expert, & we are a bunch of dummies" (he has
"come down" on so many of us).  Did you notice last years '99 Leonids,
he reported only ONE meteor on ALL his frames???  (his meteor patrol
didn't have the right sky coverage & used too slow a film).  Talk about
public humiliation..  He apparently got shut out in that January
lunar-eclipse. (practically everyone else had pics).  Man..he's slipping

Jerry Lodriguss wrote:
> I was drunk when I wrote that!
..
> OK, I'll play monkey-boy <g>
..
> [old-fart's view on astrophotography]

I think I got it figured out:  beer (excessive drinking), bananas
(monkey behavior), beans (excessive farting)... I.e.,
Beers-Beans-Bananas..the Killer B's.  "Watch the poor idiots...and DON'T
DO IT".  We now have Lodriguss' Law #14:

Astrophotos can be ruined by the 3 Killer B's -- Beers (stumbling
around), Beans (farting around), Bananas (monkeying around).  To B, or
not to B, that is the question..


NOTE:
after seeing Padraig Houlahan/Lowell Observatory *correctly* SLAM the
Gaussian Blur nonsense, I'm in a similar tear-it-up mood.  The
moral-of-the-story is the same: "Common Sense is very Uncommon"

I don't mean to be harsh on Jerry (self-described "monkey boy").  I will
have some future SCATHING commentary on those Mt. Pinos "ratpackers". 
"Rat-boys" are WORSE than monkey-boys!!


  





> Hi , yes, I got the film back late this afternoon.
...
> dominating the top right of the picture, shot with a 24mm.
...
> I ran inside to get the camera and tripod, fumbled around to find
> everything and got back outside and set up, Shot 10 frames on PJM,
> bracketing at 5, 10, 20, and 30 seconds at f/2.8. The aurora was recorded
> even on the 5 second exposures.
..
> I won't have access to a scanner until next week, when I get the photo
> scanned I'll post it to my web page and let you know.
..
> Phew!  What a sight!

"fumbled"?  In football, that means "dropped the ball".  In Gilligan's
Island, that means Gilligan dropped something on the Skipper's feet,
Skipper howls with pain.  "1-day turnaround on film-developing" & "not
scanned until next week"??  Phew!! That's SLOW turnaround!!




Jerry Lodriguss wrote:
> 
> At 12:20 AM 4/8/00 -0600, you wrote:
> >YEE HA !!
> >   What a great story. Can't wait to see the pics. Sorry you were feeling
> >ill. I was out right after sunset here in El Paso TX with my photog (I'm one
> >of those TV types) getting video of the conjunction for the 10:00 'cast but
> >didn't see a thing. We did get calls from viewers who said they saw it here
> >but only briefly. Reds with a bit of green and a kind of cream, almost tan
> >color. Controllers at the tower said they saw it but again, only a brief
> >event.
> >Jim G
> 
> That's amazingly far south!
> 
> Does "your" photog refer to you as "my" reporter/talent/gopher ???
> 
> I'm a newspaper photographer, and I sure hate it when the reporter refers
> to me as "my photographer". Kind of demeaning, don't you think?
> 
> Jerry
> 

Jerry Lodriguss wrote:
> 
> >
> >   Any results with your aurora shots yet.
> 
> Hi , yes, I got the film back late this afternoon.
> 
> Compared to the visual display, the picture was, naturally, not even close.
> 
> I chose to frame a couple of houses in the foreground with Orion the left
> one, and the setting crescent moon on the right, with part of the Aurora
> dominating the top right of the picture, shot with a 24mm.
> 
> What makes it interesting to me is that its' shot from the sidewalk in
> front of my house in an urban area of 8 million people,  and it's looking
> south!
> 
> I had been very sick all week, and had to cancel plans to attend the
> DelMarVa Star Gaze, so I was pretty bummed out. I was sitting with a friend
> talking in my living room and we turned out all the lights so we could
> pretend we were out camping. Out of the front window I watched as the sky
> slowly darkened after sunset, and then at about 8:30 I suddenly noticed
> this funny red color to the sky up high in the northeast.  Since there was
> still some twilight left, I at first thought it was just some very high
> clouds illuminated by the light of  the fading red sunset, but the red
> color was really weird. I said "Woa, what's THAT?" and my friend, Lane
> Davis, who has experienced many aurora looked and immediately said
> "Aurora!"  If we had been sitting there with the lights on, like normal
> people, we would never have seen it!
> 
> Yippee!  We ran outside, and quite a display was going on.
> 
> Deep red patches in the east through Ursa Major, in the south through Canis
> Major and Orion and across the southern horizon through the setting moon
> and Saturn.
> 
> There were also "detached" blue patches and blue/green fingers roughly
> radiating up from the north.
> 
> I ran inside to get the camera and tripod, fumbled around to find
> everything and got back outside and set up, Shot 10 frames on PJM,
> bracketing at 5, 10, 20, and 30 seconds at f/2.8. The aurora was recorded
> even on the 5 second exposures.
> 
> Then the spectacular part of the display suddenly ended, and the fainter,
> but still very large areas remained for a while longer.  Unfortunately, I
> didn't catch any of the spectacular stuff on film.
> 
> I won't have access to a scanner until next week, when I get the photo
> scanned I'll post it to my web page and let you know.
> 
> Phew!  What a sight!
> 
> Jerry
> 
> Astrophotography Techniques and
> Digital Enhancement in Photoshop Tips:
> http://www.astropix.com
> 
> Sports Photography:
> http://www.astropix.com/SPORTSPIX/INDEX.HTM
> 
> --  APML Archives at <http://www.system.missouri.edu/apml/>  ---
>                 Unsubscribe at <majordomo@seds.org>
                 Unsubscribe at <majordomo@seds.org>

--  APML Archives at <http://www.system.missouri.edu/apml/>  ---
                Unsubscribe at <majordomo@seds.org>