Now that I have a remote trigger for the camera (Canon 1000D dslr) I thought I’d have another go at getting a better shot of the moon
Canon 1000D dslr with EF75-300mm zoom; f/11; 1/125sec; ISO-200; auto white balance, centre focus. The camera was mounted on a tripod with remote trigger. Processing – slight curves adjustment and warming photo filter in photoshop CS2.
Any tips for this newbie photographer are most welcome 🙂
Cheers
Jerry
Dictionaries are great, but they are linear in layout, and sometimes you just want words to collide with each other visually in interesting ways. Visuwords ™ uses the Princeton University online dictionary to display terms in graphical relationship with other words forming neural nets. It is a great tool for visualising where words fit in the context of syntactic structures.
You can pull the terms around and follow syntactic links with other words by double clicking on the other words to expand the net – if nothing else, it’s a good procrastination device while you are trying to think of a word while writing!
Back in October 2007 I wrote about a little-known steam motorcycle built in 1917 by William Taylor, based on an FN. Thanks to some detective work by one of my readers, an article turned up in Model Engineer Vol 1 no 7 about this very motorcycle, which provided some interesting technical details from someone who was evidently very familiar with the bike.
The frame was indeed from a Belgian FN (Fabrique Nationale) – the frame looks like that of the 1914 285cc model which was shaft driven. The FN company began life in 1899 as an arms manufacturer, later turning to bicycles and then motorcycles.
The engine was likely a Wachs as I mentioned in my original blog post. The engine was a single cylinder double acting engine with 2 1/8″; bore and 2 1/2″; stroke, directly coupled to the tailshaft (the bike was originally shaft driven) using a reduction gear of 6 1/2; to 1.
The boiler was 9″ x 12″ comprising 120 1/2″; of seamless copper tube, running a pressure of 500psi. The boiler feedwater was run through two water heaters, producing superheated steam. The burner was kerosene (parafin) fueled and had a simple pilot light. The exhaust was condensed by a surface condensor and the water fed back into the boiler, with any un-condensed steam being exhausted to the air.
The tank slung above the engine and boiler was divided into two, containing fuel and water, with the fuel being delivered to the burner under pressure.
According to the contemporary report, the bike could sustain 25mph, with higher speeds available in short spurts. The bike was heavy for its power and tended to underperform against its internal combustion contemporaries. And the burner did not behave well in high winds. In addition, as the reviewer noted “The rise in steam pressure on a sudden stop did not make one feel at ease in the saddle”!
So the bike was a one-off experiment – and the candidness of the reviewer usefully noted the bike’s shortcomings as well as its virtues.
Thanks to Pavel for the additional information.
Cheers
Jerry
The British steam car challenge – dubbed ‘Inspiration’ – has taken a further step forward with dynamic tests of the car running independently entirely under its own …um… steam. This is a video of one of its first ever runs – a low speed dynamic test to ensure all the components function together to make a drivable car.
In the process the support team is learning new skills, including how to ‘launch’ the car. A team of 6 people is involved. The sequence of operations involved in checking, filling and starting the car requires coordination, timing and teamwork. Each step is a step closer to achieving the ten-year goal of this team to break the world’s speed record for a steam car, last officially set in 1906 at just over 127mph.
This team has displayed remarkable tenacity and overcome enormous financial and engineering difficulties to come up with the turbine-driven car seen above. They hope to establish a new world record next year.
Tonight, despite some cloud I managed to get a rough shot of the conjunction that made the moon into a smiley face. This evening at 21:22 (9.22pm) the moon lined up with venus and jupiter to present a mouth and two eyes overhead just to the south looking from Canberra Australia.
Photo was taken at 1/5th second on f5 on 400 ISO – and the shot was hand held using a canon EOS 1000D and a 300mm zoom.
David J of the Brisbane Blog also posted a photo of the moon smiley
Cheers
Jerry
