Tonight I got to see a real live planet [Well, as live the the time it takes for the light to reach the Earth - Ed]. If you did not know, Jupiter is extremely bright and quite close to us at the moment. So much so, that it’s actually difficult to miss. If you look outside during a clear night you’ll almost certainly spot it.

Look for the one star that is as bright as the moon.

Tonight was an especially good night as it was cool, clear and the moon was hidden at around 9:30.

The following picture really does not do it justice, as my astrophotography skills are a bit on the rusty side (I also need to find a way to increase magnification when attaching my camera). The view through the eyepiece was very impressive however, the “bands” on Jupiter’s surface were clearly visible, although I never seem to be able to time it right to see the big spot.

I use my Miro Flip Ultra HD to record Youtube movies – but if you’ve ever used one you’ll notice that it has a very narrow field of view – for a while I was holding my Canon wide angle adapter in front of the lens, but I recently found the wide angle kit by Sunpak.

The best way I could find to attach the adapter ring was with super glue, so far it has held really well and let’s me record while standing closer to the subject. I chose the largest adapter ring (the lens comes with 4) and held it in place for about 15-20 seconds while the glue set.

This now opens up some doors with the Miro – I’m going to try to put together an adapter for some of my high end Nikon lenses, which should be able to give me greater control of the depth of field.

Success! I cleaned out most of the burning from the inside of the coil. Then mounted the toroid back on the secondary with a nylon bolt.

I’m also pleased to report that the Tesla tuner I built was pretty much spot on with the tap point of the primary coil…

Well, last night I found out why our Tesla coil isn’t delivering the performance I would expect. I opened up the secondary coil and found carbon scoring on the inside of the coil. Looks like the coil has been discharging internally.

We need to remove the metal bolt at the top and find a way to use a nylon one.

Jennette Fulda is a fellow resident of the Stutz building. She approached me some time ago to take some pictures for a book she was writing on the incredible weight loss journey she’s been on…

The thing I remember most was when the publisher sent me the contract, it was titled “Half-Assed Photography Contract” (It’s more common than you think)

New York Times Article

I recently received a copy from the publishers, and from Jennette herself – thanks!
I urge you to go check out her blog, it makes for some entertaining reading!
PastaQueen

Now go out and buy the book!!

Last year I covered a wedding at the Sanctuary in Zionsville, IN. The marketing staff got in touch recently to ask permission to use some of the images on the Sanctuary website.

http://www.nanoel.com/page_detail.php?page_id=78&page_type=gallery

I’m in there amongst some of the other images.
It was a great venue, always nice to be able to shoot natural light at a wedding.

…and it wouldn’t be a laser show without the liquid sky effect.

It’s funny, but when I first heard about “blogging” I couldn’t really grasp what all the fuss was about. The notion that you should post entries on the web that really should be kept in your private diary seemed rather strange.

I think that there is a major flaw in the whole blogging concept, (for most of us): When lots of stuff is happening in your life, you don’t have time to update your blog, then when things calm down a bit, there’s nothing to write…

Some people actually seem to make money doing this too – although I’m not sure how many people make liveable income from AdSense et al. I’ve always viewed it as something that produces “bonus” money, but no steady stream of income.

So anyway, I thought it was about time that I used my blog a bit more responsibly and actually posted things that might be of use to the rest of the human race…

We had a day long photoshoot with Sarah Fisher on Monday.

It was a long day and quite gruelling, but Sarah was an absolute trooper, very easy to work with, and didn’t complain once…

Hair and makeup by Style Salon in Broad Ripple - Sak’s 5th Avenue provided the clothes and shoes.

Have a listen to the SonicState podcast dated 27th March – at about 13:30 they talk about the laser harp, then the subject becomes all controversial…

http://www.sonicstate.com/news/shownews.cfm?newsid=6376