... planes, aerobatics and lots of fun ...

Every year, in July, fans of airplanes and aerobatics face the perils of intense heat to participate at the Bucharest International Air Show, a.k.a. BIAS.

The first time I went to BIAS was in 2012 and I was absolutely mesmerized by the incredible skill demonstrated by the participants. So it was only natural to go this year as well.

BIAS 2013 in a few words: intense heat, great aerobatics, intense moments! And most of all: Jurgis Kairys, the Aerobatic Yakers, the Hawks of Romania and Luca Bertossio.

A few photos, for now :)

Romanian's Air Club Extra 330 SC

"to the right", by Extra 330 SC

a lone bee... Baltic Bee

the Baltic Bees tying a knot

Baltic Bees formation

"follow the leader" with the Baltic Bees

spinning around with the Extra 330 SC

Hawks of Romania, escorting an 737

star-shapes

Aerobatic Yakers in romanian colors

Aerobatic Yakers in black and white

the Aerobatics Yakers

watching the Yakers

Jurgis Kairys, doing a corkscrew

Jurgis towards the sky

admiring Jurgis

See you soon!

Getting to Oz

Australia... a country far, far away, a lot further than you would think by looking at the globe. But, as I was to experience, it really is at the end of the world... at least from my corner of the world...

So, the first logical step of any trip preparation is to handle the logistics. And if Dorothy was swept by a tornado and taken to Oz, why shouldn't I get there in a similar fashion? Well, not by a tornado, obviously, but by air, the fastest way to travel nowadays. Even so, it took me and my friends 2 days to reach Sydney.

We left Bucharest on the morning of November 2nd, 2012, at 8 am and we landed in Sydney two days later, on November 4th, at 7 am, with just two stops on the way: Istanbul, Turkey  and Abu Dhabi, UAE. Maybe we could have achieved a better time, but we were pretty stressed out about missing our flights, so playing it safe seemed like a good bet. After all, we were going eclipse chasing, not on a mere holiday and getting there was of the essence!

So, a one and a half hour flight from Bucharest, a pit stop in Istanbul for eight hours with a quick tour around the city (and I mean quick - as quick as a city tour double decker can take you), a three and a half hour second flight, a five hour short stop in Abu Dhabi's terminal and off we were on our last portion of our trip: the fourteen  hour long flight to Sydney. And that's a looong flight. You can sleep for a few hours, eat about three meals and watch at least three movies, all while checking your progress on the map. And trust me, sometimes it can feel like you've made no progress above the ocean, although the airplane is moving at fantastic speeds.

I'm not sure how Dorothy felt in her house while up in the air, but I grew restless at one point and I couldn't wait to get there, to finally stretch my legs, smell the fresh air, feel the breeze and catch some sunlight. :)

In the end, we did land in a faraway place: so similar, yet so different from anything in the Old World, so new and yet so old... And just so you have an idea how far away a place it is, look at these numbers...

Directions from Sydney

Next time, I'll tell you all about my first day in Sydney.

The Small Magellanic Cloud - a first attempt at stacking and processing

My trip to Australia was not just to catch the total solar eclipse, but it was also an opportunity to do some astro-photography, something I'm completely new at. The most I've done so far is take photos with my camera and a tripod.

This is my first attempt at post-processing and stacking. The image below is a stack of 11 images of 140 seconds, coming up to a total of 25 minutes and 40 seconds of exposure.

Small Magellanic Cloud

A few details about this image:
Date and place: Nov 7th, 2012, Australian Dessert (near Uluru)
Camera: Canon 450D
Lens: Canon 50 mm, at 50 mm and f/2.0
Exposure: 11 frames x 140 sec
ISO: 800
Mount: EQ 3.2

And now I'll tell you a little bit about what I did in the post-processing stage.

First, I had to stack the light frames, the darks and the biases. A great software to do that is DeepSkyStacker, but seeing as I had never done it before, I needed help. Doug German has some great tutorials on youtube. I recommend his other tutorials as well: they're easy to follow and very helpful.
I also watched his Basic Processing in Photoshop tutorials and I used this info to process the image after stacking it.

So, basically, after stacking, I did some levels, curves and applied some filters in Photoshop. So far, this is the extent of my knowledge regarding post-processing. I plan to get back to this photo after I've learnt more.

See you soon!

Australia and New Zealand - part 1

Recently I took a trip to the countries down under to watch the total solar eclipse of 2012. This is the story of how this trip went and what I saw there...

I will not bore you with the details of the trip to Australia just yet (maybe on a later post :p ), but I'll show you a preview, a "best of" if you will, of what's to come.

This... is Sydney :

Financial Centre

purple tree and moon, early morning

The Sydney Opera and Bridge at night

Sydney at night

Sydney at night, tilted

And because Sydney offers some interesting wildlife, here are some of my favourites:

Humpback whales: mother and calf

Humpback whale waving its tale

Medusas :)

Meeting at twilight

Rex, the crocodile, eager for visitors :)

I didn't stay just in Sydney, after all the country is full of wonderful places to visit:

boats in Cairns harbour

out on the boat

coral reefs straight ahead!

tornado in sight. beware!

Uluru / Ayers Rock

yep, definitely watch out for kangaroos out here

Kata Tjuta

Uluru at sunset

And now that you've seen some of the beauties of Australia, let's move to its neighbour, New Zealand:

Rotorua, North Island

Maori boat - details

Rotorua museum, before sunset

same Rotorua museum, just closer

Mount Ngauruhoe, at the Tongariro Alpine Crossing, a.k.a "Mount Doom" (Lord of the Rings)

The Emerald Lakes, inside the Tongariro Alpine Crossing

Wellington harbour

Wellington at night

Stay tuned for a more detailed account of my adventures in these wonderful places.

Panstarrs comet - revisited

I decided today to play a little bit in Photoshop and see what I could do with one of the photos I took of the comet last week.
I adjusted the curves and levels a little bit, and I applied Color Dodge to the layers. This is the result:

I realised in my previous post I didn't write anything about the settings used to take the shot, so here they are:
Place: Fundulea, Romania
Camera: Canon 450D
Lens: Canon 75-300 mm zoom lens at f/5
Exposure: 10 sec
ISO: 1600
Mount: tripod

Cometa PANSTARRS

De cometa Panstarrs am auzit anul trecut, ca fiind una dintre cele 2 comete mult asteptate ale anului... Avand in vedere noua mea pasiune pentru astrofotografie, de-abia am asteptat momentul sa isi faca aparitia si in emisfera nordica. Iata ca a sosit momentul mult asteptat, dar cometa se afla ascunsa bine de tot in spatele unor nori grosi... Din fericire, dupa cateva zile, am avut si o seara cu cer senin :)

Am lasat balta tot si am plecat, cu alti pasionati, sa vanam cometa :D
Unde? Pe un camp de langa Fundulea, la 20-25 km de Bucuresti - o zona propice astrofotografiei, din categoria "mai bine de atat nu se poate" langa capitala.
Cand? Vineri, 15 martie, ora 19.00-19.30

Singurul aspect negativ: vantul puternic, de aproximativ 40-50 km/h, ce iti taia respiratia si cobora mult temperatura ambientala. Ma bucur doar ca am avut prevederea sa-mi iau manusile. Chiar si asa, degetele mi-au inghetat dupa cateva minute. In fine, nimic nu se castiga fara sacrificii, nu? :)

Iata si cele mai bune rezultate ale serii:

Imaginile au fost facute cu un aparat Canon 450D si cu un obiectiv 75-300mm, 5.6 zoom lens.
Singura prelucrare a fost un usor crop al primelor 2 cadre.