Computers are never wrogn.
Jul. 17th, 2006 10:59 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
dolariSATURDAY
Random Day!
Dean has all this week and next off, but because of his dental issues, we couldn't go to PA. So we made a roadtrip of Saturday. Originally, we were just going to go to Mayfield Park and bug the peacocks there, but then I mentioned the apartments I was thinking of getting in San Marcos.
So off we went to San Marcos, taking a nice little scenic route there (that routing I posted a few days ago) throuh Buda and Kyle. Just before we got into San Marcos, we hit Five Mile Dam, a small park I used to drive by all the time. I'd never really gone into the park before, and Dean insisted on going, so we went.
The water was Super Low while we were there, so there wasn't much to see. I did manage to dip my shoe in some water, so I took them off, and left them to dry, leaving me to walk barefoot on the limestone river channel. That was...different. It was a wierd feeling. Kinda like having that extra connection to Mom Earth when you don't have shoes isolating you from the planet. I kinda liked it...as long as I'm walking on smoothed out rocks with no stickers burrs in the grass, barefoot is kinda nice. :)
After spending some time with a Manly Workin' Dog on his break, and acting as the Watergod to some trapped fish, we moved on into San Marcos, where I showed off my future housing prospects. We'd planned after the last apartment, to head back into San Marcos...but Dean saw a sign that said "Marble Falls, 30 Miles."
Now. I didn't see the sign. Dean swears up and down that it said Marble Falls 30 Miles. I know the area really well, but I don't know mileage. Marble Falls IS in the area, yes. Maybe even 30 miles. Let's find out!
We head on out to Marble Falls, stopping along the way to see that gorgeous view from the area known as The Devil's Backbone, and Fischer Store and it's nine-pins bowling alley...but when we got to Blanco my usually infallible sense of direction...well...went fallible.
I knew WHERE to go to get to Marble Falls...but...I...well...I didn't realize the Mileage. It's Blanco, Johnson City, Round Mountain, then Marble Falls. They're not all THAT far apart are they?
So we head to Marble Falls...15 miles to Johnson City...then from there, another 25 to Marble Falls. That was NO WAY NEAR 30 miles from San Marcos (I found out later PERDENALES Falls State Park was about 30 miles from San Marcos...but I wasn't the one who saw the sign). We ended up getting into Marble Falls late.
There's a reason we were headed to Marble Falls, you see. They have something there I've never seen anywhere else in Texas. It's a small thing, but an important thing. Well, to Dean at least.
They're the only DQ in the area that has chocolate soft serve. Really. Go to any other DQ. They don't have it. They have it in Pennsylvania EVERYWHERE, but not in Texas. Dean LOVES DQ Chocolate Softserve. We drove 60 miles for ice cream. But as someone who has driven 100 miles for cinnamon rolls, I know the feeling on getting that Mission Accomplished feeling when going out for this stuff. And it was a fun drive.
WE headed back to Austin via FM 1431, taking a nice leisurely drive late at night...it was when I saw the constellation of Scorpio that I had an idea, though. Just after crossing the county line into Travis County, we pulled off the side of the road into a VERY dark side road, turned off all the lights, and got Dean's camera out.
Dean's camera has a 15 second exposure time, and an F8 shutter speed selectable. We set both of those, put the camera on the car, lens side up, and took pictures.
I'm an astronomy buff, and sadly, unless you have a Gajillion X telescope or a camera that can do ten minute exposures, astronomy can be really dissapointing. It all boils down to tiny points of lights that, through a telescope, become tiny points of light. It's Planets and Galaxies and Clusters and Nebulae that are cool, but even with a telescope, they're just blurs unless you have a l;ong exposure camera.
We got a picture of the Constellation of Hercules. Which we both decided looked like a man running with his hand wildly flapping in the air. Therefore he is not w00t! The Raver. Anyways, the picture itself was, again, just points of light, even at 15 seconds exposure. What we needed was something like a five minute exposure time, but 15 seconds was the longest hardcoded.
We made our way home and had a wonderful time on the way.
SUNDAY
Then I had an idea.
I loaded up the picture of Hercules in Paint Shop Pro. Even without any kind of photoprocessing, the picture was nice. It only had about 20 visible stars, but Hercules was right there.
There's a function in Paint Shop Pro. You can paste an image on top of itself with what's called a "Screen." In the screen, it turns the brightness level into a transparency level. The darker the pixel, the more transparent the pixel. What I did was take the image, and pasted it over itself as a screen. Suddenly, more stars showed up. I turned my 15 second exposure into a 30 second one. I repeated the screening over and over again to about 8 layers before the camera "artifacts" started showing up. This was a 2 minute exposure. HUNDREDS of stars were now in the picture!
Before, after, and lined versions:
Before (15 second exposure):
After (approximately 2 minute exposure)
Lined (See why we call him w00t The Raver?)
Next moviegasm, I'm bringing my telescope, camera and sky charting program. :D I'm NOT going to waste Samantha's nice dark sky again!
Random Day!
Dean has all this week and next off, but because of his dental issues, we couldn't go to PA. So we made a roadtrip of Saturday. Originally, we were just going to go to Mayfield Park and bug the peacocks there, but then I mentioned the apartments I was thinking of getting in San Marcos.
So off we went to San Marcos, taking a nice little scenic route there (that routing I posted a few days ago) throuh Buda and Kyle. Just before we got into San Marcos, we hit Five Mile Dam, a small park I used to drive by all the time. I'd never really gone into the park before, and Dean insisted on going, so we went.
The water was Super Low while we were there, so there wasn't much to see. I did manage to dip my shoe in some water, so I took them off, and left them to dry, leaving me to walk barefoot on the limestone river channel. That was...different. It was a wierd feeling. Kinda like having that extra connection to Mom Earth when you don't have shoes isolating you from the planet. I kinda liked it...as long as I'm walking on smoothed out rocks with no stickers burrs in the grass, barefoot is kinda nice. :)
After spending some time with a Manly Workin' Dog on his break, and acting as the Watergod to some trapped fish, we moved on into San Marcos, where I showed off my future housing prospects. We'd planned after the last apartment, to head back into San Marcos...but Dean saw a sign that said "Marble Falls, 30 Miles."
Now. I didn't see the sign. Dean swears up and down that it said Marble Falls 30 Miles. I know the area really well, but I don't know mileage. Marble Falls IS in the area, yes. Maybe even 30 miles. Let's find out!
We head on out to Marble Falls, stopping along the way to see that gorgeous view from the area known as The Devil's Backbone, and Fischer Store and it's nine-pins bowling alley...but when we got to Blanco my usually infallible sense of direction...well...went fallible.
I knew WHERE to go to get to Marble Falls...but...I...well...I didn't realize the Mileage. It's Blanco, Johnson City, Round Mountain, then Marble Falls. They're not all THAT far apart are they?
So we head to Marble Falls...15 miles to Johnson City...then from there, another 25 to Marble Falls. That was NO WAY NEAR 30 miles from San Marcos (I found out later PERDENALES Falls State Park was about 30 miles from San Marcos...but I wasn't the one who saw the sign). We ended up getting into Marble Falls late.
There's a reason we were headed to Marble Falls, you see. They have something there I've never seen anywhere else in Texas. It's a small thing, but an important thing. Well, to Dean at least.
They're the only DQ in the area that has chocolate soft serve. Really. Go to any other DQ. They don't have it. They have it in Pennsylvania EVERYWHERE, but not in Texas. Dean LOVES DQ Chocolate Softserve. We drove 60 miles for ice cream. But as someone who has driven 100 miles for cinnamon rolls, I know the feeling on getting that Mission Accomplished feeling when going out for this stuff. And it was a fun drive.
WE headed back to Austin via FM 1431, taking a nice leisurely drive late at night...it was when I saw the constellation of Scorpio that I had an idea, though. Just after crossing the county line into Travis County, we pulled off the side of the road into a VERY dark side road, turned off all the lights, and got Dean's camera out.
Dean's camera has a 15 second exposure time, and an F8 shutter speed selectable. We set both of those, put the camera on the car, lens side up, and took pictures.
I'm an astronomy buff, and sadly, unless you have a Gajillion X telescope or a camera that can do ten minute exposures, astronomy can be really dissapointing. It all boils down to tiny points of lights that, through a telescope, become tiny points of light. It's Planets and Galaxies and Clusters and Nebulae that are cool, but even with a telescope, they're just blurs unless you have a l;ong exposure camera.
We got a picture of the Constellation of Hercules. Which we both decided looked like a man running with his hand wildly flapping in the air. Therefore he is not w00t! The Raver. Anyways, the picture itself was, again, just points of light, even at 15 seconds exposure. What we needed was something like a five minute exposure time, but 15 seconds was the longest hardcoded.
We made our way home and had a wonderful time on the way.
SUNDAY
Then I had an idea.
I loaded up the picture of Hercules in Paint Shop Pro. Even without any kind of photoprocessing, the picture was nice. It only had about 20 visible stars, but Hercules was right there.
There's a function in Paint Shop Pro. You can paste an image on top of itself with what's called a "Screen." In the screen, it turns the brightness level into a transparency level. The darker the pixel, the more transparent the pixel. What I did was take the image, and pasted it over itself as a screen. Suddenly, more stars showed up. I turned my 15 second exposure into a 30 second one. I repeated the screening over and over again to about 8 layers before the camera "artifacts" started showing up. This was a 2 minute exposure. HUNDREDS of stars were now in the picture!
Before, after, and lined versions:
Before (15 second exposure):
After (approximately 2 minute exposure)
Lined (See why we call him w00t The Raver?)
Next moviegasm, I'm bringing my telescope, camera and sky charting program. :D I'm NOT going to waste Samantha's nice dark sky again!
