Imagery - Blog Posts

What is night? Restless and dark, a heavy cloak upon my heart.

My eyes burn and my hand shake, but sleep eludes me, cold hands gripping me in the dark.

I cling to the bedside light, stare at it until my vision blurs. I long for sleep.

My chest feels too tight for my heart, pounding anxiously in its cage. My breath is too short.

What is rest? It is night yet my mind races, and I lay awake.

My random Poetry

How quaint the thought of your touch,

Like the north wind's tender embrace to the eastern sea.

I live among the fish,

Deep down in the shallowest of waters.

A little drop in a pond of an endless sea.

Tumbling to and fro through the unwavering current.

To feel the roughness of your hands,

Like the rough edges of the shores.

Carved through the ever flowing waters,

Much like my every flowing love for you.

10 Things: How to Photograph a Meteor Shower

Taking photographs of a meteor shower can be an exercise in patience as meteors streak across the sky quickly and unannounced, but with these tips – and some good fortune – you might be rewarded with a great photo.

These tips are meant for a DSLR or mirrorless camera, but some point-and-shoot cameras with manual controls could be used as well.

1. The Photo Op: Perseids Meteors

The Perseids are dusty remnants of comet 109P/Swift-Tuttle.

Earth passes through the comet’s invisible, multi-billion mile trail of tiny debris each year around August, creating a meteor shower of so-called “shooting stars” as the particles are vaporized in our atmosphere.

Perseid meteors already are streaking across the sky. This year's shower peaks on a moonless summer night -from 4 pm on the 12th until 4 am on the 13th Eastern Daylight Time.

Read more on the Perseids ›

2. Get away from city lights and find a place with dark skies.

In this 30 second exposure, a meteor streaks across the sky in Spruce Knob, West Virginia, during the 2016 Perseids meteor shower. Credit: NASA/Bill Ingalls

Too much light and it will be hard for your eyes to see fainter meteors, plus your image will get flooded with the glow of light. Turning down the brightness of the camera’s LCD screen will help keep your eyes adjusted to the dark. The peak of the 2018 Perseid meteor shower occurs just after the new moon, meaning a thin crescent will set long before the best viewing hours, leaving hopeful sky watchers with a moonlight-free sky!

3. Use a tripod.

In this ten-second exposure, a meteor streaks across the sky above Washington, DC during the 2015 Perseids meteor shower, Credit: NASA/Joel Kowsky

Meteor photography requires long exposures, and even the steadiest of hands can’t hold a camera still enough for a clear shot. Heavier tripods help reduce shaking caused by wind and footsteps, but even a lightweight tripod will do. You can always place sandbags against the feet of the tripod to add weight and stability. If you don’t have a tripod, you might be able to prop your camera on or up against something around you, but be sure to secure your camera.

4. Use a wide-angle lens.

In this 30 second exposure taken with a circular fish-eye lens, a meteor streaks across the sky during the 2016 Perseids meteor shower as a photographer wipes moisture from the camera lens Friday, August 12, 2016 in Spruce Knob, West Virginia. Credit: NASA/Bill Ingalls

A wide-angle lens will capture more of the sky and give you a greater chance of capturing a meteor in your shot, while a zoom lens captures a smaller area of the sky. The odds of a meteor streaking past that small patch are lower.

5. Use a shutter release cable or the camera’s built-in timer.

Long exposures are not just for meteors. In this shot taken at Joshua Tree National Park, a hiker's headlamp leaves a trail of light along a twilight path. Credit: National Park Service / Hannah Schwalbe

A tripod does a great job of reducing most of the shaking your camera experiences, but even the act of pressing the shutter button can blur your extended exposure. Using the self-timer gives you several seconds for any shaking from pressing the shutter button to stop before the shutter is released. A shutter release cable (without a self-timer) eliminates the need to touch the camera at all. And if your camera has wifi capabilities, you might be able to activate the shutter from a mobile device.

6. Manually focus your lens.

In this 30 second exposure, a meteor streaks across the sky during the annual Perseids meteor shower Friday, August 12, 2016 in Spruce Knob, West Virginia. Credit: NASA/Bill Ingalls

At night, autofocus will struggle to find something on which to focus. Setting your focus to infinity will get you close, but chances are you’ll have to take some test images and do some fine tuning. With your camera on a tripod, take a test image lasting a few seconds, then use the camera’s screen to review the image. Zoom in to a star to see how sharp your focus is. If the stars look like fuzzy blobs, make tiny adjustments to the focus and take another test image.

Repeat until you are happy with the result.

If your camera has a zoomable electronic viewfinder or live view option, you might be able to zoom to a star and focus without having to take a test image.

7. Aim your camera.

The Perseids appear to radiate from the constellation Perseus, visible in the northern sky soon after sunset this time of year.

Even though we don’t know when or where a single meteor will appear, we do know the general area from which they’ll originate.

Meteor showers get their name based on the point in the sky from which they appear to radiate. In the case of the Perseids, during their peak, they appear to come from the direction of the constellation Perseus in the northern sky.

8. Calculate your exposure time.

In this 20-second exposure, a meteor lights up the sky over the top of a mountain ridge near Park City, Utah. Even though this image was captured during the annual Perseid meteor shower, this "shooting star" is probably not one of the Perseid meteors, which originate from material left behind by Comet Swift-Tuttle. Instead, it's likely one of the many bits of rock and dust that randomly fall into the atmosphere on any given night. Credit: NASA/Bill Dunford

As Earth rotates, the stars in the sky appear to move, and if your shutter is open long enough, you might capture some of that movement. If you want to avoid apparent star movement, you can follow the 500 Rule. Take 500 and divide it by the length in millimeters of your lens. The resulting number is the length of time in seconds that you can keep your shutter open before seeing star trails. For example, if you’re using a 20 mm lens, 25 seconds (500 divided by 20) is the longest you can set your exposure time before star trails start to show up in your images.

9. Experiment!

In this 30 second exposure photo, hikers find their way to the top of Spruce Knob in West Virginia to view the annual Perseids meteor shower, Friday, August 12, 2016. Credit: NASA/Bill Ingalls

Once you know the maximum exposure time, you can set your shutter priority to that length and let the camera calculate other settings for your first image. Depending on how the image turns out, you can manually adjust aperture (set it to a lower number if the image is too dark) and ISO (set it to a higher number if the image is too dark) to improve your next images. Changing only one setting at a time will give you a better understanding of how those changes affect your image.

10. Enjoy the show.

The crew of the International Space Station captured this Perseid meteor falling to Earth over China in 2011. Credit: NASA

With your camera settings adjusted, capturing that perfect photo is just a matter of time and luck. The highest rate of meteors visible per hour is in the hours after midnight and before dawn. Set up your camera next to a lounge chair or a blanket to witness the wonder of a meteor shower for yourself – and, with any luck, you’ll take home some envy-inducing shots, too!

Make sure to follow us on Tumblr for your regular dose of space: http://nasa.tumblr.com.

Wound from the Mouth of a Wound, ‘Essay Fragment: Preexisting Conditions’ by Torrin A. Greathouse

[ID: Mother Mary, scars on my wrists                 my spine a cracked rosary             eyelids a thin & bloody veil.]   

I think we’re all broken, 

you whisper to the dark shimmering water lapping against the hull. 

I can see our reflections—

You, halved in white and 

Me, fading to black like an old film reel. 

Broken how? 

I don’t really need you to answer, not really. We’re cursed,

I know and you know, too, so you just laugh. 

Even that sounds like shattering glass. 

What is it about stars and streetlights and silent European nights 

          that tear us open to the core?

Cursed, you whisper, 

And suddenly thousands of years worth of history and ghosts and 

          fiends are clamouring for release beneath 

The liquid obsidian rocking the boat. 

Cursed, I whisper, but remind me:

Aren’t curses simply blessings from below?

.

— Cruise on the Danube (y.c.)

A friend of mine wants flowers for her room, she says. 

She wants to make it beautiful and vibrant and fresh, but

Blossoms fade and petals mold, she says,

Clutching her falsified flowers, 

Petals carefully crafted—

A forgery,

hundreds of days in the making in factories where they make 

          hundreds of petals that never die.

Immortality is the prize, beauty a side effect, and yet

How many of us choose both as a goal?

-

—Immortality comes with plastic petals (y.c.)

gothic fiction delicacies 

𝖔𝖓𝖊. decaying setting 

haunted houses, castles with secret passages/rooms, trapdoors, mazes, labyrinths, closed doors, trick panels with hidden levers, dark or hidden staircases, added flavor with darkness, uneven floors, branchings, claustrophobia, echoes of unusual sounds.

𝖙𝖜𝖔. supernatural beings or monsters

time of great discovery and exploration in the fields of science, religion, and industry; revere and question the existence of a higher power; ghosts, death and decay, deviant forms of humans: vampires, zombies, wolfmen

𝖙𝖍𝖗𝖊𝖊. curses or prophecies

obscure, partial, confusing prophecies and curses, undecipherable maps and house plans

𝖋𝖔𝖚𝖗. omens or portents

disturbing dreams, phenomenons, imitation thoughts, foreshadowing, statues falling, paintings ripped and staring back, windows tapping at night, dark curtains caught in the wind

𝖋𝖎𝖛𝖊. a suspenseful and mysterious atmosphere

fear enhanced by the unknown, inexplicable murders, mutilated bodies, mounted corpses, raised suspense, mysterious invitations, surreal appearances, blend between imagination and reality

𝖘𝖎𝖝. heroes in distress

appeal to the pathos and sympathy of the reader, events that leave one fainting, terrified, screaming, and/or sobbing; lonely, pensive, oppressed hero/heroine; pronounced sufferings, abandoned with no protection, “stay here, I’ll be right back.”

𝖘𝖊𝖛𝖊𝖓. tyrannical antagonist

power as king or queen, lord or mistress of the manor, forcing the intolerable, supernatural/paranormal strength, poisonous seduction, irresistable charm

𝖊𝖎𝖌𝖍𝖙. light and dark interplay

shades of grey or blood-red colors, blood as visual spectacle, blood stains, red roses, candle-light, violet night, silver moon, household silver

𝖓𝖎𝖓𝖊. intense emotions

madness - strange or troubling events that, while logical, seem to originate from unexpected forces; repressed fears & desires, memory of past sin, terror, sorrow, anger, feeling of impending doom

𝖙𝖊𝖓. metonymy of gloom and horror

suggesting mystery, danger, supernatural; howling wind, blowing rain, doors grating on rusty hinges, sighs, moans, howls, eerie sounds, footsteps approaching, clanking chains, lights in abandoned rooms, gusts of wind blowing out lights, characters trapped in a room, doors suddenly slamming shut, ruins of buildings, baying of distant dogs or wolves, thunder and lightning, crazed laughter