Category Archives: Astrophotography

A mum who lost 14 stone says she has the “body of a 90-year-old woman” thanks to 25lb of loose skin – and finds it weird now men give her “attention”. Kristina Murphy, 34, weighed 26st 7lb and was a US size 30 at her heaviest after a lifelong struggle with her weight. The mother-of-two said her weight “got out of hand” during the pandemic leaving her unable to tie her shoelaces or walk up the stairs without difficulty. She gained 1st during lockdown and said after it affected “every aspect of her life” she decided in 2020 it was time for a “drastic” change. She started her bariatric journey in January 2021, incorporating diet and exercise changes such as portion control and gym sessions into her lifestyle, before undergoing gastric bypass surgery on April 28th 2021. Now at 12st 7lbs, Kristina is still suffering with body dysmorphia – as the weight loss has left her with an estimated 20-25lb worth of sagging loose skin around her stomach – which she said makes her look like a “90-year old-woman”. She has been forced her to buy clothes in a US size 10-12 – two sizes bigger than her new US Size 8, because she has to “pack a massive stomach” in. But her self-confidence has still grown since shifting 14st 4lbs, and says guys offer to buy her drinks and give her attention which she finds “weird”. Kristina, a secretary, from Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, US, said: “The skin is a massive problem and was something I worried about before the surgery. “I struggle with finding clothes to fit me properly because I have to pack a massive stomach into clothes. I’m a size eight in jeans but I have to buy a size 10 to 12 to fit the skin, which is frustrating. “I’m dealing with rashes on the skin regardless of how clean I am, in my bellybutton, thighs, armpits. It hurts when I run because it hits against itself and it’s taken a toll on me mentally. “I feel good when I’m dressed, I can see the difference in myself and I feel beautiful, but when I’m by myself and I take my clothes off it crushes me. “I’ve got the body of a 90 year old woman. The skin all wrinkly and saggy and not where it should be. “I haven’t fully got rid of myself – I’m stuck with my old shell of my fat body. I can’t move into the new me when I still have the old me hung around me. “I was always the fat funny friend, and now guys buy me drinks and give me attention which is very weird for me.” Previously Kristina was stuck in a cycle of binges, diets, and restriction. She said: “I was your typical chronic dieter. I would try every diet, and restrict myself. “I’ve now been diagnosed with binge eating disorder, but at the time I didn’t know about this. I would go without eating much for a week but I would be craving food and as a result of depriving myself so much I would overindulge in the week. “I would have protein shakes and salad in the week, then on the weekend I would eat a whole pizza by myself and chicken wings or soft drinks. One binge day would turn into four binge weeks. “I would gain 10-15lb from that binge episode.” Before qualifying for the surgery Kristina had to spend three months trying to lose weight through diet and exercise, as well as attending sessions with a nutritionist and psychotherapist to understand her weight difficulties on a deeper level. Kristina said: “My struggle with my weight has been something I’ve dealt with on and off my whole life. “In 2020 during the pandemic everyone was stuck at home and my weight got out of hand. “It took a toll on me physically. It had bothered me mentally but at this point I couldn’t get up steps easily and every aspect of my life was affected. So I decided it was time for me to do a drastic change and I started looking into weight loss surgery. “Now I’m in the phase of dealing with the aftermath and figuring out who I am as a person again after the weight loss.” Through her weight loss journey Kristina said she has been able to reconnect with herself, and develop a new sense of self-worth. She said: “I‘m becoming who I always was on the inside, digging her out from under my weight which was burying who I’ve always been. The person who I haven’t been able to explore. It’s like the weight has muddled me. “It’s been a journey to try and explore that to find myself and my light again, from little things like figuring out how to dress the new body to big things, like how do I have a healthy new relationship with food again?” Kristina’s relationship with children Kamrem, eight, and Isaiah, 10, has been a “big motivator” to improve her health. She said: “They are a big motivator because I want them to grow up and have a healthy relationship with food. “They never asked me to lose weight, but it killed me that I couldn’t run around with them because my knees hurt . Seeing what I couldn’t do with them is what bothered me. “Now it feels amazing that I can go to the park and swing with them and be in those moments with them rather than watching those moments and creating those memories.” Working with a nutritionist and psychologist as part of the bariatric team, Kristina has adopted a new diet and approach to food. She manages portion control with small plates, uses scales to weigh her food, and balances her meals with vegetables making half, protein at least one third, and the rest carbohydrates. Chewing her food slowly and giving her brain time to register she is full has also helped Kristina to achieve moderation with her diet. She no longer severely restricts her food and still eats carbs and small treats, because her nutritionist explained the restriction triggers binge episodes. She said: “It’s helped me see my triggers and how much of an emotional eater I am, has forced me to find healthier outlets in times of darkness and stress – reworking my brain. “Instead of bingeing I now go to the gym three to four times a week or spend time with my kids playing in the park, trying a new restaurant. I also like drawing, pursuing creative outlets, photography, and astrophotography. “In America everything revolves around the food, holidays, birthdays, celebrations. For me I had to learn life differently – we go out to eat now but I’m there for the company and conversation not the food. She is advised to undergo full body lift which will cost $50-55k but Kristina only has the insurance to cover her breasts and lower stomach and is now looking into other ways to fund it. Kristina said: “It feels like the last hurdle to transform into who I want to be. I’ve lost an entire person, but I struggle with body dysmorphia when I look down and still feel like the old me. “I’m just trying make fun of some of the darkness we’re going through. I’ve lost the weight but not my sense of humour.”

Macworld

You might have seen headlines this week about the Samsung Galaxy S23 Ultra taking so-called “fake” moon pictures. Ever since the S20 Ultra, Samsung has had a feature called Space Zoom that marries its 10X optical zoom with massive digital zoom to reach a combined 100X zoom. In marketing shots, Samsung has shown its phone taking near-crystal clear pictures of the moon, and users have done the same on a clear night.

But a Redditor has proven that Samsung’s incredible Space Zoom is using a bit of trickery. It turns out that when taking pictures of the moon, Samsung’s AI-based Scene Optimizer does a whole lot of heavy lifting to make it look like the moon was photographed with a high-resolution telescope rather than a smartphone. So when someone takes a shot of the moon—in the sky or on a computer screen as in the Reddit post—Samsung’s computational engine takes over and clears up the craters and contours that the camera had missed.

In a follow-up post, they prove beyond much doubt that Samsung is indeed adding “moon” imagery to photos to make the shot clearer. As they explain, “The computer vision module/AI recognizes the moon, you take the picture, and at this point, a neural network trained on countless moon images fills in the details that were not available optically.” That’s a bit more “fake” than Samsung lets on, but it’s still very much to be expected.

Even without the investigative work, It should be fairly obvious that the S23 can’t naturally take clear shots of the moon. While Samsung says Space Zoomed shots using the S23 Ultra are “capable of capturing images from an incredible 330 feet away,” the moon is nearly 234,000 miles away or approximately 1,261,392,000 feet away. It’s also a quarter the size of the earth. Smartphones have no problem taking clear photos of skyscrapers that are more than 330 feet away, after all.

Of course, the moon’s distance doesn’t tell the whole story. The moon is essentially a light source set against a dark background, so the camera needs a bit of help to capture a clear image. Here’s how Samsung explains it: “When you’re taking a photo of the moon, your Galaxy device’s camera system will harness this deep learning-based AI technology, as well as multi-frame processing in order to further enhance details. Read on to learn more about the multiple steps, processes, and technologies that go into delivering high-quality images of the moon.”

It’s not all that different from features like Portrait Mode, Portrait Lighting, Night Mode, Magic Eraser, or Face Unblur. It’s all using computational awareness to add, adjust, and edit things that aren’t there. In the case of the moon, it’s easy for Samsung’s AI to make it seem like the phone is taking incredible pictures because Samsung’s AI knows what the moon looks like. It’s the same reason why the sky sometimes looks too blue or the grass too green. The photo engine is applying what it knows to what it sees to mimic a higher-end camera and compensate for normal smartphone shortcomings.

The difference here is that, while it’s common for photo-taking algorithms to segment an image into parts and apply different adjustments and exposure controls to them, Samsung is also using a limited form of AI image generation on the moon blend in details that were never in the camera data to begin with–but you wouldn’t know it, because the moon’s details always look the same when viewed from Earth.

© Mac World
Samsung says the S23 Ultra’s camera uses Scene Optimizer’s “deep-learning-based AI detail enhancement engine to effectively eliminate remaining noise and enhance the image details even further.”

Samsung

What will Apple do?

Apple is heavily rumored to add a periscope zoom lens to the iPhone 15 Ultra for the first time this year, and this controversy will no doubt weigh into how it trains its AI. But you can be assured that the computational engine will do a fair amount of heavy lifting behind the scenes as it does now.

That’s what makes smartphone cameras so great. Unlike point-and-shoot cameras, our smartphones have powerful brains that can help us take better photos and help bad photos look better. It can make nighttime photos seem like they were taken with good lighting and simulate the bokeh effect of a camera with an ultra-fast aperture.

And it’s what will let Apple get incredible results from 20X or 30X zoom from a 6X optical camera. Since Apple has thus far steered clear of astrophotography, I doubt it will go as far as sampling higher-resolution moon photos to help the iPhone 15 take clearer shots, but you can be sure that its Photonic Engine will be hard at work cleaning up edges, preserving details, and boosting the capabilities of the telephoto camera. And based on what we get in the iPhone 14 Pro, the results will surely be spectacular.

Whether it’s Samsung or Apple, computational photography has enabled some of the biggest breakthroughs over the past several years and we’ve only just scratched the surface of what it can do. None of it is actually real. And if it was, we’d all be a lot less impressed with the photos we take with our smartphones.

© Provided by KATV Little Rock/Pine Bluff

© Provided by KNWA Fayetteville
Astrophotography to be focus of Hobbs State Park lecture

ROGERS, Ark. (KNWA/KFTA) – Hobbs State Park-Conservation Area announced it is hosting an astrophotography lecture and night sky viewing for the public.

The lecture will begin at 7:30 p.m. on March 26 where experts will discuss planetary astrophotography, which records objects within our solar system, including planets as distant as Uranus and Neptune.

According to a news release, the lecture will also cover the proper tools for astrophotography including a single-lens, reflex (DSLR) camera with low-light capabilities, a fast lens with a long focal length, and a sturdy tripod.

Following the lecture will be a night sky viewing at 8:30 p.m. The Sugar Creek Astronomical Society will bring high-quality amateur telescopes for the public to share in viewing celestial objects. At this time, lecturers say the moon will be a 4-day-old crescent and Venus, Mars and Uranus will be within view. Comet 176p may also be visible, the release states.

Other highlights reportedly include the constellations Orion, Taurus, and Ursa Major; star clusters such as the Pleiades, the Hyades, and the Beehive; and a possible meteor shower.

The release says participants should come dressed in clothing warm enough for local weather conditions. If possible, guests are advised to bring a red-light flashlight and a pair of binoculars.

The event is free to the public. Ages 8 and above are welcome. Hobbs State Park-Conservation area is located at 20201 E. Highway 12 in Rogers.

For more information, contact the park at 479-789-5000.

Copyright 2023 Nexstar Media Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.

For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to KNWA FOX24.