Zip up those winter coats — one of the best meteor showers (if not the best) is predicted to peak tonight.
The Geminid meteor shower occurs when the Earth moves through the debris trail of the asteroid 3200 Phaethon. This year’s spectacle began on Dec. 4, and the number of meteors streaking across the sky has been steadily growing as the days pass.
Tonight (Dec. 13), it’s estimated that we’ll be able to see between 60 and 120 meteors per hour, or one to two per minute, as the shower peaks. And that’s a very high frequency, as far as meteor showers go. Given all the variables in tonight’s night sky, the best time to look for the Geminids is after dusk and before moonrise, which will happen around 10:00 pm local time, per the American Meteor Society. And it’s pretty much a one-shot deal — while the meteor shower will continue through Dec. 17, the number of meteors drops dramatically each day.
Related: Meteor showers 2022-23: Where, when and how to see them
Big Dipper, binary star system and more in December 2022 skywatching
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As for the specific timing of the Geminids tonight, the highest frequency of meteors will actually occur in the morning — 8 a.m. EST (1300 UTC), according to In The Sky. Since the sun will be up then, the best viewing will likely be in the pre-dawn hours. To look for the meteors, all you have to do is look up. Though they’ll all emanate from the constellation Gemini (hence the meteor shower’s name), they can appear anywhere in the sky.
So what makes the Geminids one of the best meteor showers of the year? For starters, there’s its frequency; only the Perseid meteor shower in August regularly competes with that frequency. Then, there’s the fact that Geminid meteors are often slower and brighter than other meteors.
“Because Geminid meteoroids are several times denser than the cometary dust flakes that supply most meteor showers, and because of their relatively slow speed with which they encounter Earth (22 miles (35 km) per second), these December meteors appear to linger a bit longer in view than most,” according to Space.com skywatching columnist Joe Rao. “Moving at roughly half the speed of a Perseid or Leonid, a Geminid fireball can be quite spectacular and dazzling enough to attract attention even in bright moonlight,” Rao added.
But there’s one big problem: visibility might not be so great. There’s quite a bit of bad winter weather occurring across the country, so the night sky will be obscured for many. But even if the skies are clear where you are, the moon is another problem. It’s in its waning gibbous phase at 70% brightness, which means all but the brightest meteors will be washed out by moonlight.
If you’re looking to photograph the Geminid meteor shower, put down that cell phone camera and check out our recommendations for the best cameras for astrophotography and best lenses for astrophotography. And while the Geminids are best observed with the naked eye (you’ll have the widest field of view, which means you’ll have the best chance at spotting a meteor as it zips by), there’s plenty else to see in the night sky. Take a look at our guides for the best binoculars and the best telescopes to get up-close views of other astronomical objects.
Editor’s Note: If you snap the Geminid meteor shower and would like to share it with Space.com’s readers, send your photo(s), comments, and your name and location to [email protected].
“Wind’s Home” will be on display at Casper College until Jan. 11, 2023. (Eric Krszjzaniek via Casper College)
CASPER, Wyo. — A photography exhibition titled “Wind’s Home” by Eric Krszjzaniek is on display at the Mildred Zahradnicek Gallery in the Casper College Music Building, 1451 Lisco Drive.
The photographs feature scenes of the Wyoming landscape, according to the college’s announcement.
“Krszjzaniek’s work has been selected for multiple Governor’s Capital Art Exhibitions and shown in Laramie, Wyoming,” the announcement added. “A lecturer at the University of Wyoming College of Business, he holds a master’s in English and environment and natural resources and a Ph.D. in marketing and sustainable business practices.”
The exhibit will be on display through Jan. 11, 2023. The Mildred Zahradnicek Gallery is open from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. Monday–Thursday.
Wildlife photographers get to see Mother Nature’s humorous side when they’re out in the field.
The Comedy Wildlife Photography Awards, a free competition open to wildlife photographers of all levels, has narrowed down some of the funniest moments of 2022, and they’re sharing it with the public.
Five thousand images were reportedly submitted from more than 85 countries, according to the award competition’s press release.
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The Comedy Wildlife Photography Awards’ “overall winner” this year is Jennifer Hadley, a wildlife photographer from Austin, Texas.
Her photo of a three-month-old lion cub falling from a tree in the Serengeti ecosystem of Tanzania. The action shot was voted the overall winner, and it earned the top spot in the Creatures of the Land category.
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Hadley reportedly entitled the photo “Not So Cat-Like Reflexes” and wrote that the lion cub was likely making his first attempt to climb a tree in her contest submission.
“I think part of what makes this contest great is that most of these photos probably happen by complete accident and that was certainly the case with the lion cub falling out of the tree,” Hadley told competition organizers, in a statement.
“It was very late in the afternoon and so I had my aperture as open as possible to capture the most light possible with my shutter down lower than I would have liked but I figured with the cub walking around in the tree, I didn’t really need the speed, she recalled. “It didn’t even occur to me that he would make a go of getting down by himself in the most un-cat like fashion.”
Hadley said the moment was shocking, but the lion cub quickly righted himself mid-fall and landed on his four paws – seemingly unharmed.
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“[He] ran off with his siblings,” she told the Comedy Wildlife Photography Awards. “A happy ending for a hapless kitty who didn’t quite know how to get down from a tree.”
As the overall winner of the Comedy Wildlife Photography Awards, Hadley has earned a handmade trophy, a photography bag and a safari tour with Alex Walker’s Serian Camp in Masai Mara, Kenya.
Hadley also won an Affinity Photo 2 People’s Choice Award for her “Talk To The Fin!” image, where she photographed a gentoo penguin seemingly waving off his mate on a beach in the Falkland Islands of South America.
Four other wildlife photographers took home big awards from the annual competition.
NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC SPOTLIGHTS EXTRAORDINARY PHOTOGRAPHY AS ‘PICTURES OF THE YEAR’: HERE ARE 10 GREAT SHOTS
Jean Jacques Alcalay of France won a Spectrum Photo Creatures of The Air Award for his “Misleading African Viewpoints 2” image, which shows a heron standing on the back of a swimming hippo in South Africa’s Kruger National Park. A second hippo is close to the heron and has its mouth open in what appears to be a yawn.
Arturo Telle Thiemann of Span won a Creatures Under the Water Award for his “Say Cheeeeeeese,” where he photographed two grey triggerfish swimming up to him for an extreme close-up in the North Atlantic waters around Faial Island, an island in the Azores region of Portugal.
“Even [though] they may look funny, these fish can be quite aggressive,” Thiemann wrote in his photo submission. “In this case they didn’t attempt to bite me, but the dome port of my camera housing ended up with some scratches… life is hard… at least it wasn’t me who was hurt.”
Jia Chen, a wildlife photographer won an Amazing Internet Portfolio Award for his four-part photo series “Football Dream,” which shows a Coopers Hawk in Ontario, Canada, swooping down and kicking a pinecone in a way that resembles a soccer play.
Arshdeep Singh of India won a Junior Award for his “ICU Boy!” image, which shows a spotted owl winking from what appears to be a pipe nest in Bikaner, India.
Singh told the Comedy Wildlife Photography Awards he captured the owl on the last day of his trip to Bikaner.
“It was really funny when he came out and looked at me straight, before going inside he closed one of his eyes and felt like he wanted to say ‘I [see you] boy!’ and I immediately snapped a picture when he gave this pose,” Singh wrote in his contest submission.
Ten other wildlife photographers earned Highly Commended honors from the Comedy Wildlife Photography Awards, including Michael Eastwell, Miroslave Srb, Federica Vinci, Jagdeep Rajput, Emmanuel Do Linh San, Ryan Sims, Alex Pansier, Mark Schoken, John Chaney and Martin Grace.
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The commended photographs were captured in the U.S., Australia, Cambodia, India, South Africa, Netherlands and East Falkland.
Notable images include a pair of bouncing wallabies, an accidental Pegasus and a friendly raccoon who appeared to be waving at the camera.
The Comedy Wildlife Photography Awards was founded in 2015 by English professional photographers, Paul Joynson-Hicks and Tom Sullam, both of whom identify themselves as “passionate conservationists,” according to the competition’s press release.
Joynson-Hicks and Sullam reportedly stated the competition to showcase funny wildlife photographs that provide “light-hearted relief and joy.”
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The competition is partnered with the Whitley Fund for Nature, a wildlife charity based in the U.K., and it has reportedly donated 10% of its net revenue to the conservation group.
The space race is on, and the tech industry can get quite picky! For instance, Microsoft, Amazon, and IBM have been investing, quintessentially catering to the spacetech companies, both private and public. Google, on the other hand, is contributing, albeit sparsely. Meta and Apple, are barely sitting out on spacetech – mostly art and entertainment.
In 2017, SpaceX announced that it is partnering with Google to launch the biggest space project ever, which was later revealed in 2021 to be providing Starlink ground stations at Google’s data centres. So far, nothing big has been revealed yet. Besides Google Sky, a celestial map that shows objects like stars, constellations, galaxies, planets, or the Earth’s Moon, and Rubin Observatory that uses Google Cloud, the tech giant has not made major breakthroughs in the spacetech landscape.
On the other hand, Microsoft has been partnering with NASA for lots of projects since the beginning of space exploration. In 2020, Microsoft made a deal with SpaceX to connect their cloud computing network through Starlink satellite. Then came Google to make the deal with SpaceX for the same purposes. So far, nothing substantial has been announced.
Microsoft went on to launch Azure Space platform, providing infrastructure for space companies in the cloud. Recently, Microsoft announced that it is democratising the space development industry by offering infrastructure-as-a-service through Azure Orbital Space SDK for development, testing, and deploying space hardware.
IBM started partnering with NASA more than five decades ago for space missions. Since then, it has been developing technologies and providing infrastructure for space companies apart from NASA. In 2021, IBM collaborated with HPE Spaceborne Computer-2 and ISS National Lab to provide edge computing solutions in space. In 2022, IBM partnered with Sierra Space for building a space infrastructure for commercialisation of low-earth orbit (LEO), furthering cloud technology in space.
Recently, Amazon took huge steps and started offering ML and computation softwares on LEO for 10 months through a partnership with D-Orbit and Unibap. The AWS in Space project is aimed to further build and provide cloud services for spacetech innovations by connecting with the AWS Ground Station. This allows storing and managing data on Kinesis and building ML applications on SageMaker.
So far, (not) so good
NASA and ISRO have been the long standing giants of the space industry. But they have also partnered with IBM and Amazon for their data and infrastructure services since the beginning. After Elon Musk created SpaceX and paved the way for private companies to take part in the space race, companies like Microsoft, Google, along with other startups, started making breakthroughs.
In 2020, Google partnered with NASA’s Frontier Development Lab for upscaling low resolution images using AI. Google has also proposed another project to enable navigation on the moon’s surface without GPS. Looks like Google has been sitting ducks at an enterprise level and not focusing heavily on infrastructure for space missions. It mostly looks to support the mission once it has been successfully deployed – aka ‘post launch assistance’.
In November, during the launch of NASA’s Artemis, the videos of the take-off were simulcast in ultra-high-definition through Meta Horizon Worlds venues, which is a streaming product of Meta that supports 360-degree streaming throughout the world. Though Meta has been making the metaverse look more and more possible, getting into spacetech is still a long way to go as they still do not have their own cloud services.
Meanwhile, Apple had made no big bids in the space or even the cloud infrastructure industry until September, when it announced its investment plan of $450 million in satellite infrastructure to compete with Starlink. It also plans to invest $50 billion till 2026. Earlier, the Mac Observatory has been using the Apple Mac for astrophotography. Clearly, Google is ahead of Meta and Apple in the field, but they can do much better.
Need of the hour
Google, Apple, and Meta currently stand on top of innovations in the tech industry. By investing in IaaS (infrastructure as a service) for spacetech, they can contribute to the development of new space technologies. Many of them that are being developed for space exploration, including satellite-based internet and space-based cloud infrastructures, require advanced platforms and data centres to function, much like how SpaceX is doing with Starlink.
Meanwhile, in India
Globally, there are over 5,500 spacetech companies and 368 of them are in India. Moreover, there are an increasing number of data centres in India with Microsoft, IBM, AWS, and Adani Groups planning to build, facilitating them for space tech companies remains unaddressed. The Indian space-tech companies like Skyroot Aerospace, Bellatrix Aerospace, and Agnikul are proving to be successful in space missions and having infrastructures within the country can make India ahead in the space race.
Panasonic has announced the Leica DG Vario-Elmarit 12-35mm F2.8 ASPH. Power O.I.S. as the replacement for the Lumix G X VARIO 12-35 mm F2.8 II ASPH. According to the manufacturer, it is one of Panasonic’s highest quality Lumix G Micro Four Thirds lenses and it has been designed to meet the tough optical standards set by Leica.
The new Panasonic Leica DG Vario-Elmarit 12-35mm F2.8 ASPH. Power O.I.S. weighs just 306g but is splash- and dust-resistant, and capable of operating at temperatures down to -10°C.
Panasonic has constructed the lens from fourteen elements arranged in nine groups with four aspherical elements, one UED (Ultra Extra-Low Dispersion) element and one UHR (Ultra High Refractive Index) element. The UHR element is said to have an updated design with higher transmittance and more natural colour reproduction.
Panasonic has also applied its Nano Surface Coating to reduce reflections. This coating works with a new light-shielding component to minimise ghosting and flare.
There’s also a 7-blade diaphragm, with a circular aperture for smooth, attractive bokeh.
The new lens features a shorter minimum focusing distance than its predecessor, just 0.15m at the widest point, and a larger magnification ratio of 0.21x at the 17mm point.
It also has a new mechanism to suppress focus breathing and a micro-step aperture control for smooth exposure adjustment while shooting video. The focusing is also said to be silent. All of this, plus the stabilisation system, makes the new lens well-suited to video as well as stills photography.
Panasonic Leica DG Vario-Elmarit 12-35mm F2.8 ASPH. Power O.I.S. price and availability
The Panasonic Leica DG Vario-Elmarit 12-35mm F2.8 ASPH. Power O.I.S. will be available from February 2023 priced at £879.
This humble image is perhaps not as immediately striking as some of my others. It’s quite subdued and it almost didn’t happen at all. I made it while travelling along the Trans-Amazonian Highway, which was built by the Brazilian military dictatorship in the 1970s, through the heart of the rainforest, in order to “develop” it. In fact, human development and cultivation have existed in the Amazon for millennia – indigenous ways of living alongside nature rather than dominating it. The road’s construction brought widespread ecocide that continues unchecked. My recent work in the Brazilian Amazon is, in many ways, a portrait of this road and its devastating impact on the world’s largest tropical rainforest.
After Jair Bolsonaro took office in 2019, millions of his supporters in the Amazon felt encouraged by his government to clear the land for cattle pasture, soya bean fields, and other forms of agribusiness. Burning kills everything, including species we haven’t even heard of yet. Driving down the Trans-Amazonian often felt like passing through hell.
I had procured a rare stash of Kodak HIE high speed infrared 8x10in sheet film from a dealer in New York. This black and white stock was discontinued in 1999 and lacks what’s called an anti-halation layer in the emulsion. That means it has a wonderful, glowy, poetic quality that old black and white photography used to have before, I think, the 1960s, when anti-halation layers became commonplace. When you photograph trees with this film it reveals the infrared light reflected off chlorophyll in foliage. The healthier the plant, the more infrared light it reflects. The rainforest is full of chlorophyll, of course – it’s what converts carbon dioxide in the atmosphere into carbon in biomass. When the forest is burned, that carbon is released en masse. Since the Amazon has, according to studies, recently become a net producer of carbon dioxide, due to the sheer scale of deforestation, the film seemed an especially appropriate and expressive medium for attempting to represent global heating.
This particular film is notoriously sensitive to heat and humidity though. So bringing it into the Amazon to document the burning rainforest was almost a fool’s errand, yet that environmental degradation is also expressed in the materiality of the film’s emulsion, in all the fingerprints, tears, scratches, fogging and blotches. These artefacts are the result of extreme heat, and point to the climate crisis – and obliquely, for me, even to the end of the world.
You’re meant to expose the film in strong direct sunlight, and when we approached those beautiful palms in the blazing late afternoon sunshine, the scene looked so pristine and untouched that I asked the driver to stop. I set up my large-format wooden 8x10in bellows camera on a tripod on the back of the truck. That only takes five minutes or so but by the time I was ready, the sun slipped away, leaving a brooding, primordial twilight.
Since I was working with this unicorn film medium, I was reluctant to waste a sheet and almost put the camera away. But something told me to take the shot anyway. I made a four-second exposure: the film is incredibly slow. I was holding my breath and trying to stand as still as possible in order to prevent the truck’s suspension from blurring the image. Back in my studio, a guy showed me how to process the film slower than normal, in a developing fluid diluted by a factor of 20, allowing the subtle shadow tonality to emerge. The resulting negative was incredibly thin and I almost threw it away. But my studio manager put it on the scanner some months later and this haunting image emerged.
What it shows is palm trees, first domesticated thousands of years ago by Indigenous people, cultivated in groves like this one deep in the forest. That’s why I think it’s an important photograph, but easily overlooked or not understood. The print’s tonality has a brooding beauty, yet the leaves of the palms hint towards a lighter tone. The infrared is showing but not in a spectacular way. It’s an analogue photograph that carries an oddly spectral quality. I printed it at a smaller scale, 16 x 20in, and gold-toned the silver gelatin fibre paper, giving the blacks and highlights special subtlety. I feel it’s the kind of photograph I’ll never be able to make again, one of those very rare, magical moments of grace that happen in the course of the artistic process. That makes me anxious, as it isn’t easy to repeat your best work. It almost seems to make itself when it happens – and you have no idea how it came into the world.
Richard Mosse’s CV
Richard Mosse. Photograph: Rose Liang
Born: Ireland, 1980. Trained: MRes in Cultural Studies & Humanities, London Consortium; PGDip in Fine Art, Goldsmiths, London; MFA in Photography, Yale University. Influences: “Claudia Andujar, JG Ballard, Hubert Butler, JM Coetzee, Robert Flaherty, Ori Gersht, Paul Graham, Werner Herzog, Ryszard Kapuściński, WG Sebald, Thomas Struth.” High point: “The Irish Pavilion afterparty at the 55th Venice Biennale, 2013.” Low point: “The Battle of Goma in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, 2012.” Top tip: “You miss every shot you don’t take (apols to Wayne Gretzky).”
Venus Optics, manufacturers of Laowa lenses, has expanded its growing line of Fujifilm GFX-compatible lenses with this, the Laowa 19mm f/2.8 Zero-D GFX. At just 80mm in length and weighing 546g, it’s one of the smallest and lightest GF-mount lenses on the market. Inside the compact barrel is a 12-element, 10-group optical stack, incorporating two aspherical elements, three extra-low dispersion elements and one ultra-high refractive element.
Read more: the best Fujifilm GF lenses (opens in new tab)
(Image credit: Venus Optics)
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While the lens itself may be small, it can capture an extremely large 110-degree angle of view, and Laowa claims it can do so without generating noticeable distortion. A large f/2.8 max aperture will help reduce depth of field and increased bokeh softness, while a 5-bladed diaphragm can render 10-point sunstars from out-of-focus points of light.
(Image credit: Venus Optics)
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Though primarily designed as a wide-angle optic, the 19mm f/2.8 Zero-D GFX can also double as a macro lens thanks to its short 18cm minimum focus distance. The reasonably fast maximum aperture combined with the wide angle of view could also make the lens suitable for occasional astrophotography (opens in new tab). Filter attachment is made possible by a 77mm filter thread, enabling the fitment of polarizing (opens in new tab) or neutral density (opens in new tab) filters for long-exposure landscape shots.
(Image credit: Venus Optics)
As you’d expect for a laowa lens, the 19mm f/2.8 Zero-D GFX is a fully manual lens, with no autofocus or electrical communication between lens and host camera. However, manual focussing is much more forgiving when shooting at shorter focal lengths, and the lens has a focusing scale adjustment system to further speed the manual focussing process.
(Image credit: Venus Optics)
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The Laowa 19mm f/2.8 Zero-D GFX is available to buy now from the Venus Optics web shop, priced at US $999. For context, that’s less than half the price of the two widest GFX lenses currently offered by Fujifilm itself: the GF 20-35mm f/4 R WR ($2,499) and the GF 23mm f/4 R LM WR ($2,599).
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(Image credit: Venus Optics)
(Image credit: Venus Optics)
(Image credit: Venus Optics)
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Best Fujifilm GF lenses (opens in new tab) Best wide-angle lenses (opens in new tab) Best lenses for landscape photography (opens in new tab) Best lenses for astrophotography (opens in new tab) Best fisheye lenses (opens in new tab) Best tilt-shift lenses (opens in new tab) Best standard zoom lenses (opens in new tab)
Taking a photo can be achieved by the push of a button but all the other finer details that makes a good picture was an educational lesson for aspiring Bulldogs photographers in the off-season.
Canterbury players Jake Averillo, Max King, Declan Casey and Jayden Okunbor were among those who got an up-close look at the work of NRL award-winning chief photographer Grant ‘Chucky’ Trouville when he paid the club a visit in the off-season.
Trouville was on deck at Belmore to teach several of the club’s top 30 players the trips and tricks in a possible career path post rugby league.
The visit, organised by the Bulldogs education department, went so well that in conjunction with the Elite Athlete Business School, the course will now be officially added to their offerings for 2023.
“We are very proud to be the first ones to design and deliver this course in conjunction with the Elite Athlete Business School and The Brand Builders,” Bulldogs club career coach Renee Liddy said.
“It was so well received by our players, that it will be great to see this course rolled out to other clubs in the future, so that more players can receive the same education and training that our players did.”
Trouville took the group through a class of skills that included shutter speed, lighting and specific angles.
There was also hope that the players could been part of the NRL’s Nikon experience during the 2022 Telstra Premiership finals, but both Averillo and King were called into the PM’s XIII side while Casey and Okunbor had NSW Cup commitments.
“I’m passionate about photography, I went overseas and and took my camera. You can look back and know you took that shot,” Averillo said.
“‘Chucky’ made it a lot more relatable and that was pretty big for us. It was interesting to hear that at different stadiums they have different lighting and settings required.
“It makes me think twice, it’s so much harder than it looks. It’s pretty cool for us being the first to do [a course] and hopefully other clubs can follow.”
For Bulldogs forward King, who is looking towards a career path for life after football, the opportunity to work with Trouville and the EABS
“I’m not a Picasso art student but can appreciate a good photo,” King said.
“It’s so good for life after footy. When you’re a footballer you’re on this pedestal because you’re on the television every week.
“People talk about having a trade but why not something like this?
“For ‘Chucky’ to put the football world into photography, we didn’t realise how much work goes into it and also how much physical work at games it takes.
“The practical part was more of a mind blow than anything. It showed my appreciation to photographers.
“Even just the basic iPhone settings, with little tips and tricks, it makes a massive difference. My interest in photography now has spiked more.
“It was a lot easier to understand and relate because it had the rugby league component.
As social media also continues to evolve, so too do the players’ own brands with King an avid follower of most NRL clubs and other sporting clubs around the world with a key eye on their digital component.
“When you retire you have this following but when it’s all over you’re then like well what do I do now?,” King added.
“If you want to have a business after footy, you don’t have to be a social media marketing guru but it’s just the way the world is moving these days.”
Trouville, who has seen a rise in interest around digital media and photography with players during his time at the NRL, was pleased to hear the program was set to be an official course.
“It was awesome to go out to Belmore, see the players and give them a bit of an insight into what we do,” Trouville said.
“Hopefully next year we can get them at a game taking a few snaps and more players at all clubs get involved.
“It’s a great career-path and everyone starts at the same level with photography. The more time you invest the more you learn and better you’re going to be.”
A man takes a photo in a yard outside of a university damaged from a recent missile attack in Kramatorsk Ukraine, Dec. 13, 2022. [VOA]
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy urged New Zealand to play a role in building support for a peace plan that includes a focus on the environmental impacts of Russia’s 10-month-old war on Ukraine.
Zelenskyy delivered a video address to New Zealand’s parliament Wednesday, telling lawmakers that Russian attacks have polluted rivers, flooded coal mines and destroyed chemical sites. He said 174,000 square kilometers of Ukrainian territory are contaminated with mines and unexploded ordnance.
“The destroyed economy and infrastructure can be rebuilt. It takes years,” Zelenskyy said. “But you cannot rebuild destroyed nature. Just as you cannot restore destroyed life.”
In his nightly video address to Ukrainians late Tuesday, Zelenskyy thanked those who have supported his country after two conferences that yielded pledges of more than $1 billion in aid from about 70 countries and institutions.
The aid will help Ukraine repair infrastructure battered by Russian airstrikes that in recent weeks have cut power and water supplies for millions of Ukrainians. About $400 million will specifically go toward the country’s energy sector.
“We cannot leave them [Ukrainians] alone faced with winter, faced with their aggressor, which is seeking to inflict difficulties on them,” French Foreign Minister Catherine Colonna told reporters after the meetings in Paris.
Ukrainian Prime Minister Denys Shmyhal told reporters that the new aid “is a very powerful signal. It shows that the whole of the civilized world is supporting Ukraine.”
The conference followed a pledge Monday from the leaders of the Group of Seven leading industrialized nations to meet Ukraine’s urgent requirements for military and defense equipment.
Some information for this story came from The Associated Press, Agence France-Presse and Reuters
Spotting a shooting star during one of the dozens of meteor showers a year can be a rewarding experience if you’re lucky enough to see the night sky spectacle, but capturing that feeling with a smartphone can involve some skill.
About 30 times a year, the Earth passes through a trail of debris left over from a comet or asteroid. Some of the most well-known meteor showers have been observed for thousands of years. The August-time Perseid meteor shower was first recorded 2,000 years ago in China.
GEMINID METEOR SHOWER PEAK: WHEN AND WHERE YOU CAN SEE IT
These fast and fleeting showers of light can be easy to see with the naked eye as long as you are in a dark location with minimal cloud cover. Capturing the experience using your phone’s camera is also possible with some finesse, according to Pixsy CEO Kain Jones.
Jones shared some astrophotography tips with FOX Weather to help sky gazers capture the elusive meteor shower.
Photographers set their tripod to take pictures during a cold winter evening in Sonamarg, about 100kms northeast of Srinagar, the summer capital of Jammu and Kashmir. (Photo by Saqib Majeed/SOPA Images/LightRocket via Getty Images)
You’ll need to start with a basic setup for success for any night sky photography. You’ll want to be as far away from city lights as possible. To find the best location, check the forecast. Heavy cloud cover can ruin your chances of getting a shot of the moon or a meteor.
“Use a tripod to keep the camera (as) still as possible,” Jones said. “Be in an extremely dark environment, away from any city lights, away from any lampposts, car lights. You don’t want any extra light to flood into the lens.”
Jones said using a timer can also help avoid any blurry images.
7 TIPS ON HOW TO PHOTOGRAPH THE MOON
“Keep the phone very still,” he said. “Start a timer so you don’t have to touch it. Set it for 5 seconds, walk back, stay very still, and really let that exposure run for as long as possible.”
Astrophotography exposures can run between 5 and 30 seconds, depending on what you want to capture.
Jones also recommends getting in a few practice shots in a nighttime setting before your meteor shower or astronomy event.
The number of camera lenses and settings has increased with each version of the iPhone. The best addition for astrophotography was the low-light photography and RAW file format, Jones said.
The Apple iPhone 13 Pro Max and iPhone 14 Pro have a night mode for low-light photography, which simulates a slow shutter speed, allowing more light in. Users can also opt to shoot photos in RAW file format, which captures the uncompressed image data allowing for more detail in your photos.
“Those will capture every single pixel and piece of data, which can be really useful for editing later on,” Jones said.
The Apple iPhone 11 Pro and later have a night mode.
According to Pixsy, the Samsung Galaxy S21 Pro and Ultra include several lenses best for taking sharp images.
The Ultra 108-megapixel sensor is best for low-light conditions. The Pro doesn’t have the same processing power, but the bright night mode can take good nighttime images.
Samsung breaks down the shutter speed and ISO settings you need to capture stars, the moon and the Milk Way in this guide. Most require a low shutter speed of up to 30 seconds and high ISO.
The Google Pixel 6 Pro comes with three lenses and a low-light mode called Night Sight. The “Motion” mode is suitable for long exposures if you are trying to capture multiple shooting stars during a peak meteor shower event.
Night Sight is available on Pixel 4a and newer phones.
On the Pixel 4 and later, you can capture time-lapse night sky photos.
Open the camera app and tap Night Sight. When your phone is stable on a tripod or other surface, it will display an “astrophotography on” message. When you are done, hit “stop.”
Many photography apps offer more flexibility if your phone can’t adjust exposure and shutter speed.
Most popular apps require a small payment between $2.99 to $25 a year to unleash the full potential and settings.
NightCap is designed with astrophotography and low-light situations in mind.
For $2.99, the app allows you to create long exposures and adjust the ISO and F stop. It even has settings to capture shooting stars, the moon and human-made objects in space, including the International Space Station.
After working so hard to capture the night sky, you want to ensure no one grabs your image off social media and claims it as their own.
Pixsy uses reverse image search technology that monitors images across social media and websites to find where your photos end up.
This technology can be helpful to amateur photographers, professionals or even parents who want to protect images of their children.
“We have plane geeks. We have space geeks. We have astrophotographers. Yeah, we have miniature photographers, flower photographers, medical photographers,” Jones said. “It’s quite interesting when you get into all the different sort of niches of these sort of subsets of photographers.”
Jones estimates there are 7 trillion images on the internet, and it’s just impossible for someone to look everywhere to track their pictures online.
“It’s a crazy amount, and only really this technology can kind of help keep track of where it’s all being used,” Jones said.
