Swans on Tea

Anticrepuscular Rays Over Colorado, the APOD for Nov 16

Mimes are annoying, but mimics are cool. Can You See Me? Animal Camouflage: Leaf Mimics
Dead leaf butterflies are extraordinary creatures to observe up close. The specimen below illustrates the intricate details chiseled out by adaptation through natural selection, which is a driving force of evolution. The remarkable details help the [...]

Pinhole Camera Solargraphy at Astroengine.
[The] solargraphs are taken by a compact camera film cartridge (plus tiny pinhole) strapped to an inanimate object for long periods of time. However, due to the low speed of the camera film and light restriction (plus, as this is Bristol, plenty of overcast days), the six-month exposure brings a surprising [...]

Scenes from Antarctica
Down in Antarctica, November marks the end of spring, the beginning of austral summer, and the beginning of Antarctica’s cruise season. The Sun just rose for the first time in 6 months on September 22nd, and is now visible in the sky all the time. Recent studies in Antarctica have brought new insights [...]

On June 17th each year since 1976, Diego Golberg has taken a photograph of himself and of his family.
via Stupid Random and Hilarious

I’ve used it before. This time it’s Caves: The World Beneath the World at Dark Roasted Blend.

Lighting up the night
Berlin, Germany is hosting its “Festival of Lights” this week, until October 26th. Dozens of landmarks are lit up with lamps, projectors and lasers, accompanied by fireworks and other events. We humans light up the night for many reasons, practical, artistic - even reasons with more meaningful messages. Pictured below are night [...]

The Fire Rainbow: An Astonishing and Rare Marvel of Nature
To name it properly, a fire rainbow is a circumhorizontal arc. It is also known as a circumhorizon arc but whichever you chose, scientists (and aficionados) call it a CHA. It is given its name because it looks as if a rainbow has spontaneously [...]

Enceladus up close
Saturn’s tiny, icy moon Enceladus has recently been visited by NASA’s Cassini orbiter on several very close approaches - once coming within a mere 25 kilometers (15 miles) of the surface. Scientists are learning a great deal about this curious little moon. Only about 500 kilometers wide (310 miles), it is very active, [...]

But we are fascinated. The Life of the Queen Bee: Superb Macrophotography

The Incredible Beauty of Hummingbirds in Flight
OK, Pedantic man says they are stills, and hummingbirds hover, so they’re not really showing flight.
Here’s one I took a few years ago. Not quite as high resolution, because didn’t (don’t) have a zoom lens that zooms in very much, so this is just a cropped portion of [...]

10 Most Incredible Waterfalls of Ice
BP (before physics) I used to wonder how waterfalls could freeze. But if one looks at the physics, it’s apparent that the motion of water moving in a stream, river or waterfall is small compared to the thermal motion, so this motion really has little effect.
Take a peek at [...]