Metaxa *****

Metaxa *****, originally uploaded by RTz13.

"Metaxa (Greek: Μεταξά) is a Greek distilled spirit invented by Spyros Metaxas in 1888. It is a blend of brandy and wine made from sun-dried Savatiano, Sultana and Black Corinth grape varieties. It is then blended with an aged Muscat wine from the Greek islands of Samos and Lemnos. It is exported to over 60 countries."

Mars

Mars, a gallery by Slavomira Vladimirova on Flickr.

Mars
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mars
History of Mars observation
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_Mars_ob servation
Exploration of Mars
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Exploration_of_Mar s
Seeing Things On Mars: A History of Martian Illusions
www.lifeslittlemysteries.com/1511-seeing -things-mars-hist...
Google Mars
www.google.com/mars/

a wonderful Flickr gallery by Slavomira vladimirova.

Morning dreams

Morning dreams, originally uploaded by adrians_art.

"Morning Dreams"

When I get you home
I'll never let you go
Too bad it never lasts long
When I'm all alone
You creep into my mind
And I pretend it's you by my side

You look a little better, each day to me
And you try a little harder each day to be
Everything that I wanted in you
And do everything that I need you to do

Morning dreams come true
Cause I wake up next to you
And only for your eyes
Do I sing these lullabies

Everything you do is all I need to know
Cause I'm yours
I'll never let you down
Anywhere you are is where I want to be
Anywhere, anytime or place

You look a little better, each day to me
And you try a little harder each day to be
Everything that I wanted in you
And do everything that I need you to do

Morning dreams come true
Cause I wake up next to you
And only for your eyes
Do I sing these lullabies

You look a little better, each day to me
And you try a little harder each day to be

Morning dreams come true
Cause I wake up next to you
And only for your eyes
Do I sing these lullabies

Morning dreams come true
Morning dreams come true
Morning dreams come true
Morning dreams come true

Orion and Eridanus

Orion and Eridanus with Distagon 40mmF4 CFE IF December 2011 Light Version, originally uploaded by hirocun.

I admired astrophotos by Axel Mellinger in 2006, and Eridanus Bubble is my favorite.
canopus.physik.uni-potsdam.de/~axm/photo.cgi?Image=images...

The area is visible in the widefield Hydrogen-alpha photo in Galaxy Map:
galaxymap.org/drupal/node/79

equipment: Zeiss Distagon 40mm F4 CFE IF for Hasselblad at F4 and Canon EOS 5Dmk2-sp2 by Seo san at ISO 1,600 on Takahashi EM-200 temma 2Jr, autoguided with hiro-design off-axis guider, StarlightXpress Lodestar autoguider, and PHD Guiding

exposure: 5 time x 30 minutes, 5 x 15 min, 5 x 8 min, 6 x 4 min, 5 x 1 minute, and 10 x 15 seconds

Location: 11,000 feet above sea level near MLO, Mauna Loa Observatory on the shoulder of Mauna Loa in the Big Island, Hawaii

Galaxy

Galaxy, originally uploaded by stevoarnold.

While most normal people were doing what normal people do on a saturday evening, I was down at Coal Cliff up to my ankles in cool, fresh seawater trying to capture a frame of our majestic galaxy until the early hours.

I thought coal cliff would be remote enough to not suffer from much light pollution but it seems that all the ships waiting out at sea to dock at port kembla were intent on burning their lights brightly just to spite me :(

This made it pretty difficult to make a decent shot, but I did what I could and applied curves layer after curves layer in photoshop until the colours and contrast were what you see here.

Not bad, but I'm looking forward to having another try!

White Coral Bells

White Coral Bells, originally uploaded by Kurlylox1.

I love looking at spring trees in bloom and know the names of most but I have no idea what kind of tree this is. These delicate bells against the blue sky were just gorgeous. The title is from a song I learned as a child. I think it refers to lilies of the valley. I'm still very very busy but try to make time for a photo now and then. Happy weekend!