Showers and ‘shopping

Two things to mention here, real quick-like now.

First, we are approaching the peak of the Leonids meteor shower, in two days, but you may be able to go out at any time in the next week or so and see something – the moon will be dark, so if you have clear skies in your area, give it a shot. The worst that can happen is you get horribly slaughtered by the Meteor Shower Murderer, that psychopath that preys on innocent photographers that go to dark sky areas and sit around with their cameras on tripods, getting neckaches from craning to watch the stars for a couple of hours, because he’s got a grudge against people like that. Probably, anyway – I’ve never heard of any person or events even remotely fitting that description, and it’s pretty ludicrous, so the chance of it happening is decidedly slim, and the second worst thing that could happen is getting cold and not seeing anything. But if you’re, you know, out where the skies are dark and you have a great open sky view – the beach, say – and have time on your hands, go for it. I give some pointers for using your camera here, if needed. This page and this page will give you some more info. Stellarium and Heaven’s Above can also provide other objects to chase while you’re out there.

Second, I put together a new page on my own site to provide some pointers on combining images convincingly, otherwise known as editing two (or more) photos together, or pasting in something silly, or ‘Photoshopping’ (even though I’m personally talking about GIMPing.) In other words, if you want to make a fake photo for shits and giggles, this is my method, spurred by and illustrating this effort from a couple weeks back. If you want it to look good, don’t expect such tasks to be quick and easy, but it also gives great practice in editing skills that can produce something more useful than musical frogs. So if that sounds exciting to you (and it should,) have at it.

Best of luck with either or both, as the case may be.

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