Posts Tagged Observatory

Highly Trained Show Breeds Are Better Posers

Posted by on Tuesday, 31 August, 2010

There is a big problem faced by this lady portraitist from Pasadena each time she comes in to paint her most unpredictable muses. Posing politely and patiently as mother did for whistler is something these subjects cannot do even if they are all mostly well bred.The subject, very eager to be off and about his affairs, would only allow this female portraitist a few minutes to study and make an assessment his aristocratic built then, abruptly, with a short, loud bark or perhaps a poised scratch at an imagined tick, he signals that the sitting is done for that day.

She does most of her preliminary sketches on the sunny second floor of the 67 year old house she occupies with her spouse and uses an instant camera as well, and this truly works in making sure that her portraits of these dog subjects are accurate. She encounters dog subjects posing better than other subjects such as cats. She has noticed that dogs who happen to be highly trained show breeds and seem to be downright vain about their appearance are the better posers. Expert resources on photos into paintings are located on that site.

Purebred dogs are mostly her clients. Compared to mongrels or mixed breeds, these thoroughbreds are easier to paint as their shades of coats and the structure of their skeleton are very recognizable. Her most favored subjects would be dogs with short hair and fine body structure, the purebred hounds. Apart from that, the expression of these dogs are wonderful and she loves capturing them.

She is a local observatory technical illustrator during the week and she also is adept with creating breathtaking landscapes with water color as medium of choice. Her best works are housed in a popular gallery. She learned to become a magazine illustrator after studying at an art school in New York. In fact, one of her teachers suggested that she try her paints on dogs.

Proving that she is a true animal lover, she would enjoy being at dog shows in New York and using first hand information, she would sketch and study carefully these various dog breeds.Immortalizing the pet pooch of a very wealthy dowager from New York was her very first assignment. The pooch painting that was felice signed took its rightful place, right beside the lady dowager’s original works of art from Rembrandt and Frans Hals after being mounted on a luxurious and elegant frame.Eventually, she was able to launch a sketch book with her description and studies of every breed listed by the American kennel club and it was well received. If you want more comprehensive info on photo to oil portrait that site will help you.

Her family moved to California 23 years ago, into their 1913 Pasadena craftsman’s house with the perfect room for a serious artist’s studio on the second floor. For the sake of posterity, most pet lovers bring their dogs here so that they can be painted by her. She prefers pastels even as she can also use charcoals and oils to create portraits of her canine clients. She is overwhelmed with so many subjects coming in during the Christmas period.

There are some times when this painter would flatter her non human subjects just as an average painter of human beings would. Today, she enjoys raising salukis with her husband, a retired electrical engineering and they both love these rare hound purebreds, whose lineage goes as far back as the time of ancient Persia and Egypt as well.


Palomar Observatory Tour Getting inside the 200in Hale Telescope

Posted by on Thursday, 10 June, 2010

A quick summary of the Palomar Observatory. Many thanks to CaptainCaustic and Palomarskyguy for helping set this up. It was greatly appreciated. www.youtube.com www.youtube.com The scope itself is intimidating impressive. You stand it Its Presence. Seeing the collage of technology was fascinating (from the smell of Victorian steam engines to the 8W laser used for the adaptive optics (along with actuators that twitch about 2000 times per second)). The dome itself also has a feel of Roman Empire Grandure. The building is beautiful and white. Thursday 23nd july Well, didnt really get up the dawn chorus broke out, and the light grew more full, and then I could see the high cloud that had ruined the seeing for the latter half of the night. No matter, both transits could clearly be seen, and Im pretty sure to meteor impact site too! (southern hemisphere) Packed up the scope and drove up to observatory. There by 7ish. Slept in car till they opened gates at 9ish. Had the observatory much to myself. And amazing place, got a vaguely greek feel to it. Very white, large buildings, tied up with the discovery of the unknown. Had a nose around myself, before trying to call the outreach guy. My phone struggled for signal, so I asked for help from one of the helps in the visitors center. The guys name was Scott. We got on well. Very much kindred spirits with an appreciation for what these great machines symbolize. The Palomar observatory is over 50 years old, but its mass has the feeling
Video Rating: 4 / 5


Video: Refractor telescope from 1934 still in use at Philadelphia’s Franklin Institute

Posted by on Sunday, 31 May, 2009

Derrick Pitts, lead astronomer at Philadelphia’s Franklin Institute, talks about the telescope used in the Bloom Observatory. The 10-inch refractor telescope has been around since 1934, and was built by Carl Zeiss Jena and shipped over from Germany.

Here’s more from the Franklin Institute’s web site:

The original observatory, opened in 1934, had two telescopes. The 10-inch, f/15 refractor, built by Carl Zeiss Jena, employed the latest optical and engineering techniques available in pre-World War II Germany. The 24-inch reflector telescope, manufactured by J.W. Fecker of Pittsburgh, was a convertible Newtonian/Cassegrain instrument with focal ratios of 14.4 and 7, respectively. The reflector was used for deep-sky observations, including the first recovery sighting of Comet Halley in the fall of 1985. City light pollution eventually rendered it ineffective, and the scope was moved to the Institute’s Space Command exhibit.
Bloom Observatory was renovated in 2006. Nationally-recognized telescope mechanic, Christopher Ray, of Ray Museum Studios and a professor of Mechanical Engineering from Swarthmore College, completely rebuilt the Zeiss refractor, upgrading it with modern PC-controlled DC-servo drives to achieve GO-TO pointing accuracy of better than 0.2 arc-seconds on both axes. The upgrade enables visitors to see not only the only the usual, but also thousands of faint objects (down to about magnitude 13)–despite high levels of ambient light pollution.

Joel N Bloom Observatory [FI.edu]