I took these photos tonight as thunderstorms moved over Coffee County/Franklin County Tennessee.
These are the best two:
[thumb id=1867,1868]
Here are some others that I captured.
[thumb id=1860,1862]
Other lightning photos: My Lightning Gallery
I created several composite images of the lightning photos I took the other day, since I took several photos each time I moved the tripod.
[thumb id=1852,1854,1856,1858]
Tonight turned out to be one of the best nights I’ve had for lightning photography. I was able to place my camera outside under the new awning over the deck and take a ton of photos. Since this particular storm was so energetic, I was able to capture lightning in a majority of the photos I took. Here are a selection of the photos I took tonight.
[thumb id=1831,1832,1833,1834,1835,1836,1837,1838,1839,1840,1841,1842,1843,1844,1845,1846,1848,1849,1850]
On April 27, 2011, much of the South was experienced an outbreak of tornadic thunderstorms. CNN has compiled a list of possible tornado locations, you can find it here. During the storms, Franklin County lost all power and cell phone coverage. While Huntland took the brunt of the storm damage here in Franklin County, power was out for the rest of the county due to a large number of trees down as well as transmission line damage coming out of Alabama. They told people that it could be 3-4 days before they get power back and weeks till everything is back to normal. Hillsboro will be subject to rolling blackouts due to system load. My power was out for 24 hours almost to the dot before it came back online. One of the more eerie things to happen is the debris from Alabama falling out of the sky. People from Winchester, Estill Springs, Tullahoma, and Manchester have been finding light paper items that the storm picked up in Alabama including envelopes, bills, pages of books, and photos. A Facebook page has been setup so that people can share the items in an attempt to find the owners. You can find it here.
I did manage to take some photos of the storm after it lessened. I’ve posted them below.
[nggallery id=42]
I’ve recently posted photos (also re-posted below) that I’ve taken of the moon with my Nikon D5000 connected to my telescope. Here are the components that I used.
Edit: For this to work, you will have to use manual mode (“M”).
Lunar Photography Attempt #1:
[singlepic id=1746 w=400 float=center]
Lunar Photography Attempt #2 (Supermoon):
[singlepic id=1816 w=400 float=center]
I’ve been doing some browsing around the internet for ideas for the design of my ROV. I’ve found a few good resources and learned that several people have repurposed bilge pumps to act as thrusters. It also happens that you can get a prop adapter for standard bilge pumps that will turn them into ready-made underwater prop engines. Based on what I’ve learned standard off the shelf bilge pumps are trustworthy to a depth of around 60ft. In order to go deeper than that, the motors need to be filled with mineral oil to prevent the casing from crushing in on the motor. Thus far I am still undecided about using standard bilge pumps as is or modifying them to use propellers. So far, I’m pretty sure that either way I go I’ll be using a series of 500gph or a 1100gph bilge pumps.
I found one article on ehow that uses the fluorescent lighting grid, I’ve previously mentioned, as a base. Overall their sub design isn’t too different from what I’ve had in mind. Mine will be a bit larger and will have floodlights. I’ll probably limit the use of the lighting grid to the base of the sub as well. You can check out the article here.
I’ve found several instructional sites and videos relating to thrusters. This page is describes the process for adapting a standard bilge pump into function with a propeller instead of the stock impeller. The next few included videos are related to thruster testing.
Using a 500gph bilge pump converted to function with propellers.
Using 1100gph bilge pumps converted to function with propellers.
Based on performance, I might decide to go with the more expensive 1100gph pump.
For more info, see the page devoted to this project: http://www.cdotson.com/l-e-v-shallow-dive-1/
I started looking for some material for the basis of the platform for the ROV I’ll be creating. This material should be relatively rugged. So far I’ve only found two items.
The first of which is the grating you see on florescent lights. I’m worried it is too fragile so I’ll probably not be using it.
The second is a 12″ by 12″ drain top for lawn and garden. Its really almost too small but it is the most promising so far. This is a fairly tough piece of plastic. I should be able to zip tie or attach other mounting hardware to this easily. The downside is that it is fairly expensive. I’d only need one of these, but they run around $20 each.
I’ve also spent some time thinking about how to move the sub around at depth. A lot of the projects I’ve seen use motorized propellers, I’ve been considering standard bilge pumps instead. The downside is that they are sort of expensive. I think they’d run me anywhere between $20 and $50 each and I’d need at least 6 of them. Based on cost, I may want to rethink this.
For more info, see the page devoted to this project: http://www.cdotson.com/l-e-v-shallow-dive-1/
I finally got both parts to connect my D5000 to my telescope. Of all the photos I took, only one turned out. Here it is.
[singlepic id=1746 w=640 h=480 float=]