Starship Asterisk*

Lll wrote:
How is 20th March the start of northern hemisphere spring, is the 21st June is mid-summer?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Midsummer wrote:
<<Midsummer, also known as St John's Day, is the period of time centered upon the summer solstice, and more specifically the Northern European celebrations that accompany the actual solstice or take place on a day between June 21 and June 25 and the preceding evening. The exact dates vary between different cultures. Because he was alleged to have been born on that day, the Christian Church designated June 24 as the feast day of the early Christian martyr St John the Baptist, and the observance of St John's Day begins the evening before, known as St John's Eve. Midsummer is especially important in the cultures of Scandinavia, and the Baltics. In Sweden the Midsummer is such an important festivity that there have been serious discussions to make the Midsummer's Eve into the National Day of Sweden.

Solstice celebrations still center around the day of the astronomical summer solstice. Some choose to hold the rite on June 21, even when this is not the longest day of the year, and some celebrate June 24, the day of the solstice in Roman times.

The celebration of Midsummer's Eve (St. John's Eve among Christians) was from ancient times a festival of the summer solstice. Some people believed that golden-flowered mid-summer plants, especially Calendula, and St. John's Wort, had miraculous healing powers and they therefore picked them on this night. Bonfires were lit to protect against evil spirits which were believed to roam freely when the sun was turning southward again. In later years, witches were also thought to be on their way to meetings with other powerful beings.

As Christianity entered pagan areas, midsummer celebrations came to be often borrowed and transferred into new Christian holidays, often resulting in celebrations that mixed Christian traditions with traditions derived from pagan Midsummer festivities. The 13th-century monk of Winchcomb, Gloucestershire, who compiled a book of sermons for the feast days, recorded how St. John's Eve was celebrated in his time: Let us speak of the revels which are accustomed to be made on St. John's Eve, of which there are three kinds. On St. John's Eve in certain regions the boys collect bones and certain other rubbish, and burn them, and therefrom a smoke is produced on the air. They also make brands and go about the fields with the brands. Thirdly, the wheel which they roll.

The fires, explained the monk of Winchcombe, were to drive away dragons, which were abroad on St. John's Eve, poisoning springs and wells. The wheel that was rolled downhill he gave its explicitly solstitial explanation: The wheel is rolled to signify that the sun then rises to the highest point of its circle and at once turns back; thence it comes that the wheel is rolled.>>

Lll wrote:How is 20th March the start of northern hemisphere spring, is the 21st June is mid-summer?

Chris Peterson wrote:

Nitpicker wrote:But perhaps I just don't see the point here. Maybe I'm just prejudiced against pinhole cameras. I haven't made one since 1985 but I remember taking several forgettable images with it.

I don't think the fundamental concept here is pinhole photography so much as it is the photographic technique of capturing imagery directly on unprocessed photosensitive materials.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_Proteus_Steinmetz wrote:

[b][color=#0000FF]An April 23, 1921 photograph of Albert Einstein being given a tour of the Radio Corporation of America (RCA) Brunswick New Jersey wireless station. Charles Proteus Steinmetz is at centre; he died two years later.[/color][/b]

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<<Charles Proteus Steinmetz (April 9, 1865 – October 26, 1923) was a mathematician and electrical engineer. He fostered the development of alternating current that made possible the expansion of the electric power industry in the United States, formulating mathematical theories for engineers. He made ground-breaking discoveries in the understanding of hysteresis that enabled engineers to design better electromagnetic apparatus equipment including especially electric motors for use in industry.

Steinmetz was born as Karl August Rudolph Steinmetz into a Jewish family in Breslau/Wrocław, Province of Silesia. Steinmetz suffered from dwarfism, hunchback, and hip dysplasia, as did his father and grandfather. Steinmetz attended Johannes Gymnasium and astonished his teachers with his proficiency in mathematics and physics. Following the Gymnasium, Steinmetz went on to the University of Breslau to begin work on his undergraduate degree in 1883. He was on the verge of finishing his doctorate in 1888 when he came under investigation by the German police for activities on behalf of a socialist university group and articles he had written for a local socialist newspaper. Steinmetz fled to Zürich in 1888 to escape possible arrest. Faced with an expiring visa, he emigrated to the United States in 1889. He changed his first name to Charles in order to sound more American and chose the middle name Proteus after a childhood taunt given to him by classmates. Proteus was a wise hunchbacked character from the Odyssey who knew many secrets and he felt it suited him.

Steinmetz's work revolutionized AC circuit theory and analysis, which had been carried out using complex, time-consuming calculus-based methods. By 1893, Steinmetz simplified these complicated methods to "a simple problem of algebra". He was the first to use complex number phasor representation, whereby the letter j is used to designate the 90 degree rotation operator in AC system analysis.

Steinmetz was called the "forger of thunderbolts", being the first to create artificial lightning in his football field-sized laboratory and high towers built at General Electric, using 120,000 volt generators. He erected a lightning tower to attract lightning and studied the patterns and effects of lightning resulting in several theories and ideas. In The Simpsons, his name was used as a kind of expletive by the industrialist character Mr. Burns ("Oh, quit cogitating, Steinmetz!") in reference to someone who was overthinking.>>

Kupi Gabor wrote:Why is it so colourful, if it was taken on a black and white photographic paper?

Nitpicker wrote:But perhaps I just don't see the point here. Maybe I'm just prejudiced against pinhole cameras. I haven't made one since 1985 but I remember taking several forgettable images with it.

Chris Peterson wrote:

Nitpicker wrote:A cute and no doubt fun project. Having an electronic timer switch somewhat spoils the simplicity of the pinhole camera. A timer controlled by a vintage 19th century time piece -- from the time of the birth of photography -- might be a fun addition.

I wonder if there's something that could operate for a year without requiring winding or weight setting?

I can understand the use of a pinhole camera left continually open to image the Sun's path over a year, since most "modern, normal" cameras are not designed to cope with being continually open for so long. But a modern camera could be programmed and affixed to capture this scene with 1095 separate, short, well timed exposures.

Of course, and we see quite a few analemma pictures these days captured that way. Not a trivial project, but not especially difficult, either. But that wasn't really the point here, was it?

jambo wrote:I don't understand why the only season that is apparent in the scenery seems to be summer. I would have expected some evidence of snow.

Nitpicker wrote:A cute and no doubt fun project. Having an electronic timer switch somewhat spoils the simplicity of the pinhole camera. A timer controlled by a vintage 19th century time piece -- from the time of the birth of photography -- might be a fun addition.

I can understand the use of a pinhole camera left continually open to image the Sun's path over a year, since most "modern, normal" cameras are not designed to cope with being continually open for so long. But a modern camera could be programmed and affixed to capture this scene with 1095 separate, short, well timed exposures.

Nitpicker wrote:I don't think the cameras are behind glass. They are gaffa-taped to a metal balcony railing. Following the "The well-planned daily exposures began" link, led me to:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yGm-_mPD4Ko

HyperMinimalism wrote:I see some ghosting analemmas in the upper right and left. How can those be explained? Does it have something to do with the wave nature of photons?