Sometimes the sky itself is the best show in town. On January 26, people from Perth, Australia gathered on a local beach to watch a sky light up with delights near and far. Nearby, fireworks exploded as part of Australia Day celebrations. On the far right, lightning from a thunderstorm flashed in the distance. Near the image center, though, seen through clouds, was the most unusual sight of all: Comet McNaught. The photogenic comet was so bright that it even remained visible though the din of Earthly flashes. Comet McNaught continues to move out from the Sun and dim, but should remain visible in southern skies with binoculars through the end of this month. The above image is actually a three photograph panorama digitally processed to reduce red reflections from the exploding firework.

Pic by Antti Kemppainen

Gunther on Flickr

All things Gunther

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graffiti gunther flickr

Here’s an awesome high dynamic range rendered photo of Tokyo at night. This might be the best nighttime HDR photos I’ve seen.

Here’s a bigger version.

And the original version (6 Mpixels).

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tokyo hdr photography

Here’s a photo I took in Tokyo near the moat around the East Imperial Gardens.

And here’s a recreation using Google Earth to find almost the same vantage point and angle of viewing with 3D building added:

If somebody could add the textures to those buildings, it would be very very close, all that would be needed after that would some vegatation layer. How long before Google adds that?

Here’s the kmz file if you’d like to see it for yourself.

* pressure under fire?

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google earth photography tokyo imperial gardens

The chavistas had better take a look at this. This has “international incident” written all over it.

From the Hirshorn in Washington, D.C.
Click it to see larger views.

Ok, so I just found my Kodak photo CDs of pics from Japan tonight. Thank heavens for Irfanview which can batch convert to other formats, check it out if you get the chance it is so money.

I’m perusing the photos which I took 4 and half years ago and I noticed this billboard ad for Suntory Whisky that I shot in what I believe was Ginza. Suntory was later made famous in the movie Lost in Translation.

This photo is so great. First, you have the expression on this lady’s face and you have the background of the drunken tanuki. You may remember tanuki (minus his giant ball sac) from Super Mario Bros. 3. To learn more, visit your local library or go here: Raccoon Dog – Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia