Tag: photo
UNIDENTIFIED PHOTO: Mountain Lion or Something Else?
This trail cam photo was obtained in Adair County, Kentucky by a group of local hunters who set out several cameras in order to watch a location where they regularly hunt.
The image may very well be a mountain lion, but there are a few strange aspects to the image that bring that assessment into doubt. The area does have a few known mountain lion sightings.
What are your thoughts? Lon
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Have you had a sighting of a winged humanoid or huge bat-like creature in the Chicago, Illinois metro area / Lake Michigan region? The entity has also been referred to as the ‘Chicago Mothman’, ‘Chicago Owlman’ & ‘O’Hare Mothman’ or ‘O’Hare Batman.’ – Chicago / Lake Michigan Winged Humanoid Regional Interactive Map – Please feel free to contact me at lonstrickler@phantomsandmonsters.com – your anonymity is guaranteed. Our investigative group is conducting a serious examination of his phenomenon. We are merely seeking the truth and wish to determine what eyewitnesses have been encountering. Your cooperation is truly appreciated.
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TODAY’S TOP LINKS
The US leads the world in weather catastrophes
Deepest ever fish caught on camera off Japan
PHANTOMS & MONSTERS RADIO Podcasts on Anchor
PHANTOMS & MONSTERS RADIO Podcasts on Spotify
Feel Free to Post PHANTOMS & MONSTERS DIRECT LINKS ON YOUR SOCIAL MEDIA & WEBSITE. Thanks For Your Support!
**********
Please Consider a Donation to ‘Phantoms & Monsters’
Your financial support of Phantoms & Monsters and our other pursuits is much appreciated.
Please use the PayPal donation buttons on the blog site. You can also go directly to Phantoms & Monsters donation. Thanks again for your loyalty and continued support. Lon
This blog and newsletter are licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Work 3.0 United States License.
Registered trademark PHANTOMS AND MONSTERS ® / PHANTOMS & MONSTERS ® – USPTO #90902480 – Lon D. Strickler
© 2005-2023 Phantoms & Monsters – All Rights Reserved
Stunning Webb telescope photo shows actual bending of spacetime
The universe is warped.
And you can see it in a new cosmic photo captured by the James Webb Space Telescope, the most powerful space observatory ever built. Astronomers pointed the giant instrument, which orbits 1 million miles from Earth, at a cluster of galaxies around 6.3 billion light-years away.
This cluster of galaxies, called SDSS J1226+2149, holds so much star and planetary weight that it’s literally warping space, like a bowling ball sitting on a mattress. The warped cosmic area distorts and magnifies the objects in the distance.
“This effect, referred to by astronomers as gravitational lensing, occurs when a massive celestial object such as a galaxy cluster causes a sufficient curvature of spacetime for light to be visibly bent around it, as if by a gargantuan lens,” writes the European Space Agency.
Indeed, there is a giant cosmic lens between us and the objects behind SDSS J1226+2149. This natural lens, combined with the viewing power of the Webb telescope, allows astronomers to glimpse some of the earliest galaxies ever formed, born over 13 billion years ago when the universe was still young.
In the image below, in the lower right area, you can see poignant examples of distorted light caused by warped spacetime. These are the red, elongated shapes. In particular, there’s a red, “long, bright, and distorted arc spreading out near the core,” the space agency explains, an object dubbed “the Cosmic Seahorse.” Such powerful magnification allows scientists to peer into this galaxy and grasp the star formation inside this distant realm of space.
Credit: ESA / Web // NASA / CSA / J. Rigby
The Webb telescope, which hasn’t yet operated for even a year, has years of unprecedented insights ahead. And it won’t just be looking at profoundly distant galaxies.
The Webb telescope’s powerful abilities
The Webb telescope, a scientific collaboration between NASA, the ESA, and the Canadian Space Agency, is designed to peer into the deepest cosmos and reveal unprecedented insights about the early universe. But it’s also peering at intriguing planets in our galaxy, and even the planets in our solar system.
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Here’s how Webb is achieving unparalleled things, and likely will for decades:
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Giant mirror: Webb’s mirror, which captures light, is over 21 feet across. That’s over two and a half times larger than the Hubble Space Telescope’s mirror. Capturing more light allows Webb to see more distant, ancient objects. As described above, the telescope is peering at stars and galaxies that formed over 13 billion years ago, just a few hundred million years after the Big Bang.
“We’re going to see the very first stars and galaxies that ever formed,” Jean Creighton, an astronomer and the director of the Manfred Olson Planetarium at the University of Wisconsin–Milwaukee, told Mashable in 2021.
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Infrared view: Unlike Hubble, which largely views light that’s visible to us, Webb is primarily an infrared telescope, meaning it views light in the infrared spectrum. This allows us to see far more of the universe. Infrared has longer wavelengths than visible light, so the light waves more efficiently slip through cosmic clouds; the light doesn’t as often collide with and get scattered by these densely packed particles. Ultimately, Webb’s infrared eyesight can penetrate places Hubble can’t.
“It lifts the veil,” said Creighton.
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Peering into distant exoplanets: The Webb telescope carries specialized equipment called spectrometers that will revolutionize our understanding of these far-off worlds. The instruments can decipher what molecules (such as water, carbon dioxide, and methane) exist in the atmospheres of distant exoplanets — be it gas giants or smaller rocky worlds. Webb will look at exoplanets in the Milky Way galaxy. Who knows what we’ll find.
“We might learn things we never thought about,” Mercedes López-Morales, an exoplanet researcher and astrophysicist at the Center for Astrophysics-Harvard & Smithsonian, told Mashable in 2021.
Already, astronomers have successfully found intriguing chemical reactions on a planet 700 light-years away, and the observatory has started looking at one of the most anticipated places in the cosmos: the rocky, Earth-sized planets of the TRAPPIST solar system. What’s out there?
Update April 1, 2023: This story was updated to correct the distance of galaxy cluster SDSS J1226+2149. The cluster is 6.3 billion light-years away, not 6.3 billion miles.
RPS@PAX 2023: Meet the PAX Facebook group that takes a community photo every single year
PAX East is a great place to play the latest games, sure, but as anyone who’s attended the event will tell you the games are just a small part of a wider medley of things to see and do. Last year we highlighted the show’s thriving pin collecting scene, for instance, interviewing a bunch of Pinny Arcade enthusiasts about the hobby and discovering that physical badges are just a minor part of the appeal.
Encouraged by the lovely warm feeling making that video left in my belly, we set out to shine a light on other lesser-known parts of PAX East during our time at this year’s show. This led us to discover the PAX East Facebook group, a community of over 8,000 members brought together through their shared love of video games, pop culture and PAX itself. The page is dominated by a striking banner image, a photograph that shows a large group of people crowded around the PAX logo that’s a permanent fixture in the main hall of the Boston convention centre.
Rachel and I found this photograph fascinating. Who were these people? Do they take this picture every single year? How did something like this start, and who was responsible for organising it in the first place?
The best printers of 2023: Inkjet, photo, and laser
Sonic Frontiers free update adds Photo Mode, newly added features, and more
The first of three free content updates for Sonic Frontiers has been released, and it comes with newly added features and modes.
Dubbed the Sights, Sounds, and Speed update, it includes a Photo Mode and a Juke Box that allows you to play your favorite tracks while exploring the Starfall Islands. It includes tracks from Sonic Frontiers and past Sonic games. Totaling 53 songs, 13 are instantly unlocked and playable as soon as the game is updated. You can unlock the remaining 40 songs by collecting Sound Memories across the five islands, denoted by orange notes.
Included in the update are new Challenge Modes to test your skill, and they can be played after finishing the campaign.
Samsung’s photo “remaster” knows what this baby pic is missing: teeth
Samsung’s recently caught some flak after widespread reports that its camera software fakes zoom pictures of the moon, but things may be about to get way more unsettling. A Verge reader wrote in on Wednesday to tell us that the company’s software is adding teeth to pictures of their seven-month old daughter.
This reader says they recently got an S23 Ultra, and decided to try out the Remaster feature in Samsung’s photo-viewing app, Gallery. (It’s the default photo app for the phone, and the feature is available inside the camera if you visit your photo roll.)
They expected something like what Google Photos does, suggesting specific adjustments and filters, unbluring pictures, and the like. Instead, they got the results you can see below,…
Formify wants to 3D print your next gaming mouse using a photo of your hand
Photographer Encounters BIGFOOT GROUP in Large Remote Cave Near Home (PHOTO)
A professional photographer is given the assignment to capture nature stills. He decides to go into the woods near his home. While there he encounters a group of Bigfoot in a cave.
“It was a Saturday night and I was hanging out at the bar with my friends having a great time. We were all talking about how our lives have been since we last saw each other a few years ago. They all told me how they got some boring good paying jobs but I’m right where I want to be at. I do photography and fell in love with it when I was a kid. It took me a few years to get above-average pay which was a pain but I still love what I do. We all exchanged numbers later that night and left.
Walking to my car I got a text from my boss about a new project he wants me to do. The theme was nature and I was lucky since my house is right next to a forest. I responded that I was down to do this project. It was really late at night around 2 AM and I decided to go into my backyard and see where I will be going tomorrow. Draco, my four-year-old Lab, was barking and whining to go outside I got some food for him so we could relax in the backyard.
I was on my phone scrolling through my social media apps minding my own business until Draco began to viciously bark towards the woods. ‘Draco, come over here.’ I yelled out he ran back towards me quick as a rabbit. I could tell he was in fear of what he had seen I began to comfort him and investigated the woods to see if I could see what was scaring him. All I saw were six bright white dots looking toward me but I couldn’t make out what it was. It must have been the raccoons. They’re always out by my house and the woods. I shouted out to the things to go away but they did not budge. Draco and I went back inside and I kept a close eye on the woods the whole way. We went to bed because it was late and I had to see my boss in the afternoon.
I woke up and looked around because I had an ugly sense that someone was watching me. I looked at Draco and he had a dead stare looking out the window. I slowly turned my head towards the door to see the same bright white dots but I could make out that they were the eyes of some creature, not a raccoon, but something else. They slowly started to fade away into the darkness. I turned to the other side of my bed and saw them right in front of me. They look like tall humans but it was too dark to see any other details. They suddenly jumped at me and that’s when I woke up. This is all just a terrible nightmare. I brushed it off and went to go feed Draco before I left to see my boss.
For some odd reason, Draco would just stare at the woods for a few good minutes then just go back to laying down. I couldn’t investigate because of time so I laughed and made my way to work. My boss Derek told me to meet him at a coffee shop near my house so we could talk about what he wanted some pictures of. “I need you to get some good shots of our forest. I know you live in one basically so this shouldn’t be hard,” he said. I left and went to go get ready for the job. I had to stop at a store to get the right lens for this job in particular. Hopefully, the nighttime shot can be quick because I don’t feel safe going in there alone.
By the time I found the right lens, it was already 5 PM and daytime began to fall into the night. The sunset looked amazing so I snapped a shot. On my way home I was wondering how Draco was doing. I mean why would he keep staring outside for a few minutes before laying down? Was there someone out there?
When I got home Draco was sleeping and it seemed as if everything was the same as I had left it. I let Draco outside and I went to take some shots of the forest before nighttime hit. I got a good 30 pictures in of just random things and decided to take good ones tomorrow with more sunlight. Since it was already night time I decided to take the night pictures today to get them over with. I had a fear of stepping in the woods ever since I had that nightmare last night but it was my job and I needed to get it done quickly. I went back to the house to let Draco inside and to get my other lens for the night shots.
It was 8 PM and the light of the sun disappeared while night struck the sky. The stars were out and I had to get a good angle with the trees and have the stars in the background. I walked a little further and saw a trail leading down. I went over and noticed it led to a massive cave. It was dark and the only source of light that I had was the flashlight from my phone. I flashed over to the cave to see if I could see anything before I went inside. I wanted to look around first.
As I was walking away I heard the sound of something moving inside the cave. It sounded as if it was getting closer and trying to leave the cave I did not want to know what was coming up from inside so I ran down the trail to where the campers are normally. When I got there I went up to the man I see every day. “Hey, I know you don’t know me but do you know about that cave back there down the trail?” I said to him, out of breath waiting for a response. “What do you want to know about it?” he asked very confusedly. “I work for a photography company and I want to take some pictures inside there. But I heard something moving around. Do you know anything about it?” I asked him. “If you’re going in there for some pictures then you might as well take your death photo while you’re at it,” he said, seeming mad. I just shrugged and went back to the cave to take a few pictures and leave.
On my way there I tripped on something and fell over. I turned my flashlight on to see what I had stepped on. It was a large footprint. It had to be roughly 20 inches long it led to the cave along with several other footprints. I knew there was something big and I had to get a picture of it. I made my way to the cave entrance. Inside it was dark and silent. Just the beat of my heart echoed through the large cave. I took a single picture with a flash on. I checked the picture and put the exposure up to see where the next entry will be. I went to the opening on the right and took another picture and did the same as the last time. When I checked the picture I saw the bright white eyes and when I put the exposure up I could see humanoid figures standing there watching me. I looked into the darkness and they were standing right in front of me. I had to look up at them and I didn’t move a single muscle. Something behind them fell down. The sound of rocks falling over. The eyes turned around and behind them were more bright white eyes popping out of nowhere. I went back to where I came from until I saw the dim light from outside. When I made it out I ran straight to my house and called my boss immediately. I sent him the picture and he was in shock at what I got a hold of.”
NOTE: There was no mention of where this took place, but I believe, from the narration, that this may have been somewhere in the US Southwest. What are your thoughts? Lon
HAVE A COMMENT? GO TO OUR SUBREDDIT AND POST YOUR THOUGHTS
Feel Free to Post PHANTOMS & MONSTERS DIRECT LINKS ON YOUR SOCIAL MEDIA & WEBSITE. Thanks For Your Support!
—–
Have you had a sighting of a winged humanoid or huge bat-like creature in the Chicago, Illinois metro area / Lake Michigan region? The entity has also been referred to as the ‘Chicago Mothman’, ‘Chicago Owlman’ & ‘O’Hare Mothman’ or ‘O’Hare Batman.’ – Chicago / Lake Michigan Winged Humanoid Regional Interactive Map – Please feel free to contact me at lonstrickler@phantomsandmonsters.com – your anonymity is guaranteed. Our investigative group is conducting a serious examination of his phenomenon. We are merely seeking the truth and wish to determine what eyewitnesses have been encountering. Your cooperation is truly appreciated.
—–
TODAY’S TOP LINKS
Two moons of Uranus may have active subsurface oceans
A Growing Number of Scientists Are Convinced the Future Influences the Past
PHANTOMS & MONSTERS RADIO Podcasts on Anchor
PHANTOMS & MONSTERS RADIO Podcasts on Spotify
Feel Free to Post PHANTOMS & MONSTERS DIRECT LINKS ON YOUR SOCIAL MEDIA & WEBSITE. Thanks For Your Support!
**********
Please Consider a Donation to ‘Phantoms & Monsters’
Your financial support of Phantoms & Monsters and our other pursuits is much appreciated.
Please use the PayPal donation buttons on the blog site. You can also go directly to Phantoms & Monsters donation. Thanks again for your loyalty and continued support. Lon
This blog and newsletter are licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Work 3.0 United States License.
Registered trademark PHANTOMS AND MONSTERS ® / PHANTOMS & MONSTERS ® – USPTO #90902480 – Lon D. Strickler
© 2005-2023 Phantoms & Monsters – All Rights Reserved
iOS 16.4 Expands Duplicate Image Detection to iCloud Shared Photo Library
With iOS 16, Apple added a duplicate detection function for the Photos app. If you have duplicate images, the Photos app displays a “Duplicates” folder in the Utilities album section. From there, you can merge all of your duplicate images together.
At launch, the duplicate detection option did not work with iCloud Shared Photo Library, but that’s changing with the iOS 16.4 update. According to Apple, after installing iOS 16.4, you will be able to detect duplicate photos and videos in iCloud Shared Photo Library, merging them to cut down on unnecessary extra images.
iOS 16.4 is set to be released to the public as soon as next week. The update also includes VoiceOver support for maps in the Weather app, a fix for an issue that could cause Ask to Buy requests to fail to appear on a parent’s device, a bug with Matter-compatible thermostats, and additional Crash Detection optimizations for iPhone 14 models.
This article, “iOS 16.4 Expands Duplicate Image Detection to iCloud Shared Photo Library” first appeared on MacRumors.com
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