Interesting things and places

[red750]

Not sure where to put this.

 

Could this be what things are coming to here as well?

 

Cost and shortage of accommodation - mobile homeless.

[octave]

We went for a ride along the Ballarat to Skipton rail trail today. We had lunch under this impressive bridge.

 

"Nimons Bridge was Victoria's fourth-tallest timber trestle bridge when built, and is the third-tallest surviving example. It is also the second-largest composite bridge combining traditional timber piers with rolled steel joist spans and a timber deck."

 

 

Built in the 1850s

 

 

 

[nomadpete]

Impressive. Especially so, knowing that it didn't collapse under the weight of a couple of geriatric  cyclists.

[octave]

[onetrack]

That's some camera he's got, that has that kind of telephoto ability - but the photo is a cheat, made up of three separate images. 

 

https://mymodernmet.com/saturn-moon-occultation/

 

Edited September 1, 2023 by onetrack

[octave]

 

47 minutes ago, onetrack said:

but the photo is a cheat, made up of three separate images. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Yes, to allow for the differences in brightness.   Most astrophotographs use a little cheating such as colour enhancement or stacking.

 

"To take advantage of the moment, Stewart took several images and composited them together in post-production to get the best possible result. “The photo consists of three images. The first is an image taken when Saturn was coming out from behind the Moon,” Stewart tells My Modern Met. “I then shot images of Saturn and the Moon separately just after the event and processed them to give better results. Then, I overlayed the two good images over the original one. It is a bit of a cheat, but because of the high surface brightness of the Moon and low brightness of Saturn, it's impossible to get a good image of the occultation with just one shot.”

 

 

 

Here are a couple of my meager efforts

 

 

 

 

 

Edited September 1, 2023 by octave

[spacesailor]

They are Good ! .

I stopped ' photography ' when I went " digital. 

MY development  equipment,  enlarger . Are still here  

But .

No way to process digital film . Just print them onto cheap photo papers. 

I did try .

Bought an expensive " video capture card " , then they changed the pc software to make everything  redundant. 

I gave it away , now even " windows " has gone .

spacesailor

 

[octave]

 

We went for a bike ride/hike along the Timboon Rail Trail today.  Twas absolutely beautiful.

 

 

Old train bridge

 

 

 

 

 

Some kind of rail equipment

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

  We were amused by this.  It seems to be particularly unambitious engineering.

[spacesailor]

That ' could ' be near a ton weight,  two fat Ladies 88 .

Now they would weight  300 plus kilograms apiece. 

Two fat men 400 kilgms each .

I saw them at Blacktown hospital. 

spacesailor

[onetrack]

The sign is to stop a gathering of idiots joining up on the bridge and then jumping up and down, because they have nothing better to do, than to see if the bridge is going to break.

[red750]

Great photos, Octave.

[Old Koreelah]

On 2/9/2023 at 4:21 PM, spacesailor said:

They are Good ! .

I stopped ' photography ' when I went " digital. 

MY development  equipment,  enlarger . Are still here  

But .

No way to process digital film . Just print them onto cheap photo papers. 

I did try .

Bought an expensive " video capture card " , then they changed the pc software to make everything  redundant. 

I gave it away , now even " windows " has gone .

spacesailor

 

My daughter gave her Canon digital and all the accessories to my wife. She finds her iPhone does everything she wants. 

[spacesailor]

I just find digital ' phone or camera ' So slow .

If you see a bird's head go down to ' flyaway ' digital won't get that shot .

The old film cameras were 1,000 of a second , after your finger went down on the button. 

I have a few shots of birds taking off , & I think the ' Swan ' would be the best .

Second was a white bird ' in far north Queensland,  a few people were trying to get a shot of them ! ,

So, up came my , 400 mm fixed mirror lends , to take really good photographs. 

spacesailor

[octave]

Here is a photo of an interesting object.  I took this photo on my usual bike ride which takes me around the waterfront of Geelong and through the port area.  There are often interesting vessels to be seen.  This vessel caught my interest. It is a Helix7000 which is like an oil drilling platform but it is used for decommissioning oil and gas wells (plugging abandoned wells) and also used in the case of an accident.  It is here for a few days before heading into Bass Straight.  Unfortunately, this photo doesn't quite capture the enormous size of this thing.

 

https://www.offshore-energy.biz/watch-helix-vessel-comes-to-australian-port-ahead-of-decom-job-with-exxonmobil/

 

 

[onetrack]

I'm pretty sure I've seen one of those things offshore from Fremantle quite a few years ago. I thought it was a drilling platform, but there was little information available about it.

I couldn't imagine the oil company would've brought an oil platform down from the NW Shelf for repair or maintenance, so it must have been one of these things.

[facthunter]

The Oil/gas companies sell them (cheaply) to someone else who becomes a bit invisible soon after so guess who has to pick up the Bill?..   Nev 

[willedoo]

This PDF from Helix gives a few specs on the rig.

 

https://helixesg.com/downloads/Helix_Well_Ops_-_Q7000_-_LTR_10-11-23_FINAL.pdf

[willedoo]

The promotional video. Sounds like the crew is from the UK branch in Aberdeen. The US base is in Houston.

 

 

[facthunter]

Take a bit of energy to move that around.  Nev

[octave]

3 minutes ago, facthunter said:

Take a bit of energy to move that around.  Nev

 

It is amazing to think about all the inputs and energy required to produce a litre of fuel at the bowser. 

[facthunter]

It has been a very profitable Industry that started out using whale blubber. . Soon, If not already, WATER has more value to Humankind..   Nev

[willedoo]

I was reading where the Q7000 can do up to 10.5 knots.

[nomadpete]

6 hours ago, willedoo said:

I was reading where the Q7000 can do up to 10.5 knots.

At how many litres/minute?

 

As Octave hinted, there usually is a lot of energy lost the whole process behind the scenes.

We are mostly unaware of  all the damage done along the line.

Same goes for coal fired power stations. We get people claiming that wind turbines are ugly structures, when they should go and have a look at the mess of old coal mine sites (from the air) for comparison.

[onetrack]

Strip mining - the most destructive form of mining, ever.

[octave]

Here is an interesting thing.  My son lives in a huge house which is actually 2 houses in one with his business partner his and his business partner's wife (also a business partner).   It is a house full of nerdy young optimistic (not whingy) people This is a house where if you sit on the couch you might find yourself sitting on some intricate 3d printed model of a variable-pitch turboprop engine or some part of a robotic project.  We absolutely love visiting my son and his friends/business partners and regard them as family.  Anyway, I thought people might like to see this.  My son's friend and business partner and an employee built this scaled-down replica of a "Reviniew clipper"  It was fully built by these folks from plans. Everything was done by them except the sails.  This vessel has a stealth electric motor as a backup.  

 They even smelted the lead for the keel themselves. We will be going out on Wellington harbour on our next visit (weather permitting) Anyway this thing is awesome, (I have seen it in real life but it was not ready to go to sea at the time).