Tuesday, November 22, 2016

TWR360 Update

Many of the radio programs that we have on the air here at TWR Bonaire can also be found online at TWR360.  There is now audio and video content in 47 languages, and from 150 ministries and churches.

New apps for Android and iOS have been released which are faster and easier to use.  In October, we saw a 295% increase in new users connecting to TWR360 with the apps.

In October, there were 867,424 visitors to TWR360, from 227 countries and territories. This is a new record.   Brazil continues to lead the way in visits to TWR360 using Web browsers, followed by India and the Indonesia.  The USA was the country with the most visits using the Android and iOS apps, followed by Myanmar and India.

The page with the most visits is called "The Story."  The most watched video clip was "TWR360 personal Impact 2015."

Be sure to check out TWR360.

Wednesday, November 16, 2016

More from SuperMoon Monday

Here are a couple more pictures from SuperMoon Monday. That has a nice ring to it, kind of like Superbowl Sunday.

This shot of the moon is through a 2000mm focal length telescope in our back yard in Hato.
The moon was full at 9:51 in the morning.  I shot this at 9:39 in the evening, so it was about 12 hours past full, and you can tell if you look closely at the top edge of the moon.
Due to a broken cigarette lighter adapter, Sandra had to manually hold wires onto a 12v battery so that the motor drive would track the moon while i tripped the shutter. 

This shot of the sunset and slave huts is an HDR image made from three exposures; one underexposed to get the clouds, one "normal" exposure, and one overexposed shot to get the front side of the huts, which were jet black in the first two shots.
Our eyes can see a much broader range of brightness than a camera can capture, so the HDR technique approximates what we were seeing that evening.  The foreground probably looked a little bit brighter to our eyes that evening.

Tuesday, November 15, 2016

SuperMoon Shots

Here are a couple supermoon photos from Red Slave on Bonaire, using my trusty Powershot SX50 HS mounted on a video tripod for stability

The skies were quite clear in between the clouds. We saw the moon right by the horizon, and yes, it really was that orange. Then it disappeared behind a cloud for a while.







We stood around and swatted millions of mosquitoes until the moon came back out.






Once we got back home, I also shot a few images through the 8" Meade LX50 telescope. Sometime in the future, when we have a super-small moon, I'll image that as well, and then compare the sizes.  If the telescope picture looks good, I'll post it soon.

Saturday, November 05, 2016

Lightning Timelapse

 The Milky Way time-lapse I shot on Halloween and posted the other day had some really active thunderstorm clouds on the horizon.  I cropped the frames so I could see the lightning activity better and made another time-lapse clip.  If i had realized how cool the clouds were, i would have kept shooting pictures longer.  There is a double "explosion" of sorts going on to the right of mid-frame when the sequence stops.  Watch the 1080p version full screen if you can.


Wednesday, November 02, 2016

Day to Night Timelapse from Oct 31

I like this one from Monday better than the one from last Saturday.  I think the sky was clearer.  Also, the thunderstorm clouds down by the horizon are amazing.  Venus is still the bright object at the right side of the frame.  This clip is on YouTube but I've embedded it here.  Watch it full screen at 1080p if you can.

Tuesday, November 01, 2016

Milky Way Timelapse

I just uploaded a 30 second clip to YouTube made from 700+ images I shot at the TWR transmitter site on Saturday evening.  Looking southwest past the towers of TWR on Bonaire.  The bright blob at the right is Venus.  The smaller blob to Venus' upper right is Saturn.  The bright star to Venus' lower right is Antares.  At the same time that Venus disappears at the bottom of the frame, Mars comes into view at the top middle and passes right by the top of the right-most tower.