On approach to Chicago O’Hare International Airport last week, amateur photographer Mark Hersch took this once in a lifetime shot with his iPhone of the city skyline reflected in the waters of lake Michigan as the plane banked for a 180 degree left turn.
@KelleeJohnson A physicist who saw it drew this diagram & asked me if this is how shot it. Pretty much nailed it! pic.twitter.com/9ETVADvPLC
— Mark Hersch (@MHersch1) March 7, 2014
A Danish airforce F-16 pilot launches an AIM-L9/M missile on a training exercise.
Dave Cencotti of The Aviationist adds:
Self-portrait photographs (nowadays known as “selfies“) have always been a must among fighter jocks and you can find thousands taken by military pilots in the most unusal flight conditions. However, selfies taken while launching missiles are much more rare just because firing activities involving the launch of an air-to-air missile don’t take place too often.
Here’s a video of the incident.
Nick Kelly writes:
A collection of Dublin’s most prized and beloved shopfronts created by ‘In the Company of Huskies’ and photographed by Luca Truffarelli for VisitDublin.ie.
Above: Irene Kelly (O’Donovan’s, Pearse St, Dublin 2); Patrick J. Buckley (F.X. Buckley, Moore St, Dublin 1); Sunil Sharma, (The Kiosk, Lr Leeson St Bridge, Dublin 2); Christy’s Walk-Round, 8 Mary Street, Dublin 1 and John McHugh (Makeshop, Lincoln Place, Dublin 2)
On Sunday, just before Gravity won its expected slew of Oscars, NASA tweeted stunning pictures of the real thing.
More at NASA’s Flickr stream.
Photographer Fabian Oefner adds a few drops of alcohol to a glass, ignites the vapour and captures the resulting plumes (which look oddly similar to x-rays of the of the human brain cortex) in a series of high speed shots.
Video and a little more explanation here.
Komali the Asian elephant and friends – back before such charming but inappropriate human/wildlife interactions were discontinued at the Azoo.
(Thanks Terry Rickard)
Dalkey Island at dawn this morning
(Thanks Graham Cashell)
The natural phenomenon of light pillars in the night sky above Peterborough Ontario, captured just before 2am by photographer Jay Callaghan.
It’s caused by the reflection of light (in this case, moonlight) from ice crystals with near horizontal parallel planar surfaces.
But you knew that.
Below: the night sky above Laramie, Wyoming by Christoph Geisler, Fort Wainwright, Alaska by Joey Holliday. and a sun pillar in San Francisco [Wikimedia Commons])
From the Tumblr Shopped Tattoos, wherein clean cut and not so clean cut famous folk are tatted up good and proper.
A protest outside the Pakistani embassy in Kabul this morning.
Awankend.
Classic youth movement in fairness.
(H/T: Ronan F)