Being an Amateur astronomer I could not resist today's transit of Mercury across the face of the sun. I was up at sunrise to see if it would be possible to see it. Good thing I did get up early because by mid morning the clouds were moving in and I would have missed it completely. Anywho, I used the projection method through a 3" refractor (all lenses, no mirror) to see it. I took a sheet of green card stock, cut a hole in the center and slipped it over the end with the eyepiece to act as a shield that would produce a shadow to make the projected image easier to see. I used a second bright white cards stock to act as the projection screen. I held it behind the telescope and focused the image onto it then took a bunch of pictures of the projected sun image. Here is the result.
It turned out pretty good considering there way a Breeze building. It made the scope vibrate and the card stock was hard to keep still. It later became impossible.
The image is actually horizontally reversed. The Blue oval circles highlight Sunspots that were captured and the Round black circle highlights Mercury on the face of the sun. It will be several years before this happens again. This is the best of five pictures taken. Shortly afterwards the clouds were too thick to get any more images.
By using a projection screen I was able to see the detail on the sun. NEVER view the sun without protection. It is advised that you never view the sun directly through a telescope or binoculars unless you have a proper sun filter attached to the front of your instrument. Never use an eyepiece filter as the heat generated will crack the filter and could result in blindness. Due to Mercury's small size the only way to see Mercury was through a telescope.
Hope you like what I managed to capture. Remember to always Love The Details. God Bless.
The sound of prayer is not what you hear or speak but the voice of the soul submitting itself to the Lord.
What the mind of the believer struggles to put into words is in many cases a futile attempt to describe the indescribable. If you pay attention to the posture and face of the one praying, it is apparent the soul is speaking far better than the words being used. Eloquent words and long detailed prayer is often an attempt to convince God of the need within the prayer. Simple words from the heart, to the point and uncluttered, are more pleasing and more what our Lord wants from us. He knows better than us the details that fit the need. All of the reasoning in the world will not convince Him that we deserve something. He provides what we need and gives us what we are due as He sees fit. That is not to say a prayer will not be granted. You may have to repeat your prayer often. Matthew 7:7-8 states “Ask, and it will be given to you; seek, and you will find; knock, and it will be opened to you. For everyone who asks receives, and he who seeks finds, and to him who knocks it will be opened."(New American Standard Bible). Hope not coupled with prayer is an exercise in futility in my book. Far too often an unspoken prayer has been answered whereas spoken prayers were not. If a simple prayer is voiced and the soul is in agreement the sound of prayer carries to heaven and is heard. There is no pretense in the soul. No deceit or hiding place. All is open and pure. It is not clouded with the muddy waters of this world but the clear, pure dwelling place of our Lord within us. Prayer, especially the sound of prayer from within, is always heard. Your will be done and not mine, Lord. Amen
The time has come to show the results of the stencil project. This has been my project for several months. First, here is the stencil used to provide the base for this colored image. Simple enough isn't it? NOT!!!! It is not the way of this crafter to do things the easy way. As Jill most often says, " You are a brute for punishment." So what is new? Chuckle!! Where is the fun in boring? LOL.
Here is the Stencil called "Free Spirit". It is from PRIMA and the artist is Jamie Dougherty. It is roughly 6.75 X 11 inches (180mm X 280mm). That is a width and height measurement. I loved this image from the first time I saw it. It lends itself to the rebel within and the native american. I WILL NOT do this one too often but it is fun to do.
Here is the finished stencil. The hair was a major consideration. I settled on black, although that presented challenges in itself. Black is a greater challenge for me than the other hair colors.
The colors are slightly off true. I am looking for a way to true up the onscreen color with the real colors. There are utilities to do this but it also requires specific hardware. This reminds me, if anyone has problems reading a post, mine or otherwise, you can hold down the CTRL button and use the scroll wheel on your mouse to enlarge or reduce the size of the window, and thus the font, you are viewing.
I just realized the "r" and "t" in the word Spirit on the image are transposed. OOOPS!!!! Smile.
The top right of the card stock got a bit wet and is a little out of shape. Sorry about that. Smile again. SIGH. The image turned out quite well just the same. The pallet of Copic colors and pens is:
Skin: E41, R0000, R000, R00
Eye: B000, Boo, Copic Black 0.05 Multi liner
Lips: R81, R21
Head Band: #11 Gold atyou Spica pen, Copic Black 0.05 Muti liner
Feathers: B16, B21, B23, E42, E81, T10, 100
Flowers and Stems: YG63, Y14, Y67, YR24, YR31, G29, E09, E23, C29, R00, R27, R29, R39, R46, Copic Black 0.05 Multi liner
Hair: C2, C4, C6, C8, Copic Black 0.05 Multi liner
This image was both a challenge and fun to do. It turns out the skin shading was easier than expected as was the hair to some degree. The hair detail was tedious to say the least. That took several days.
Hope you enjoyed your visit today. Thank you so much for dropping by. Remember to always Love The Details and correct the mistakes. LOL. God Bless.
