Astronaut yells FIRE ... from SPAAAACE Canadian Astronaut Chris Hadfield has posted photos of Australian wildfires taken from orbit on the In ternational Space station. One image is sufficiently detailed that it depicts flames licking at local foliage. Australia has, over the last ten days, been beset by fire. More than 100 homes were destroyed in Tasmania and …
Maybe the fire danger warnings need to be more descriptive:
1. Go ahead and have a campfire, it's winter and you'll appreciate some hot marshmallows.
2. Please be careful with your campfire so it doesn't spread to the next tent.
3. Don't light a campfire because it might burn down a couple of nearby homes.
4. Definitely don't light a campfire because it'll probably burn down dozens of homes including your own.
5. DON'T BE A FUCKING IDIOT AND LIGHT A CAMPFIRE BECAUSE YOU'LL BURN DOWN THE ENTIRE STATE AND THEN YOU'LL GO TO JAIL. MORON.
Are you all stupid?
Assuming north is up, and the river flows from north west to south east, it enters said bend going north east and exits, having turned 270 degrees to the right, going south west.
No, it doesn't cross itself. In fact, and this is where it gets complicated, there are other bends on either side of the 270 degree bend (that's the big squiggly one, by the way). So in fact it comes into the whole shebang going south, and exits it going south.
Let's spell this out. It turns 135 degrees left, then 270 degrees right, then 45 degrees left.
There, do we all understand? If not, ask your teacher to explain it, once she's finished setting out the sand and water play areas.
A lot of photography on the ISS is taken using dSLRs. Until recently I think they were using the Nikon D2x but they may have recently upgraded.
Here's a video where one of the cameras is being used to demonstrate the effects of acceleration on the iss. You can see another couple clipped to the wall.
NASA bought nearly a dozen D3S's shortly after they came out. As well as a bunch of high-end Nikkor lenses, reputedly at least 7 14-24mm Nikkors to add to their other collection of top-of-the-line Nikkors. So I'd guess it's a D3s. Though they'll probably bring D4's up there pretty soon as well.
http://nikonrumors.com/2010/07/08/new-images-from-space-captured-with-nikon-d3s.aspx/
Which makes sense because at the time (and probably still today), the D3S was the best DSLR in the world in low light conditions, and NASA has been using Nikons for decades. The Russians are apparently using them in space too:
http://www.nikon.com/news/2010/0614_energia_01.htm
A few years back in Central / Western Victoria, Australia... it was about 52 or 53*C, and the wind was blowing at 120Kmh +
And half the country was on fire.
Fuck it was a "difficult time".....
2 years later, half of the country was under water.....
I Love A Sunburnt Country
The love of field and coppice,
Of green and shaded Lanes,
Of ordered woods and gardens,
Is running in your veins;
Strong love of grey-blue distance,
Brown streams and soft, dim skies -
I know but cannot share it,
My love is otherwise.
I love a sunburnt country,
A land of sweeping plains,
Of ragged mountain ranges,
Of drought and flooding rains,
I love her far horizons,
I love her jewel sea,
Her beauty and her terror -
The wide brown land for me.
The tragic ring-barked forests
Stark white beneath the moon,
The sapphire-misted mountains,
The hot gold hush of noon.
Green tangle of the brushes
Where lithe lianas coil,
An orchids deck the tree-tops
And ferns the crimson soil.
Core of my heart, my country!
Her pitiless blue sky,
When sick at heart around us
We see the cattle die -
But then the grey clouds gather
And we can bless again
The drumming of an army,
The steady, soaking rain.
Core of my heart, my country!
Land of the Rainbow Gold,
For flood and fire and famine,
She pays us back threefold;
Over the thirsty paddocks,
Watch, after many days,
The filmy veil of greenness
That thickens as we gaze.
An opal-hearted country,
A wilful, lavish land -
All you who have not loved her,
You will not understand -
Though Earth holds many splendours,
Wherever I may die,
I know to what brown Country
My homing thoughts will fly.
He forgot a bit about,
"I love the flaming fireballs,
As they race on through the sky,
Every time they touch down,
All are sure to die,
As the annual bush fires,
Have us running for out lives."
Shouldn't he be telling us how this is all perfectly normal and that australia has been experiencing these sorts of extreme temperatures and wildfires consistently for thousands of years and its all part of a natural cycle that purely coincidentaly matches the rise in CO2 due to human activity?
Actually we have massive fires every couple of year. It just moves around the country, 1998 was Adelaide, 2004 was Western Sydney, 2006 was Canberra, 2009 was Victoria. This year Tassie and central NSW.
Nothing to unusual about the fires, the temperatures are a bit higher then normal, but still its Summer - what do you expect?
"Actually we have massive fires every couple of year. It just moves around the country, 1998 was Adelaide, 2004 was Western Sydney, 2006 was Canberra, 2009 was Victoria. This year Tassie and central NSW."
You might want to go back a bit further than 1998 for your examples to have much credibility.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1967_Tasmanian_fires
The temerature was the same then as when this set of fires occured.
Of the 4 main fires in Tassie. The reported causes were
An inproperly extinguished campfire.
The big one destructive on was due to a stump that had caught fire a number of days earlier reignighting. Apparently the roots could have still been smouldering underground.
I have not hear of reports of the other two.
saw ISS pass slightly west of Temora Sunday night. Some Android App as well as Mac something or other gives whats going overhead. Now if only something up there could get infra-red fine detail of the hot spots in the river canyon so the water bombers could hit the hottest areas. They are doing a great job as it is. Fires are still way smaller than the ones in northern Tanami Desert in the mid 1970s. Odd how a normal Oz summer after two wet cool summers is proof of the next apocalypse.
The whole ecology was shaped by regular incineration. That's why the FNQ rain forests began to spread after white settlement. Fewer fires to maintain grasslands. Just don't tell the greenies, it might upset them to hear dogma questioned.
"Now if only something up there could get infra-red fine detail of the hot spots in the river canyon so the water bombers could hit the hottest areas"
There is something up there already. Even though NASA calls it a "Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer", it can direct firefighters within about 1000m.
http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/NaturalHazards/view.php?id=80127
It is temperature NOT mercury, Mercury is a planet or a heavy metal. It has been decades since it was used in any thermometer. These days they are either red alcohol or electronic!
So If you have to use stupid terms like "The mercury hit .." the correct option should be "The red coloured alcohol hit.." or "The Electrons hit..".
this is australia in the summer. Why would you need a campfire? Does it get cold at night? Do you need them to scare off the predators? For heating food on a planned hike (and why would you do that in the middle of summer in australia?) you could probably use those exothermic cooking packs soldiers get.
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