The way home

Spotted in Ueno, neighborhood in Tokyo, Japan.

Nostalgia kicks in when one sees a sign like this in a land far far away from home. To be honest, when Pierro sees a sign like this and translates it for us: "Munich City Germany".

Japan is a lovely place with many magnificent details to explore. I barely got a taste of its magic, but I will be definitely coming back, hopefully with the co-owner of this blog. :)

Many thanks to Pierro who always kindly answered our questions and guided us to the best places!

Η φωλιά

Τώρα εξηγούνται όλα! Χρειάζεται εκπαίδευση πλύση εγκεφάλου από τα γενοφάσκια για να είναι κανείς ακόμα πασόκος.

Spotted: στη χώρα του ανατέλλοντος ηλίου. Τυχαίο? Δε νομίζω!

p.s. Η φωτογραφία είναι 100% αυθεντική.

Ως πιστός και φιλότεχνος στρατιώτης. As a loyal and resourceful soldier.

There are some afternoons in the army camp when time passes slowly enough to be against all laws of physics.
A., a film director, has invented the so called lower-bed-theatre to have some quality time.

17/2/2012 Follow up:
A piece of A.'s (aka Sir Avrilios Karakostas) work is a documentary about Zagori in Epirus. You are strongly encouraged to watch it here.

And a question: Any ideas why when I post from my SE X8, the photo in the blog has all those small squares? They do not appear in the original photo in the smartphone!

Panorama

Next time you find yourself in LBT, have a look out from the window. You have a handy guide (click on image to enlarge) to spot all the visible mountain peaks including some useful information such as height and distance. :)

Such a cool idea!

Dead

Something else I witnessed for the first time in my life while in Arizona was a dead cactus. Apparently, they can die of old age or due to all the expected reasons fire, humans etc. A rotting cactus is a sad sight though. Spotted on the way up to mount. Lemmon.

In the background you have the city of Tucson.

The Largest Binocular!

The Large Binocular Telescope - LBT is located at Mt. Graham in Arizona, USA.
It consists of two 8.4m diameter telescopes under one roof, and operates in the optical and infrared.

In the picture you see one of the two telescopes. The whole structure is so big that it was impossible to take a picture of the whole thing with my lens. I should have bought that fish-eye lens I wanted some months ago!

I was amazed by the smooth movement of this gigantic instrument and I am grateful for being there. We managed to get some good data and hopefully I will inform you about the results soon!

33 000 ft

Last week I have been observing the american night sky from a mountain about 10 700 ft high (3200m). I wanted to take nice pictures of the stars but it was impossible this time.
Instead, I took a picture of the sky on the way home to Munich. So there you have it, this is how the sky looks like from 33 000 ft (10000m) above the Earth.
Not very impressive? Try to keep your hand steady for 2-3 seconds in a moving airplane! That is impressive! :)

Tomorrow I will show you the telescope!!