Friday, 28 May 2010

Time of day and a nasty stain

It really makes a difference. Photograph something at midday and compare it to a picture taken at sunset or sunrise.


These are both pictures of Keck 2 with the Haleakala volcano on Maui in the background. The former was taken during a little time off I had while watching our telescope being taken apart in the middle of the day, the latter while I was up observing earlier in the month and took a few minutes from work to take in the sunset.

What I really want to know, though, is what's that brown stain on the Keck 2 dome in the first picture. Maybe it's not visible in sunset shots and has been there forever, but I haven't seen it before - daytime or at sunset.

2 comments:

Andrew Cooper said...

Actually is has been there a very long time, at least the three years I have been around. Rusty water dripping down the side of the dome. Since fixed, but sending someone rappelling over the side of the dome isn't worth the risk just for a stain.

Tom said...

Thanks for that, Andrew. I completely agree that it's not a good idea sending someone off the edge to clean it up. I was just curious because I hadn't noticed it before and thought it was new.

Tom