Yeah, so if you know what an AS 800/54 is, then you’re a certified nerd – not just nerdy, no dude, you’re a bona fide nerd-bomb.  For the non-nerds then, the AS 800/54 is the Oxford Instruments Actively-Shielded 800 MHz magnet system with a 54 mm bore tube – whew!  Dennis Atkins of Magnex Scientific (now named The Magnet Technology Centre) just finished de-transiting  and assembling the system, and we are on track for cool-down and energizing to begin after the July 4 holiday.  Thanks to Dennis A for a job well-done.

Oh right, photography, the MOMOP bit!  The image above was recorded on June 29, 2009,  at around noon o’clock, using the Nikon D300 with the AF-S DX NIKKOR 16-85mm f3.5-5.6G ED VR lens.  Three exposures separated by 2EV units (stops) were used to generate the high dynamic range image: f/16 with exposures at 2.5s, 0.6s, and 1/6s.  Auto white balance setting did pretty well on these images – the lighting in this large room is atrocious.

The HDR image was tone-mapped using Photomatix Pro 3.1.  HDR has evolved into two camps:  The sort of conservative group that employs HDR technology to avoid the tedious job of integrating bits and pieces of images exposed at bracketed EV to generate an image that accurately represents the human perspective, e.g., no blown-out highlights or impenetrable shadows; and the second group that is keen to exploit the artistical side of the HDR to generate fantastical images that appear to be a blend of reality with the art from some kooky computer adventure game.  The former group generally employs the Tone Compressor type conversion, while the latter will more naturally gravitate towards the Details Enhancer conversion.  I used the Details Enhancer conversion for this image because I really like what the mode does for interior shots – in this case the illustrated look works better than the more literal interpretation.

Details Enhancer mapping was used with adjustments as follows:

Strength:  90

Color Saturation:  46

Luminosity:  0

Light Smoothing:  Medium

Microcontrast:  0

White Point:  5.000%

Black Point:  5.000%

Gamma:  1.00

All Color Settings at defaults

Micro-smoothing:  10

Highlight Smoothing:  0

Shadows Smoothing:  0

Shadows Clipping:  0

MOMOP?  Check the headpiece image.

It turns out that the gangsta marmot from the June 15 entry has been pretty busy lately.  Based on a syndicated (AP) report from June 24, it appears that the he held up a group of customers at a restaurant in Prosser, WA.  The little menace terrorized the patrons for an undetermined period until he was finally chased from the premises.  A city-wide dragnet failed to apprehend the marmot.  Let us hope that this failed robbery attempt instructs the gangsta marmot on the error of his ways…

A reward of $50 is being offered by Prosser city officials for anyone who can trap the little scourge – preferably alive, but dead is okay provide you don’t scuff up the pelt too much.

Read all about it here and here.

Thanks to H. Workman for bringing this to our attention.