Recent content by Andy Resnick

Transition rock showing fenitized gneiss adjacent to chilled margin of carbonatite magmatic intrusion. Fenite. Type locality: Fen Complex, Telemark, Norway. The main minerals in the primary gneiss are sub- to anhedral grains of alkali feldspar, microcline, plagioclase, quartz, and a...

It's been cloudy for the past week and will be cloudy again for another; in between was one clear night spent imaging a somewhat-tight group of objects in constellation Auriga @ 400mm; this is the result (annotations from astrometry.net): It's not much to look at now (only 2 hours integration...

I'm out of the office for a few weeks, so I have to reach into the back catalog for a few weeks: Juvite. Type locality: Juvet, Fen Complex, Telemark, Norway. A local name for a coarse-grained variety of nepheline syenite in which K-feldspar is more abundant than Na-feldspar (albite)...

Last night was the first clear night in a while- I had a chance to image Jupiter @ 800mm: From the top, a stacked image of 40 subs (1/80 s each) to create a good exposure of the planet. Next, a stack of 30 subs (1.3 s each) to create a good exposure of the 4 Galilean moons. The next 2 are...

Another carbonatite margin: Carbonatite, Fen complex. Right side is carbonatite; equigranular subhedral grains of calcite, massed cumulophyric grains of apatite within an aphanitic matrix, massed crystals of phlogopite (possibly indicating C2 metasomatism) displaying reaction rims/coronas...

Annual pre-christmas trip to b. a. Sweetie Candy Company, a candy warehouse: They have all the PEZ (even @ 15mm there's too much to fit in the frame):

Carbonatite, Fen complex. The Fen Complex experienced pluri-metasomatic processes consisting of at least two main phases of metasomatic alteration (Fenitization-1 and Fenitization-2), which can be broken down into a detailed chronological sequence of seven events: three widespread aureole...

Carbonatite, Fen complex. This sample displays a transition from, on one side carbonatite, then, moving from left to right, an apparent band of small crystals of phlogopite intermingling with a bluish amphibole (tabular habit), either riebeckite or arfvedsonite, and further from the carbonatite...

Carbonatite, Fen Complex. This sample could be classified as Alvikite, but the real interest I have is in the bands of color that sometimes appear in a grain under brightfield illumination (neither polarizer nor analyzer present). Upon observation a low magnification (1x), twinkle is...

Really excellent photos- both compositionally and technically (exposure, etc)- thanks for posting!

Another altered carbonatite: Altered carbonatite. A veinlet of carbonatite intrudes into an existing carbonatite pluton, bisecting a crystal of phlogopite. Based on Notebook LM output, appearance seems to be a result C4 contact metasomatism. Here’s a (IMO) a pretty good analogy...

Yes, but the amount of energy radiated by the wire will be much lower than the sun. The amount of energy you need to absorb to protect you from the amount of UV radiation emitted from a tungsten oxide wire is considerably less than required to block UV from the sun.

Interesting question- one I had not thought of. First, confined plasmas have a variety of radiation emission mechanisms, not just blackbody but also synchrotron and "bremsstrahlung". There are also emitted neutrons in addition to photons. I did find a brief summary of the safety measures in...

Carbonatite, Fen Complex. This sample has a significant amount of apatite, generally arranged either in aggregations of elongated anhedral grains or larger isolated subhedral crystals. Minor amount of altered phlogopite, which generally occurs as medium-to-large, isolated crystals...

Well.... if you know the emissivity, then I would agree that a commercial IR detector/camera can hit that 5% accuracy. The problem is if you don't know the emissivity.....