Blog Editor's Note: This is the latest dispatch recieved from Dr. Magnus.
MAGNUS: Well, I know I am behind on these entries and I am sorry... We got busy, I got distracted, I had writer's block--all of the above are in part the reason why. But after thinking about it I decided to return to the subject of our planet mainly because I am spending a lot of time taking photos of it (and I have never been that much interested in photography!).
I have not yet become tired of gazing out the window and watching the world go by and looking for interesting things to capture as memories. Unfortunately, during the week, we are busy and who knows what I miss, but I try to catch up on the weekends. You cannot be everywhere, though.....
I have been taking photos with different lenses ranging from a 17-35 mm to a 180 mm, 400 mm and effectively an 800 mm (the 400 mm with a doubler). I am clearly only a beginner but still have managed to get some interesting shots; at least I enjoy them. I want to share some of the views with you and hopefully you can enjoy the beauty of our planet as well.
Having seen so many of the interesting features that exist on our planet, I am motivated to go and learn a bit more about them! As far as identification of the photos themselves, cataloging is going on as fast as the Earth science people at NASA can get to it. NASA has hundreds of thousands of these kinds of pictures in their files. This is both a good thing and a bad thing! Great because you can go and browse and find beautiful images of all over our planet, taken by astronauts for the last 40 years, and bad because it seems overwhelming to go and find them. It is worth the effort.
