Credit & Copyright: Stephen Leshin

Explanation: A remarkable telescopic composition in yellow and blue, this scene features a trio of interacting galaxies almost 90 million light-years away, toward the constellation Virgo. On the left, two, spiky, foreground Milky Way stars echo the trio galaxy hues, a reminder that stars in our own galaxy are like those in the distant island universes. Predominately yellow, with sweeping spiral arms and dust lanes, NGC 5566 is enormous, about 150,000 light-years across. Just below it lies small, blue NGC 5569. Near center, the third galaxy, NGC 5560, is multicolored and apparently stretched and distorted by its interaction with NGC 5566. The galaxy trio is also included in Halton Arp’s 1966 Atlas of Peculiar Galaxies as Arp 286. Of course, such cosmic interactions are now appreciated as a common part of the evolution of galaxies.

via APOD: 2010 August 13 – Arp 286: Trio in Virgo.

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And the best part about it is that it’s totally free. They do hide some features hoping that you’ll eventually upgrade to a paid Picnik account but most of the locked features are just added fluff. Cool fluff, but fluff nonetheless and most importantly fluff that you can definitely live without. All of the basic fixes and tweaks are included in the free version.

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The BBG is one of our favorite places to go for a nice long walk with the Bean. It really is one of the most relaxing, beautiful environments you’ll find right smack in the middle of Brooklyn. If you’ve never been there you should definitely check it out, you won’t be disappointed. It’s not free but it is affordable and, if you live close enough, the family membership gets you in as much as you want all year, plus a discount from the shop and garden.

One of my favorite times of year to go there are when the Cherry trees are blooming. The BBG has the largest variety of Cherry trees outside of Japan and when you see them all in different stages of bloom it’s a wonderful experience.

If Cherry blossoms aren’t your thing then stop by in June when the rose garden gives up an enormous amount of roses of all colors and sizes. According to BBG’s website it’s “one of the largest collection of Rose rose cultivars in North America, over 5,000 bushes of nearly 1,400 varieties thrive, including wild species, old garden roses, hybrid teas, grandifloras, floribundas, polyanthas, hybrid perpetuals, climbers, ramblers, and miniatures.

Anywho, the BBG is getting ready to celebrate its 100th anniversary and they’ve been collecting photos and stories from visitors on Flickr and other places around the web. I submitted the photo I took of my daughter (above) to the BBG Stories pool of photos.

I just received a message from them saying that they’re going to use the photo 100 Years, 100 Stories gallery exhibit this summer and they’re sending us all invites to attend the opening night reception!

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So, let’s say you want to find images of Ancient Egypt. Google Images will provide you with a rich variety of results, including pyramids, maps, relics, drawings and other types of images. Instead of poring through hundreds of images, now you can simply click “Find similar images” to narrow down the results to the results to the type you want. (We’re rolling this out gradually, so the links in the below examples may not work for you yet.)

Let’s say you want to find a work of art by Michelangelo but you’re not exactly sure what the piece is called. So, you do a Google Image Search for “Michelangelo”, which returns the following results:

Which leads you to the image you actually want, The Creation Adam. Once you figure out what you’re looking for you can click on “Find similar images” and return a whole slew of results to choose from.

This is a very helpful feature and has the potential to save you a lot of time if you’re looking for just the right image for that project you’re working. Google is currently rolling this feature out so if you don’t see it now you should be getting it shortly.

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Snapture features

• Tap anywhere to take a photo.
• Can take either one photo or three photos in quick succession.
• Preview thumbnails before saving.
• Take multiple photos even while other photos are processing

My number one favorite feature of Snapture is that you can tap anywhere on the screen to take a photo. Often times the action key to take a photo with the native camera app is awkward to get to, especially if you’re trying to take a photo with one hand.

I have an 18-month-old daughter and I often miss something really cute or funny that she’s doing while I’m waiting for the camera app to reset itself so I can take another photo. Snapture can take three photos and quick succession and while those photos are processing you take more pics. I’ve had up to 15 pics in the queue to be saved, many of those photos are shots I would not have gotten on the native app.

As far as quality goes, the apps are pretty much evenly matched. Snapture seems to have a slightly warmer look than the native camera app but it’s very minor. All in all I would say, if you use your iPhone camera with any regularity, that Snapture is definitely worth the $1.99 it’s going for in the App Store.

Snapture. vs. iPhone Photos

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Back in July I got word from the guys over at Posterous that they were hard at work on an iPhone app that would make posting video from your iPhone 3G S wonderfully simple. They did not disappoint. PicPosterous is by far the best media app I’ve used to publish photos and videos from my iPhone.

Your iPhone instant camera
Live-post anytime, anywhere

Make photo albums as you go
Auto-resized into an easy-to-browse gallery

Full-length video capture
Supports iPhone 3G S video, playable on web and iPhone

No signup/setup required
Start posting right away

Autopost everywhere
Twitter, Facebook, Flickr, YouTube and more

Posterous Themes

After much anticipation Posterous has finally added the ability to add themes to your Posterous site. Initially there are four new themes to choose from but I’m sure there will be more to follow. What’s even more exciting than the four new theme options is that they have also opened up the the HTML/CSS code to allow you to create your own Posterous theme from scratch. This will no doubt create an instant demand for quality custom Posterous themes for people to beef up their sites. This also allows people, for the first time to actually brand their Posterous site with their own company brand. This should be huge in the growth of Posterous.

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