Eclipse 2026 pictures

The results from the 2026 eclipse as seen from a little field near Morat in Switzerland....

Previously...

What is the difference between a regular lamp and a laser? A brief history of Optics and Lasers

April 23, 2023, 4:01 p.m. by Mario

Categories: Laser

So this post and a bunch after this one are from a talk I presented at the end December on the topic of lasers in space and astronomy. The target the audience was members from astronomy groups in the region with some knowledge of optics but not necessarily lasers and the curious people that might be interested but have a physics background from high school. I tried to make it interesting for a wid...

Crepuscular rays from Neuchâtel

April 4, 2023, 3:59 p.m. by Mario

Categories: Photography

It was a nice cold morning that day, with two layers of clouds, one at the surface of lake Neuchâtel, and another layer at approx 3000m. Just enough to touch the tip of some summits in the prealps. The sun was rising and started to cast some interesting shadows along the way. It is a phenomenon that is commonly called crepuscular rays....

Artificial intelligence and the new normal

April 4, 2023, 3:56 p.m. by Mario

Categories: General

So that is it. I have been, like many others following what is the biggest paradigm shift of the past hundred years. In my opinion, the true next big step in human history that is being taken right now, as some people might seem to realize it, but also as many others simply ignore....

My simple genetic algorithm in Python for polynomial curve fitting

Oct. 22, 2022, 3:35 p.m. by Mario

Categories: Programming

Genetic algorithms are really interesting in my opinion. Not the most efficient, but rather beautiful in the way they work. I especially like them because of the similarities that they share with life. Genetic algorithms are special kind of algorithms that work by modelling how natural selection works in the real world. I shouldn't need to explain how evolution works, but for the sake of it, here ...

Diffraction patterns in astronomical imaging

July 18, 2022, 3:05 p.m. by Mario

Categories: Optics Space

The first image from the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) was uncover a few days ago [1]. This is truely an incredible image, showing the galactic cluster SMACS 0723, which is slowly becoming the de-facto target for newly deployed space telescopes as it was imaged by Hubble, Planck and Chandra before JWST. This image in particular took the JWST 12.5 hours of exposure to be able to see these objec...

Digital photonics and laser lightning rods from AKL22

May 28, 2022, 3 p.m. by Mario

Categories: General Optics Laser

I was at AKL 22 a couple of weeks ago: the international laser technology congress at Aachen, Germany. I was present for the interesting technology conference and the live presentations at Fraunhofer ILT....

Some pictures from this winter

May 22, 2022, 12:51 p.m. by Mario