The garmin forerunner 305 is a perfect companion to do your lonely running exercises: It has a very accurate GPS and compared to the older 301 model it is a lot smaller, just a bit more fat than an average full-featured digital watch.

I used it to do one of my favourite training run of exactly 5.4km (which I now know thanks to the 305). It can also measure my heartbeat by wirelessly connecting to a belt around your chest.

The windows software package can project your course and that's where the -until now- one minus point is: it projects some highways but as you can see in the picture, the highway is a bit too much to the right as I did not go under the Dutch A2 but just walked in parallel with it. 

One of the nicest things in here (and as I only used it once I did not yet test it) is that you can run against yourself: you can give up your previous run and it will project on the watch where you ran the last time.

So who says that running is no fun?

Ok, this is the final moon I'm going to show you for now. Also made on the same day, but with -again- different settings. I think it's a bit less than the one before. Of couse, you can also see the low-res version of it on this website.

EXIF information for this one:

 (dir has 9 entries)
    Make = "Canon"
    Model = "Canon EOS 350D DIGITAL"
    Orientation = 1
    XResolution = 72/1
    YResolution = 72/1
    ResolutionUnit = 2
    YCbCrPositioning = 2
    ExifOffset = 196
    Exif Dir:(dir has 28 entries)
        ExposureTime = 1/125
        FNumber = 0/1
        ExposureProgram = 4
        ISOSpeedRatings = 400
        ExifVersion = "0221"
        ComponentsConfiguration = "?"
        ShutterSpeedValue = 456510/65536
        ApertureValue = -2147483648/1
        ExposureBiasValue = 0/2
        MeteringMode = 6
        Flash = 16
        FocalLength = 0/1
        FlashPixVersion = "0100"
        ColorSpace = 1
        ExifImageWidth = 3456
        ExifImageLength = 2304
        InteroperabilityOffset = 9230
        Interop Dir:(dir has 2 entries)
            InteropIndex = "R98"
            InteropVersion = "0100"
        FocalPlaneXResolution = 3456000/874
        FocalPlaneYResolution = 2304000/582
        FocalPlaneResolutionUnit = 2
        CustomRendered = 0
        ExposureMode = 0
        WhiteBalance = 0
        SceneCaptureType = 0
    Continued directory (dir has 6 entries)
        Compression = 6
        XResolution = 72/1
        YResolution = 72/1
        ResolutionUnit = 2
JPEG image is 3456w * 2304h, 3 color components, 8 bits per sample
File name    : IMG_2014.JPG
File size    : 1916189 bytes
Camera make  : Canon
Camera model : Canon EOS 350D DIGITAL
Resolution   : 3456 x 2304
Flash used   : No
CCD width    : 22.20mm
Exposure time: 0.0080 s  (1/125)
ISO equiv.   : 400
Whitebalance : Auto
Exposure     : shutter priority (semi-auto)

Ok, another moon picture (made on the same day) but with slightly different settings.

It could very well that this picture has been made with the oculair (20mm I thinl) in front of the camera (the previous one probably had the camera directly onto the telescope without enlargement oculair) 

 Exif header 13052 bytes long
Exif section in Intel order
(dir has 9 entries)
    Make = "Canon"
    Model = "Canon EOS 350D DIGITAL"
    Orientation = 1
    XResolution = 72/1
    YResolution = 72/1
    ResolutionUnit = 2
    YCbCrPositioning = 2
    ExifOffset = 196
    Exif Dir:(dir has 28 entries)
        ExposureTime = 1/60
        FNumber = 0/1
        ExposureProgram = 4
        ISOSpeedRatings = 800
        ExifVersion = "0221"
        ComponentsConfiguration = "?"
        ShutterSpeedValue = 387114/65536
        ApertureValue = -2147483648/1
        ExposureBiasValue = 0/2
        MeteringMode = 6
        Flash = 16
        FocalLength = 0/1
 
        FlashPixVersion = "0100"
        ColorSpace = 1
        ExifImageWidth = 3456
        ExifImageLength = 2304
        InteroperabilityOffset = 9230
        Interop Dir:(dir has 2 entries)
            InteropIndex = "R98"
            InteropVersion = "0100"
        FocalPlaneXResolution = 3456000/874
        FocalPlaneYResolution = 2304000/582
        FocalPlaneResolutionUnit = 2
        CustomRendered = 0
        ExposureMode = 0
        WhiteBalance = 0
        SceneCaptureType = 0
    Continued directory (dir has 6 entries)
        Compression = 6
        XResolution = 72/1
        YResolution = 72/1
        ResolutionUnit = 2
JPEG image is 3456w * 2304h, 3 color components, 8 bits per sample
File size    : 2301386 bytes
File date    : 2007:03:28 22:24:50
Resolution   : 3456 x 2304
Flash used   : No
CCD width    : 22.20mm
Exposure time: 0.017 s  (1/60)
ISO equiv.   : 800
Whitebalance : Auto
Exposure     : shutter priority (semi-auto)

Finding the right settings for your camera can be quite hard. Luckily we have the well-known EXIF information. Unfortunately -to my complete surprise- I could not view this with gimp or any other quite standard tool in my Gnome environment. So I found a small article on using the tool jhead at http://www.linux-magazine.com/issue/36/EXIF.pdf

This moon has been made with the following settings (I removed some of the verbose or obvious fields). More pictures will follow...

%  jhead -v <filename>

    Make = "Canon"    Model = "Canon EOS 350D DIGITAL"    Orientation = 1    XResolution = 72/1
    YResolution = 72/1
    ResolutionUnit = 2
    YCbCrPositioning = 2
    ExifOffset = 196
    Exif Dir:(dir has 28 entries)
        ExposureTime = 1/200
        FNumber = 0/1
        ExposureProgram = 4
        ISOSpeedRatings = 400
        ExifVersion = "0221"
        ComponentsConfiguration = "?"
        ShutterSpeedValue = 500948/65536
        ApertureValue = -2147483648/1
        ExposureBiasValue = 0/2
        MeteringMode = 5
        Flash = 16
        FocalLength = 0/1

        ColorSpace = 1
        ExifImageWidth = 3456
        ExifImageLength = 2304
        InteroperabilityOffset = 9230
        Interop Dir:(dir has 2 entries)
            InteropIndex = "R98"
            InteropVersion = "0100"
        FocalPlaneXResolution = 3456000/874
        FocalPlaneYResolution = 2304000/582
        FocalPlaneResolutionUnit = 2
        CustomRendered = 0
        ExposureMode = 0
        WhiteBalance = 1
        SceneCaptureType = 0
    Continued directory (dir has 6 entries)
        Compression = 6
        XResolution = 72/1
        YResolution = 72/1
        ResolutionUnit = 2
        ThumbnailOffset = 9716
        ThumbnailLength = 2583
Resolution   : 3456 x 2304
Flash used   : No
CCD width    : 22.20mm
Exposure time: 0.0050 s  (1/200)
ISO equiv.   : 400
Whitebalance : Manual
Light Source : Daylight
Metering Mode: matrix
Exposure     : shutter priority (semi-auto)