Ferndinad

Mathew Brady

Forms part of Brady-Handy Photograph Collection (Library of Congress).

HH-60H Sea Hawk helicopters

PACIFIC OCEAN (Dec. 24, 2010) HH-60H Sea Hawk helicopters assigned to Helicopter Anti-Submarine Squadron (HS) 15 pass a rainbow while delivering mail to the aircraft carrier USS Carl Vinson (CVN 70) during a vertical replenishment at sea. Carl Vinson and Carrier Air Wing (CVW) 17 are on a deployment to the U.S. 7th and U.S. 5th Fleet areas of responsibility. (U.S. Navy photo by Mass Communication Specialist 2nd Class James R. Evans/Released)

Navy Football Action

SAN DIEGO (Dec. 23, 2010) U.S. Naval Academy quarterback Ricky Dobbs (#4), tries to get past San Diego State University defenders during the 2010 Poinsettia Bowl. Navy lost to San Diego 14-35. (U.S. Navy photo by Mass Communication Specialist 3rd Class Trevor Welsh/Released)

Camp Leatherneck, Afghanistan

Commandant of the Marine Corps, James F. Amos and Sergeant Major of the Marine Corps Carlton W. Kent, address a crowd of Marines and sailors at Camp Leatherneck, Afghanistan, Dec.. 23. Amos and Kent visited to say thanks to all the troops who are supporting the International Security Assistance Force and to wish them a happy holiday.

U.S. Marine Corps 15th Marine Expeditionary Unit

GULF OF ADEN (Sept. 9, 2010) Marines assigned to the U.S. Marine Corps 15th Marine Expeditionary Unit, Maritime Raid Force, embarked aboard the U.S. Navy amphibious transport dock ship USS Dubuque (LPD 8), board the motor vessel M/V Magellan Star during a board and seizure operation. The Marines took nine suspected pirates into custody and transferred them to the guided-missile cruiser USS Princeton (CG 59). The ship's eleven crew members resumed control of Magellan Star. Pirates took control of the ship Sept. 8. Dubuque is part of the Peleliu Amphibious Ready Group, supporting maritime security operations and theater security cooperation efforts in the U.S. 5th Fleet area of responsibility. (U.S. Navy photo by Cmdr. Christopher Nodine/Released)

Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays!

World War I Posters

Space shuttle Discovery

In this image from Friday, Dec. 17, space shuttle Discovery sat on Launch Pad 39A at NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida, as its external fuel tank was filled with more than 535,000 gallons of super-cold liquid hydrogen and liquid oxygen during a tanking test. Data from the ship's 89 sensors were evaluated after the tank returned to ambient temperature. This morning, Discovery arrived at the Vehicle Assembly Building, completing the 3.4 mile trek from Launch Pad 39A, known as a rollback, that began at 10:48 p.m. EST on Tuesday, Dec. 21, 2010.

There, technicians will take x-ray scans beneath the foam insulation of all 108 support beams, called stringers, on Discovery’s external fuel tank. They’ll also remove sensors on the external tank from last Friday’s tanking test and reapply foam to those areas.

Image Credit: NASA/Frank Michaux

Aircraft markers

PACIFIC OCEAN (Dec. 19, 2010) Sailors position aircraft markers on the Ouija board during a simulated general quarters drill aboard the aircraft carrier USS Carl Vinson (CVN 70). Carl Vinson and Carrier Air Wing (CVW) 17 are on a three-week composite training unit exercise followed by a deployment to the U.S. 7th and 5th Fleet areas of responsibility. (U.S. Navy photo by Mass Communication Specialist 2nd Class Adrian T. White/Released)

F-15E Strike Eagle

Flares are released from an F-15E Strike Eagle during a local training mission Dec. 17, 2010, over North Carolina. The F-15E is from the 335th Fighter Squadron from Seymour Johnson Air Force Base, N.C. (U.S. Air Force photo/Staff Sgt. Michael B. Keller)

Moon Shadows

A total lunar eclipse is seen as the full moon is shadowed by the Earth on the arrival of the winter solstice, Tuesday, December 21, 2010 in Arlington, VA. The eclipse lasted about three hours and twenty-eight minutes.

A lunar eclipse occurs when the Earth lines up directly between the sun and the moon, blocking the sun’s rays and casting a shadow on the moon. As the moon moves deeper and deeper into the Earth's shadow, the moon changes color before your very eyes, turning from gray to an orange or deep shade of red.

Japanese woodblock prints and drawings

Hotel Excelsior

Hotel Excelsior, Regina Palace, Cimiez, Nice, France.

A-10 Thunderbolt II

A pilot with the 442nd Fighter Wing at Whiteman Air Force Base, Mo., sits on the ramp in his A-10 Thunderbolt II while crew chiefs perform a hot pit refuel for his aircraft Dec. 8, 2010. Hot pit refueling is a procedure usually performed in a combat situation to rapidly refuel aircraft while engines are running to speed pilots back into the fight. (U.S. Air Force photo/Senior Airman Kenny Holston)

USS Harry S. Truman (CVN 75)

MEDITERRANEAN SEA (Dec. 10, 2010) The aircraft carrier USS Harry S. Truman (CVN 75) is underway in the Mediterranean Sea. The Harry S. Truman Carrier Strike Group is deployed supporting maritime security operations and theater security cooperation efforts in the U.S. 5th and 6th Fleet areas of responsibility. (U.S. Navy photo by Mass Communication Specialist 2nd Class Kilho Park/Released)

USS Abraham Lincoln (CVN 72)

ARABIAN SEA (Dec. 10, 2010) The aircraft carrier USS Abraham Lincoln (CVN 72) is underway in the Arabian Sea in support of Operation Enduring Freedom. Abraham Lincoln is deployed to the U.S. 5th Fleet area of responsibility supporting maritime security operations and theater security cooperation efforts in the region. (U.S. Navy photo by Chief Mass Communication Specialist Eric S. Powell/Released)

Soyuz Heads for the Space Station

 

The Soyuz TMA-20 rocket launches from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan on Wednesday, Dec. 15, 2010 (Dec. 16 in Kazakhstan), carrying Expedition 26 Soyuz Commander Dmitry Kondratyev of Russia, NASA Flight Engineer Cady Coleman of the U.S. and European Space Agency Flight Engineer Paolo Nespoli to the International Space Station.

They're set to dock at the orbital outpost on Friday, Dec. 17.

Pacific War Memorial

Marine Corps Base Hawaii

Marines with 3rd Marine Regiment honor the regiment's fallen Marines and sailors while taking a knee at the Pacific War Memorial during a Fallen Heroes Run on Marine Corps Base Hawaii, Dec. 15, 2010. Since 2004, 116 Marines and sailors from 3rd Marine Regiment have been killed during operations in Afghanistan and Iraq. On Dec. 14 and 15, teams of at least two Marines or sailors in combat boots and camouflage trousers ran a 2-mile evolution 116 times - one for each fallen hero. The route took them from the 3rd Marine Regiment headquarters building to the Pacific War Memorial here and back.

Photo By Lance Cpl. Reece E. Lodder

HDR Texture (Public Domain)

Daguerreotype Photographs

The daguerreotype was the first publicly announced photographic process.
It was developed by Louis Daguerre together with Joseph Nicéphore Niépce. Niepce had produced the first photographic image in the camera obscura using asphaltum on a copper plate sensitised with lavender oil that required very long exposures.

The image in a Daguerreotype is formed by the amalgam, or alloy, of mercury and silver. Mercury vapor from a pool of heated mercury is used to develop the plate that consists of a copper plate with a thin coating of silver rolled in contact that has previously been sensitised to light with iodine vapour so as to form silver iodide crystals on the silver surface of the plate.

Exposure times were later reduced by using bromine to form silver bromide crystals, and by replacing the Chevalier lenses with much larger, faster lenses designed by Joseph Petzval.

Credit: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Daguerreotype

AV-8B Harrier

PHILIPPINE SEA (Dec. 8, 2010) An AV-8B Harrier jet aircraft assigned to the Tigers of Marine Attack Squadron (VMA) 542 prepare to land aboard the forward-deployed amphibious assault ship USS Essex (LHD 2). Essex is participating in exercise Keen Sword 2011 with the Japan Maritime Self-Defense Force. (U.S. Navy photo by Mass Communication Specialist 3rd Class Casey H. Kyhl/Released)

HDR Nature (Public Domain)

HDR Nature (Public Domain)

USS Harry S. Truman (CVN 75)

MEDITERRANEAN SEA (Dec. 10, 2010) The aircraft carrier USS Harry S. Truman (CVN 75) is underway in the Mediterranean Sea. The Harry S. Truman Carrier Strike Group is deployed supporting maritime security operations and theater security cooperation efforts in the U.S. 5th and 6th Fleet areas of responsibility. (U.S. Navy photo by Mass Communication Specialist 2nd Class Kilho Park/Released)

A-10 Thunderbolt II

Technicians clear the ramp as an A-10 Thunderbolt II taxies out of the hot pit after a hasty refuel Dec. 8, 2010, at Whiteman Air Force Base, Mo. Hot pit refueling is a procedure usually performed in a combat situation to rapidly refuel aircraft while their engines are running to thrust pilots back into the fight. The crews from the Air Force Reserve Command's 442nd Fighter Wing are practicing this procedure to keep their skills sharp. (U.S. Air Force photo/Senior Airman Kenny Holston)

Navy Football (Public Domain)

ANNAPOLIS, Md. (Oct. 16, 2010) U.S. Naval Academy wide receiver Brandon Turner (#86) breaks a tackle by Southern Methodist University defensive back Richard Crawford (#16) during the second quarter of a college football game at the U.S. Naval Academy in Annapolis, Md. The Midshipmen won the game 28-21. (U.S. Navy photo by Mass Communication Specialist 2nd Class Jason M. Graham/Released)

A New Era

SpaceX’s Falcon 9 rocket and Dragon spacecraft lift off from Launch Complex-40 at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station, Fla., at 10:43 a.m. EST, Wednesday, Dec. 8, 2010. In orbit, the Dragon capsule went through several maneuvers before it re-entered the atmosphere and splashed down in the Pacific Ocean about 500 miles west of the coast of Mexico. This is first demonstration flight for NASA's Commercial Orbital Transportation Services (COTS) program, which will provide cargo flights to the International Space Station in the future.

Image Credit: NASA/Tony Gray and Kevin O'Connell

Japanese Print

Japanese print shows an English naval officer on horseback.

Japanese Print

Japanese print shows a Russian military officer on horseback.

Sir Richard Arkwright

Sir Richard Arkwright, inventor of the spinning machine.

Abstract Art (Public Domain)

The Sun

Classic Painting

The Virgin Islands

The Virgin Islands, general view of the sea coast in the vicinity of Christiansted, Saint Croix.

Archers

iPad Wallpaper

Nature

Historic Entertainment Poster

iPad Wallpaper

Classic Baseball Card

Louis Evans/Miller Huggins, St. Louis Cardinals, baseball card portrait.

iPad Wallpaper

Discovery

CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. -- Engineers will use a backscatter device to examine space shuttle Discovery's external fuel tank on Launch Pad 39A at NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida. The device bounces radiation off the tank, allowing technicians to see under the tank's foam insulation. The foam cracked during initial loading operations for Discovery’s STS-133 launch attempt on Nov. 5, and technicians later identified two cracked stringers, which are the composite aluminum ribs located vertically on the tank’s intertank area. Those two stringers have been replaced and reinforced with doublers, which are shaped metal pieces twice as thick as the original stringers. Launch is no earlier than Dec. 17 at 8:51 p.m. EST. For more information on STS-133, visit www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/shuttle/shuttlemissions/sts133/. Photo credit: NASA/Frank Michaux

Clouds