Image of the Week

Alien Life?

A nighttime view over Badwater, Death Valley, Calif., USA, the lowest point (86 m below sea level) in North America. The “aliens” are actually made from combined exposures of LED lights waved in a more-or-less vertical direction. The base picture is a 15 second exposure with the core of the Milky Way galaxy in view.

—Michael Duncan, OSA

09 Jul 2018

Rain droplets

Rain droplets suspended in a spider web. The “shadow” spots are created by internal reflection that removes light from the transmitted path.

—Samuel Pellicori, OSA Senior Member

02 Jul 2018

Wild light prisms at Light City Baltimore

Spinning prisms reflecting multicolored light form a giant interactive kaleidoscope at Light City Baltimore, Md., USA. Visitors can walk among the light prisms and turn them to make the colors dance.

—Donny Yau, OSA

25 Jun 2018

Japanese Raindrop Cake

A lens-like Japanese raindrop cake made from water and agar contains a single cherry blossom. Image taken with an iPhone SE at Aï Restaurant, Vienna, Austria.

—Sarah Michaud, freelance science writer, Vienna, Austria

18 Jun 2018

Fun with bubbles

Interference phenomenon and fun time with bubbles in Königsallee, Düsseldorf.

—Özgür Önder Karakilinç, Pamukkale University

11 Jun 2018

$Diffraction Grating$

Diffraction Grating

Light reflected by a smartphone screen serving as a diffraction grating. Image taken using a Sony HX-90 compact camera.

—Nils F. Hasselmann, Institute of Applied Physics, Nonlinear Photonics, Muenster University

04 Jun 2018

Fluorescence emission

Reflection of fluorescence emission off of saltwater surface captured using a digital camera. Experimental setup to measure the effect of e/m radiation on coralline algae gathered from the Northern California coast including the effects of intensity, wavelength bands, and 24 hour cycle on-off ratios.

—Rad Sommer, II-VI Inc

28 May 2018

Plasma windtunnel

This is a close-up view of a shooting star produced in a plasma windtunnel. These facilities are used to simulate the extreme conditions during the entry of spacecraft into the atmosphere. In this case the test object placed in the hot plasma flow was a piece of a meteorite that melted and evaporated within seconds - exactly like the falling stars in the sky.

—Martin Eberhart, High Enthalpy Flow Diagnostics Group, Institute of Space Systems, Stuttgart, Germany

21 May 2018

City Lights

City lights of Baltimore strobe light movement.

—Donny Yau, OSA

14 May 2018

Kaleidoscopio

160,000 LEDs guide people through the beauty of optics. This is a capture of “Kaleidoscopio,” a lighting show formed by a huge matrix of LEDs distributed all along a street, where light follows the rhythm of music, creating geometric patterns of several shapes and colors. This attraction took place at Cuba Street in the city of Valencia, Spain, as part of the 2018 Las Fallas Festival.

—Nathalia B. Tomazio, University of São Paulo

07 May 2018

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