Weekend Timelapse

The weekend started on friday for me, mainly because universities don’t tend to run laboratories or tutorials during the first week. So come friday I decided to take advantage of the weather and go for a ride (30 km return) and take a timelapse of part of the Gold Coast.

485 photos later and here is what I got.

So this was my second try at doing a daytime timelapse and I’ve realised a couple of things.

1) I really could use a better tripod

From my first and second try at timelapses one persisting issue is camera shake. I plan to replace my current $30 tripod with something more substancial early next year, however in the meantime I’ll look into a few more creative fixes.

2) This sort of scene would really suit HDR processing

From looking through the final video a couple of times I feel that there just isn’t a particularly high dynamic range so next time with (hopefully) stable tripod I’ll have to give it a go.

For those interested in the technical aspects, I’m shooting with a Canon 60D, 18-135mm lens (18mm for this particular shot), f8 with a shutter speed of 1/2000 at 5 second intervals using Magic Lantern as a intervalometer.

I hope to post more photo/video trips as they happen in the future feel free to leave a reply with any questions you may have.

EURion Constellation

One of the things I enjoy doing in my spare time is hitting the road (or backyard) and doing some astrophotography, and while shooting pictures or star constellations like orion and our southern cross may be fun I won’t be taking pictures of the EURion Constellation anytime soon. That’s because the EURion constellation actually isn’t a star constellation but rather a counterfeiting countermeasure used on bank notes and coins.

There are various techniques used to stop counterfeit money been made, magnetic and uv reactive inks, Guilloché patterns, holograms etc.. however unlike these which were publicly announced the EURion constellation was kept secret from the general public.

The EURion Constellation

The EURion constellation was coined my Markus Kuhn in 2002 when he realised through experimentation that that a colour photocopier wouldn’t copy banknotes with a certain pattern of circles on them. Markus descriped the constellation as:

“five 1 mm large circles that appears on many more recent banknotes, usually in yellow, but often also in green or orange.”

This pattern spotted by Markus was later coined as the EURion constellation. The constellation’s name is mixture of Euro’s ISO 4217 designation (EUR) and the Orion constellation (which happens to have a similar constellation pattern to that of the EURion constellation).

Software/Hardware is used to scan for this particular geometric pattern and stop the replication of it, this is implemented into several several programs (Microsoft Word, Adobe Photoshop) as well as a multitude of printers and photocopiers. Due to this any banknote with the EURion constellation should be prevented from being copied.

The constellation can be found on a large range of noted of various currencies for example the Euro, some United States notes, Japanese Yen and Canadian Dollar.

EURion Constellation on United States $20 Note.

As for Australian banknotes, only one note (the Commemorative $5) utilises the EURion constellation.

Australian Commemorative $5 Note (2001)

If you have any further comments or question feel free to leave a reply.

For more information visit:

• EURion Constellation (Wikipedia)
• Recognizing Banknote Patterns for Protecting Economic Transactions (IEEE Xplore)

Welcome

Hey there and welcome to 19 Hertz,

I’m David I’m currently studying Electrical & Electronic Engineering at Griffith University on the (normally) sunny Gold Coast, Australia. Ever Since I can remember I’ve always had an intrest with electronics, computers and generally tinkering with things and here I plan on sharing things I’ve been working on (i.e. project both from university and personal). However I also have various other hobbies/interests ranging from cooking, to gaming, photography, theology and so on so you can also expect to see some of that here as well 🙂