Flying towards Seattle from the North, Seattle appeared very small against the majestic Mt. Rainier. With the fog haze it was a perfectly scene.

Nikon D800E, Nikon AF-S Nikkor 28-300mm f/3.5-5.6G ED VR.

Photo Settings: 250mm, f/13, 1/640 second, ISO 500.

A wonderful evening on the beach. Cannon Beach in Oregon to be particular.

Adobe Lightroom 5, Adobe Photoshop CC.

Canon EOS 6D, Canon EF 17-40mm f/4.0L USM.

Photo Settings: 17mm, f/6, 1/4 second, ISO 800.

An evening moored near The Indians in the British Virgin Islands. Pelican Island can be seen in the distance.

Adobe Lightroom 5, Adobe Photoshop CC.

Canon EOS 5D Mark III, Canon EF 17-40mm f/4.0L USM.

Map: 18.3324, -64.6296

World Heritage listed columnar basalt in Northern Ireland. According to legend it was created by the giant Finn MacCool so he could cross the sea to Scotland to fight another giant there.

Adobe Lightroom.

Nikon D610, Nikon AF-S NIKKOR 14-24mm f/2.8G ED.

Planetary nebulae like the Helix are sculpted late in a Sun-like star's life by a torrential gush of gases escaping from the dying star. They have nothing to do with planet formation, but got their name because they look like planetary disks when viewed through a small telescope. With higher magnification, the classic "donut-hole" in the middle of a planetary nebula can be resolved. Based on the nebula's distance of 650 light-years, its angular size corresponds to a huge ring with a diameter of nearly 3 light-years. That's approximately three-quarters of the distance between our Sun and the nearest star.

The Helix Nebula is a popular target of amateur astronomers and can be seen with binoculars as a ghostly, greenish cloud in the constellation Aquarius. Larger amateur telescopes can resolve the ring-shaped nebula, but only the largest ground-based telescopes can resolve the radial streaks. After careful analysis, astronomers concluded the nebula really isn't a bubble, but is a cylinder that happens to be pointed toward Earth.

Credit: NASA, NOAO, ESA, the Hubble Helix Nebula Team, M. Meixner (STScI), and T.A. Rector (NRAO).

An HDR panorama of Edinburgh, Scotland from Calton Hill on a beautiful summer evening. HDR tone-mapping done in Photomatix, edited in Adobe Photoshop CS5 to remove lens flare.

Nikon D5000, AF-S DX Zoom-NIKKOR 18-55mm f/3.5-5.6G ED II lens, Manfrotto tripod.

55.9547943, -3.184262

The rumor on Maui is that the highway that goes around the south is a tough drive. Its slow, but totally doable and has some of the best scenery on the island.

Adobe Lightroom 5.

Canon EOS 6D, Canon EF 24-105mm f/4L IS USM.

ESO/J. Emerson/VISTA.
Acknowledgment: Cambridge Astronomical Survey Unit

This wide-field view of the Orion Nebula (Messier 42), lying about 1350 light-years from Earth, was taken with the VISTA infrared survey telescope at ESO's Paranal Observatory in Chile. The new telescope's huge field of view allows the whole nebula and its surroundings to be imaged in a single picture and its infrared vision also means that it can peer deep into the normally hidden dusty regions and reveal the curious antics of the very active young stars buried there. This image was created from images taken through Z, J and Ks filters in the near-infrared part of the spectrum. The exposure times were ten minutes per filter. The image covers a region of sky about one degree by 1.5 degrees.

Full press release: http://www.eso.org/public/news/eso1006/

Original image: http://www.eso.org/public/images/eso1006a/

It is a huge valley at 1000 meters off the ground.

Adobe Lightroom 5.3.

A windy day in late autumn at the Baltic Sea.

Taken while hiking through a nature reserve on an abandoned beach.

ND3 filter and tripod. Adobe Photoshop.

Nikon D7000, Nikon AF-S DX NIKKOR 18-200mm f/3.5-5.6G ED VR II.