This weeks Light Keepers Award winning Picture Beautiful Split Rock Lighthouse by m01229 You are a Lighthouse Trek Light Keepers Award Winner! *********************************************************************************************** *********************************************************************************************** Lighthouses are such a fascination to me. I love visiting lighthouses because they preserve a part of our world’s history. However, I cannot ignore the fact that the beauty and romance of the lighthouse is mask by the danger of the deadly shores they guard. The lighthouses are saviors of lives; not just beacons for people to look at but also, those beacons were beams of safety. As a result of the lighthouses there have been thousands upon thousands of lives saved because of the lighthouse. In the Lighthouse Trek Group, by viewing your posted pictures of historical lighthouses we can go back in time; as far back as our imagination can take us to recapture the beginning of the lighthouses. As the exploration of our world expanded in its infancy, which resulted in colonies springing up around the globe, the lighthouse became a beacon of hope for safe travel along our ocean's coast as well as a navigational guide for the sailors on the vast Seas that lap the shores of the globe. Now as technology can thrust humanity across the globe in a fraction of the time it once took and with the introduction of GPS, lighthouses are fading into this worlds history. Lighthouses are a very important part of history because if we divide our entire world into four parts; three out of the four parts is water dividing the continents from other continents of the world and the lighthouses played a very important role in the safety of those navigating these vast bodies of water. Most of the lighthouses today have been automated; eliminating the need for a full-time lighthouse keeper. If left ignored the lighthouses could easily be replaced by a revolving light on the top of a pole. I can understand the automation of the lighthouses, which save money, but I hate to see these beautiful historical structures being destroyed to make way for a light on the top of a pole. The Lighthouse Trek Group is set up to capture on photo and share with others who love lighthouses this part of our world’s history, and in so doing showing by photography the importance of preserving this part of history in hopes that some person or organization will step up to help restore the ignored and dilapidated lighthouses. Hi my name is Mark, from California USA a member of the United States Lighthouse Society. I am the founder of the Lighthouse Trek Group, with me is my wonderful twin sister Sharon also from California USA who is the other Lighthouse Keeper in our group and with us is a very good flickr friend of ours Gary from England an assistant Lighthouse Keeper for our group and we would like to welcome you to the Lighthouse Trek Group. Please feel free to add your lighthouse pictures as we are all on our Lighthouse Trek. However, for each picture that you post, please comment on at lease two photos using our html snippet that you saw the photo in Lighthouse Trek as shown below between the dashes: ----------------------------------------------- I saw your photo in Lighthouse Trek <a href="http://www.flickr.com/groups/571970@N23"><img src="http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2129/2150180141_b54f84b070_o.jpg" width="50" height="50" alt="Lighthouse Trek Group"></a;> ------------------------------------------------ Thank you so much! ... Enjoy and please remember that this is a public group so refrain from posting anything that would be considered pornographic. Take a look at our website: www.lighthousetrek.com *********************************************************************************************** *********************************************************************************************** -------- Help us in spreading the word about Lighthouse Trek -------- To indicate that you saw a photo in our Lighthouse Trek group pool you may copy and paste the code shown below with your comments in our pool: I saw your photo in Lighthouse Trek <a href="http://www.flickr.com/groups/571970@N23"><img src="http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2129/2150180141_b54f84b070_o.jpg" width="50" height="50" alt="Lighthouse Trek Group"></a;> - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - I saw your photo in Lighthouse Trek looks like this: I saw your photo in Lighthouse Trek - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - <b>This picture really shines!</b> I saw your Photo in Lighthouse Trek <a href="http://www.flickr.com/groups/571970@N23"><img src="http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3021/3109395868_974c394a5d_o.gif" width="50" height="51" alt="AnimatelighthouseTrek" ></a;> It looks like this: This picture really shines! I saw your Photo in Lighthouse Trek *********************************************************************************************** *********************************************************************************************** --If you see a photo and would like to invite them to post it in our group-- You may copy and paste our Invite to add a photo Code shown below: This is a very nice photo of a lighthouse and I would like to invite you to please post this photo in Lighthouse Trek <a href="http://www.flickr.com/groups/571970@N23"><img src="http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2129/2150180141_b54f84b070_o.jpg" width="50" height="50" alt="Link to Lighthouse Trek"></a;> - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - The Invite code looks like this: This is a very nice photo of a lighthouse and I would like to invite you to please post this photo in Lighthouse Trek - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - <b>This picture really shines!</b> You are invited to post your photo in Lighthouse Trek <a href="http://www.flickr.com/groups/571970@N23"><img src="http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3021/3109395868_974c394a5d_o.gif" width="50" height="51" alt="AnimatelighthouseTrek" ></a;> It looks like this: This picture really shines! You are invited to post your photo in Lighthouse Trek *********************************************************************************************** *********************************************************************************************** A brief history of the Fresnel lens in historic lightouses. Augustin Jean Fresnel (1788 - 1827) Fresnel (pronounced: Fur-nel) An accomplished engineer and scientist, Fresnel changed our understanding of how light behaves and can be manipulated and intensified. His revolutionary system of lens optics replaced the system of multiple parabolic reflector and lamp assemblies with a single lamp inside of a single lens. Fresnel lenses are used today in traffic signals, infrared motion detectors, theatre projection systems, photographic equipment, industrial optics, environmental monitoring equipment, astronomical equipment and automobile lights. The basic idea behind a Fresnel lens is simple. Imagine taking a plastic magnifying glass lens and slicing it into a hundred concentric rings (like the rings of a tree). Each ring is slightly thinner than the next and focuses the light toward the center. Now take each ring, modify it so that it's flat on one side, and make it the same thickness as the others. To retain the rings' ability to focus the light toward the center, the angle of each ring's angled face will be different. Now if you stack all the rings back together, you have a Fresnel lens. You can make the lens extremely large if you like. Below is a cut out section of a Fresnel Lens to give you an example. To bend and focus the rays to form a single, concentrated beam of high intensity light, the catadioptric prisms refract and reflect; the dioptric prisms and center bull's eye lens refract. With just a 1000 watt bulb, a first-order Fresnel lens can generate a 680,000 candlepower beam visible up to 21 miles out to sea if set high enough. The sizes of the Fresnel Lneses used in Lighthouses are catagorized by the order of the lens, the largest of which is a "First Order lens". When you are looking at lighthouses they will often tell you what order lens is in that spisific Lighthouse such as it has a First Order Lens, or a Third Order Lens etc. below is a chart to give a rough idea of how big the lens is according to the order of the lighthouse lens. *********************************************************************************************** ***********************************************************************************************