FOTD -- December 22, 2007 (Rating 8.5) Fractal visionaries and enthusiasts: Today and tomorrow we take a brief break from scenes in the December parent fractal to dive quite deep into the Mandelbrot set for a view of one of the most unusual scenes I have yet discovered there. The location is on the northeast shore line of the large period-2 bud of the M-set, at a location near the border of Seahorse Valley where the Seahorse Valley character- istics are just starting to take shape. By the way, don't exert to much effort diving down to see the minibrot at the center. It's a long slow trip, and I am almost there myself. Tomorrow's FOTD will be a picture of that tiny atom. I named today's image "Halfway to Nowhere" because the scene lies about halfway to the unseen minibrot at the center. But even though we are only halfway to the goal in today's image, the magnitude of over 8.4(10^47) is not to be sneezed at, or coughed at either. The rating of 8-1/2 has nothing to do with an old Fellini movie. It indicates that, in my opinion, not only is the image much above average, but my coloring is worth another half point as well. The down-side is the calculation time, which, due to the extreme magnitude, is a dragged-out 22 minutes on the fast machine and over 1-1/2 hours on the slow one. Slow images like this make a fractalist appreciate the FOTD web site at: <http://home.att.net/~Paul.N.Lee/FotD/FotD.html> where the image will soon be posted for viewing without the hassle of calculation. And to speed things up I have sent the finished image on ahead to Paul to save him the time it would take to run the parameter file. Of course, those who enjoy long calculations may always run the parameter file themselves. It works quite well. Friday here at Fractal central started cloudy, turned sunny by 11am, clouded up at 2pm and cleared at 5pm, while the tempera- ture reached 43F 6C. Since this was the shortest day of the year, I think we did pretty good. The fractal cats must have agreed, for they passed the day watching squirrels. My day was on the busy side, but still well under control. The next FOTD fractal, a close-up of the invisible minibrot at the center of today's image, will be posted in 24 hours. Until then, take care, and how deep can you go? Check back tomorrow for a demonstration Jim Muth jamth@mindspring.com jimmuth@aol.com START PARAMETER FILE======================================= Halfway_to_Nowhere { ; time=0:21:55.90-SF5 on P4-2000 reset=2004 type=mandel center-mag=-0.8258157763682\ 966444950897706351233690977306308393979/0.18537815\ 04214587544962617849785230328757282048984375/\ 8.4e+047/1/-158.75/1.31e-014 params=0/0 float=y maxiter=10000 bailout=100 inside=0 periodicity=10 colors=000Z9Vt9XpKVlVUheSeoRclUajX`h_ZfbYdeWagV_jT\ YmSWpQUsOTzPSuQSpRSkSSfTSaUSXVRTWROXRJYREZR9_R4_R0\ WO5SL9OIEKFI96BGCMNHWTMeWNbZO``PZcQWeRUhSSlROjSQhS\ RfTSeTTcTUaUV`UWZUXXVYVVZUW_SW`QWaPXbNXcLXdJYeIYfG\ ZgEZhDZiB_j9_k9Zo8_l8_i7_g7_d7_b6__6_Y6`V5`S5`Q5`N\ 4`L4`I2_H4`G6aF7aF9bEAbECcDEdDFdCHeCIeBKfBLfANgAPh\ 9Qh9Si8Ti8Vj7Wj7WhAWgCWfEWeGWdIWbKWaMW`OW_RWZTWYVW\ WXWVZWU`WSbWRdWPfZLjWLgULdRLbPL_NLYKLVILTGLQDLNBLL\ 9LI6LG4LD2LB6PAAT9EX8I`7Md6Qh5Ul4Yp3at2ew2fx4gx5hx\ 7ix8jx9kxBkxClyDmyFnyGoyIpyKqyMqyOowQmuSksUiqWgoYe\ m_ckaaib_hgYieWidUicSibQiaPi`Si_WiZZiYbiXeiWiiVliU\ piTsiSqcToYUnSVlMWjGXiAYg9Uf9Re9Od9Lb9Ha9E`9B_98Z9\ 5`B7bD9dEAfGChHEjJFlKHnMJpNKrPMsQNqROpROoROmROlROk\ RPjRPhRPgRPfRPeRQcRQbRQaRQ`RQbTRcUSdWTeXTfYUg_Vh`V\ ibWjcXkdXlfYmgZnhZmhXmhVlhTceI`aJYYKVULSQMPMNMIOJE\ PGAQiLagNbeQcr`kcSdQJZCAT } END PARAMETER FILE=========================================