FOTD -- June 16, 2008 (Rating 5) Fractal visionaries and enthusiasts: Yesterday's fractal showed a little-known scene in the Oblate view of Seahorse Valley. Today's fractal does the same with the next valley out the negative X-axis of the Mandelbrot set, the valley at -1.25, also known as Scepter Valley. I named the image "Royal Scepters" because it is filled with the scepter-like elements that give the valley its name. When the time came to rate the image, I could grant it a rating no higher than a humdrum 5. Just as was the case with yesterday's image, I suspect I have already posted at least one FOTD image nearly identical to today's. In addition to the less-than-outstanding rating of today's image, its calculation time is a snail's pace near-19 minutes. No wonder I recommend viewing the finished image on the FOTD web site at: <http://home.att.net/~Paul.N.Lee/FotD/FotD.html> And BTW, the 'Oblate' sets are the set of planes determined by the real(Z) and imag(C) axes of the Julibrot. They are kind of hybrids, half Mandelbrot, half Julia, though in today's image at least, the Julia characteristics appear to dominate. Near perfect weather prevailed here at Fractal Central on Sunday, with blue skies, puffy white clouds, and a temperature of 86F 30C. The fractal cats must have taken the good weather for granted, as they slept through most of the afternoon. I tried to enjoy things as much as possible, though yard work always seems to prevent a day from being as pleasant as it otherwise could be. The next fractal will be posted in 24 hours, more or less. Until then, take care, and they say that God knows everything. Why then, does He bother to create souls that He already knows are destined to be lost? Another question: what could a person do to save himself if he discovers that God knows he is destined to be lost? (Or is this just another version of the grandfather paradox?) Jim Muth jamth@mindspring.com jimmuth@aol.com START PARAMETER FILE======================================= Royal_Scepters { ; time=0:18:51.52-SF5 on P4-2000 reset=2004 type=formula formulafile=slices.frm formulaname=Oblate passes=1 center-mag=-1.70684/0/\ 48.56702/2.774 params=0/0/-1.25/0 float=y maxiter=1750000 inside=255 outside=tdis logmap=4 symmetry=xaxis periodicity=10 colors=000BEf8Ff5Gf3GfEOiPVl_aojhrd`m_UiUNePF`J8XE\ 1TK7OQDKWJGi6Kn2NpBSrJWtR_vZcxfgynkvomtpnrqopqpnrq\ lsrjtshttfupevmdwjqxlqylqzkpzkpzkpzkozkozjozjnzjnz\ jnzjozkpzlqzltzmuzlvzlwzmxznyznzzozzpzzWzzWzzXzzXz\ zXzzYzzYzzYzzZzzZzzZzz_zz_zz_zz`zz`zz`zzazzazzbWRt\ WPsXNsXLrYJrYHqYFq_GnaHkcIheJfgKciL`kLZiM`hMagMbfM\ ceMddNfcNgbNhaNi`Nj_Nk`PiaRgbTfcVddWbeYae__faYgcXh\ dVifUjhSjjQklPlmNmoLnqKosIotHmrGlqGjoGinGglGfkFeiF\ chFbfF`eF_dFZbEXaEW_EUZETXESWDQUDPTDNRDMQDLPDPNFTM\ HWLJ_KLcJNfIOjHQnGSqFUuEWxDXoKUfQSYXQQbOHiM8oK0uI1\ vG1wE1wC2xA2x82y62y52q62j72b82W92OA2HB2AC6CFADHEEJ\ IFLMGNQHPUIRYJTaKVeLXhMZeLabKc`JeYIgWHiTGkQFmOEoLD\ qJCsGBuEBwDDsCFpBHlAJi9Le9Nb8PZ7RW6TS5VP4XL4ZI5`K5\ aL6cN6dO6eQ7gR7hS7iU8kV8lX9nY9o_9p`AraAscAtdBvfBwg\ BxhAvaAtVArO9pH9nA9l4Cm8EmBHnFJnIMnLOoPRoSTpWWpZYp\ a`qebqhdqkbjl`dl_YlYSlWMl } frm:Oblate {; Jim Muth real(z),imag(c) z=real(pixel)+p1, c=flip(imag(pixel))+p2: z=sqr(z)+c, |z| <= 16 } END PARAMETER FILE=========================================