TITLE: It's all about atmosphere...
NAME: Joanne Simpson
COUNTRY: Australia
EMAIL: corvus@onewhiteraven.com
WEBPAGE: http://www.onewhiteraven.com
TOPIC: Great Inventions
COPYRIGHT: I SUBMIT TO THE STANDARD RAYTRACING COMPETITION COPYRIGHT.
RENDERER USED: Megapov 1.0
TOOLS USED: megapov, MS-Excel
RENDER TIME: 9d 3h 46m 27s
HARDWARE USED: Athlon 2.0, nvidia Geforce
IMAGE DESCRIPTION:
Three early inventions for measuring atmosphere, in a very atmospheric location.
Temperature - 1596
Galileo Galilei is often claimed to be the inventor of the thermometer, however his instrument is strictly a thermoscope as it merely indicated temperature differences. 
Air Pressure - 1641
Torricelli's invention, the barometer, was also known as the "Torricelli's tube". It was Galileo that suggested Torricelli use mercury in his vacuum experiments, as a less-dense liquid such as water would require a tupe several hundreds of feet high! He did, filling a 4 ft long glass tube with mercury and inverting the tube into a dish. Torricelli discovered that the variation of the height of the mercury from day to day was caused by changes in the atmospheric pressure.
Wind Speed - 1839
Thomas Romney Robinson was a well-known astronomer and meteorologist. One of his most enduring legacies is the Robinson Cup-Anemometer, a device for measuring wind speed. Robinson was motivated by the desire to monitor wind speed and its variability with precision, following the destructive Great Wind of 6 January 1839. The first anemometer of this type was built at Armagh Observatory.
DESCRIPTION OF HOW THIS IMAGE WAS CREATED:
Some new techniques for me - 
most shapes are modelled as spheres-of-revolution, or as CSG spheres and cylinders. The chart function in Excel proved a very useful tool for modelling and testing sor shapes.
Lighting is 4 spotlights in slightly different colours and positions.
Ground is an isosurface based on a random noise function.
The glowing clouds are a variable-density media statement.

Note: complicated media + radiosity + isosurfaces + transparent objects means a VERY slow render!