after work I walked over to union square for a look.

[duccio]

I saw lots of people around shopping and enjoying themselves.

Big Alma held her own with the Big Tree.

People were awed by the tree and photographers abounded.

There were plenty of lights for pictures

Comments

[a_muse_d]

fireworks

[duccio]

Giant palm tree sparklers.

[shinsetsu]

Wow! How pretty. I wonder how many lights on that tree. Is it a cut tree? I like that pic with the tree between the palms. Wouldn't that be make a cool electrified painting + lights thingie like they sell in specialty stores? Do you know what I mean? I don't know what they are called. Some people might think they are tacky, but I've seen some pretty ones.

[duccio]

I was wondering how many lights were on the tree too and I just sort of guessed 10,000. Then I counted the lights along the top 1/8 inch of the bottom picture and got about 40. So I estimated from that, that there are probably about 300 lights in the bottom picture. I think you can see about 1/8 of the base of the tree, so that would make it about 2400 lights in the bottom 8 feet of the tree. Maybe the top 8 feet of the tree would have about 300 lights, If the tree is about 56 feet tall, that would be 7 levels each 8 feet tall, so the middle level (#4) would have about half of the number of lights as level 1 (top) and level 7 (bottom) combined (2,700 lights) or 1,350 lights. Level 2 plus level 6 = 2700 lights, and level 3 plus level 5 = 2700 lights. So the estimate for the whole tree is 9,450.

My rough estimate based on the sample and assumptions I made about the bottom photo was not too far off. Maybe the tree is only 40 feet tall though. That would make the number less. But maybe it is taller. I think it might be 70 feet or so because most of the people standing around it are 6 feet tall, and it looks like it might be about 12 people tall. So probably 10,000 lights is a low estimate.

The lights were the size of regular 100w light bulbs. That's a million watts! The ornaments were about the size of basketballs. A truly amazing spectacle in the face and the facts of it.